history

 Disability Trouble (456-463)

brief summary and own opinion 

THE MEANING OF DIFFERENCE
American Constructions of Race and Ethnicity, Sex and
Gender, Social Class, Sexuality, and Disability
A Text/Reader
Seventh Edition
Karen E. Rosenblum
George Mason University
Toni-Michelle C. Travis
George Mason University

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THE MEANING OF DIFFERENCE: AMERICAN CONSTRUCTIONS OF RACE AND ETHNICITY, SEX AND
GENDER, SOCIAL CLASS, SEXUALITY, AND DISABILITY, SEVENTH EDITION
Published by McGraw-Hill Education, 2 Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121. Copyright © 2016 by McGraw-Hill Education.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Previous editions © 2012, 2008, and 2006. No part of this
publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system,
without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education, including, but not limited to, in any network or other elec-
tronic storage or transmission, or broadcast for distance learning.
Some ancillaries, including electronic and print components, may not be available to customers outside the United States.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
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All credits appearing on page or at the end of the book are considered to be an extension of the copyright page.
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The meaning of difference: American constructions of race and ethnicity, sex and gender, social class, sexuality, and disability /
Karen E. Rosenblum, George Mason University, Toni-Michelle C. Travis, George Mason University.—Seventh Edition.
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Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-07-802702-4 (pbk.)—ISBN 0-07-802702-0 1. United States—Social conditions—1980- 2. Cultural
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iii
KAREN E. ROSENBLUM is a professor of sociology at George Mason
University in Fairfax, Virginia. She has served as the university’s vice
president for university life, was the founding director of its women’s studies
program, and was a Fulbright Lecturer in Japan and South Korea. Professor
Rosenblum received her PhD in sociology from the University of Colorado,
Boulder. Her areas of research and teaching include sex and gender, language,
and deviance.
TONI-MICHELLE C. TRAVIS is a professor of government and politics at
George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Travis received her PhD in
political science from the University of Chicago. Her areas of research and
teaching include race and gender dimensions of political participation,
Virginia politics, and American government. She is a former chair of the
African American Studies program and has served as the president of the
National Capital Area Political Science Association and the Women’s Caucus
of the American Political Science Association. In addition, Professor Travis
has been a fellow at the Rothermere American Institute, Oxford University.
A political analyst, she is a frequent commentator on Virginia and national
politics.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
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v
Preface xi
SECTION I— CONSTRUCTING CATEGORIES
OF DIFFERENCE
FRAMEWORK ESSAY 2
WHAT IS RACE? WHAT IS ETHNICITY?
1. “Race” and the Construction of Human Identity
Audrey Smedley 51
2. Who Is Black? One Nation’s Defi nition
F. James Davis 61
3. The Evolution of Identity
The Washington Post 70
Personal Account: A Loaded Vacation
Niah Grimes 71
4. Real Indians: Identity and the Survival of Native America
Eva Marie Garroutte 71
5. An Interlocking Panethnicity: The Negotiation of Multiple Identities among
Asian American Social Movement Leaders
Dana Y. Nakano 80
Personal Account: I Thought My Race Was Invisible
Sherri H. Pereira 89
6. Latino Racial Choices: The Effects of Skin Colour and
Discrimination on Latinos’ and Latinas’ Racial Self-Identifi cations
Tanya Golash-Boza and William Darity, Jr. 89
CONTENTS
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vi Contents
7. Whiteness as an “Unmarked” Cultural Category
Ruth Frankenberg 101
8. Plus Ça Change . . . ? Multiraciality and the Dynamics of
Race Relations in the United States
Frank D. Bean and Jennifer Lee 107
Personal Account: The Price of Nonconformity
Julia Morgenstern 114
Personal Account: Basketball
Andrea M. Busch 115
WHAT IS SEX? WHAT IS GENDER?
9. The Olympic Struggle over Sex
Alice Dreger 115
10. All Together Now: Intersex Infants and IGM
Riki Wilchins 117
11. Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society,
and Neurosexism Create Difference
Cordelia Fine 123
WHAT IS SOCIAL CLASS?
12. What’s Class Got to Do with It?
Michael Zweig 127
13. The Silver Spoon: Inheritance and the Staggered Start
Stephen J. McNamee and Robert K. Miller Jr. 131
Personal Account: I Am a Pakistani Woman
Hoorie I. Siddique 135
14. The Great Divergence: America’s Growing Inequality
Crisis and What We Can Do about It
Timothy Noah 137
WHAT IS SEXUALITY?
15. Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire
Lisa M. Diamond 142
16. The Biology of the Homosexual
Roger N. Lancaster 147
17. The Heterosexual Questionnaire
Martin Rochlin 158
WHAT IS DISABILITY?
18. Disability Defi nitions: The Politics of Meaning
Michael Oliver 159
Personal Account: Invisibly Disabled
Heather L. Shaw 163
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Contents vii
19. What Wounds Enable: The Politics of Disability and Violence
in Chicago
Laurence Ralph 163
20. Ethnicity, Ethics, and the Deaf-World
Harlan Lane 176
SECTION II— EXPERIENCING DIFFERENCE
FRAMEWORK ESSAY 194
RACE AND ETHNICITY
21 . Formulating Identity in a Globalized World
Carola Suárez-Orozco 225
Personal Account: Hair
Sarah Faragalla 236
Personal Account: The Americanization of a Reluctant Vietnamese-American
Hoai Huong Tran 239
22 . Latinos and the U.S. Race Structure
Clara E. Rodríguez 242
23 . Everybody’s Ethnic Enigma
Jelita McLeod 248
Personal Account: My Strategies
Eric Jackson 249
24 . From Friendly Foreigner to Enemy Race
John Tehranian 251
Personal Account: Master Status: Pride and Danger
Sumaya Al-Hajebi 258
SEX AND GENDER
25 . The Privilege of Teaching about Privilege
Michael A. Messner 261
26 . Proving Manhood
Timothy Beneke 267
Personal Account: Just Something You Did as a Man
Francisco Hernandez 271
27 . “I’m Not a Feminist, But . . .”: Popular Myths about Feminism
Penny A. Weiss 272
SEXUALITY
28 . Dude, You’re a Fag: Adolescent Male Homophobia
C. J. Pascoe 277
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29 . Gendered Sexuality in Young Adulthood: Double Binds and
Flawed Options
Laura Hamilton and Elizabeth A. Armstrong 287
Personal Account: Living Invisibly
Tara S. Ellison 297
30 . Sexual Orientation and Sex in Women’s Lives: Conceptual and
Methodological Issues
Esther D. Rothblum 297
SOCIAL CLASS
31 . Cause of Death: Inequality
Alejandro Reuss 303
32 . Why Are Droves of Unqualifi ed, Unprepared Kids Getting into
Our Top Colleges? Because Their Dads Are Alumni
John Larew 307
Personal Account: That Moment of Visibility
Rose B. Pascarell 312
33 . The Myth of the “Culture of Poverty”
Paul Gorski 313
DISABILITY
34 . Public Transit
John Hockenberry 317
35 . “Can You See the Rainbow?” The Roots of Denial
Sally French 325
36 . Not Blind Enough: Living in the Borderland Called Legal Blindness
Beth Omansky 331
Personal Account: A Time I Didn’t Feel Normal
Heather Callender 337
SECTION III— THE MEANING OF DIFFERENCE
FRAMEWORK ESSAY 340
RACE AND ETHNICITY
37 . Fourteen Key Supreme Court Cases and the Civil War Amendments 359
38 . Blink in Black and White
Malcolm Gladwell 390
Personal Account: Just Like My Mama Said
Anthony McNeill 395
39 . Safe Haven in America? Thirty Years after the Refugee Act of 1980
David W. Haines 395
viii Contents
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40 . Hispanics Are Forgotten in Civil Rights History
Nicholas Dauphine 398
41 . Balancing Identities: Undocumented Immigrant Asian American
Students and the Model Minority Myth
Tracy Poon Tambascia, Jonathan Wang, Breanne Tcheng,
and Viet T. Bui 399
Personal Account: Let Me Work for It!
Isabelle Nguyen 402
42 . Segregated Housing, Segregated Schools
Richard Rothstein 403
SEX AND GENDER
43 . Many Faces of Gender Inequality
Amartya Sen 405
Personal Account: He Hit Her
Tim Norton 410
44 . The Not-So-Pink Ivory Tower
Ann Mullen 411
45 . The Gender Revolution: Uneven and Stalled
Paula England 415
SEXUALITY
46 . Sex Education and the Promotion of Heteronormativity
Tanya McNeill 424
Personal Account: Learning My Own Privilege
Mireille M. Cecil 432
47 . Gaga Relations: The End of Marriage
J. Jack Halberstam 432
48 . Queers without Money: They Are Everywhere. But We Refuse
to See Them
Amber Hollibaugh 439
SOCIAL CLASS
49 . Rethinking American Poverty
Mark R. Rank 443
50 . Tearing Down the Gates: Confronting the Class Divide
in American Education
Peter Sacks 447
51 . Wealth Stripping: Why It Costs So Much to Be Poor
James H. Carr 452
Contents ix
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DISABILITY
52 . Disability Trouble
Bradley A. Areheart 456
53 . Learning Disabilities: The Social Construction of a Special
Education Category
Christine E. Sleeter 468
54 . (Re)Creating a World in Seven Days: Place, Disability, and Salvation
in Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
Emily Askew 473
SECTION IV— BRIDGING DIFFERENCES
FRAMEWORK ESSAY 482
55 . Adolescent Masculinity in an Age of Decreased Homohysteria
Eric Anderson 492
56 . What Can We Do? Becoming Part of the Solution
Allan G. Johnson 502
Personal Account: Parents’ Underestimated Love
Octavio N. Espinal 506
57 . In Defense of Rich Kids
William Upski Wimsatt 507
Personal Account: Where Are You From?
C.C. 511
58 . Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice
Paul Kivel 511
Credits C-1
Index I-1
x Contents
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xi
The Meaning of Difference is an effort to understand how difference is con-
structed in contemporary American culture: How do categories of people come to
be seen as “different”? How does being different affect people’s lives? What does
difference mean at the level of the individual, social institution, or society? What
difference does “difference” make? What is shared across the most signifi cant
categories of difference in America—race, sex/gender, sexual orientation, social
class, and disability? What can be learned from their commonalities? That The
Meaning of Difference is now in its seventh edition makes us hopeful that this
comparative approach can be useful in understanding American conceptions and
constructions of difference.
ORGANIZATION AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
The Meaning of Difference is divided into four sections. Each section includes an
opening Framework Essay and a set of readings, with the Framework Essay pro-
viding the conceptual structure by which to understand the readings. Thus, the
Framework Essays are not simply introductions to the readings; they are the “text”
portion of this text/reader.
The fi rst section’s Framework Essay and readings describe how categories of
difference are created; the second considers the experience of difference; the third
examines the meanings that are assigned to difference, focusing especially on
education, ideology, law, and public policy; and the fourth describes what people
can do to challenge and change these constructions of difference.
Each of the readings included in the volume has been selected by virtue of its
applicability to multiple categories of difference. For example, F. James Davis’s
conclusions about the construction of race (Reading 2) could be applied to a
PREFACE
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xii Preface
discussion of sexual identity or disability. How much of “x” does it take to locate
someone as gay or straight, disabled or nondisabled, Middle-Eastern or American?
Carola Suárez-Orozco’s discussion of identity formation in a globalized world
(Reading 21) can be applied toward an understanding of racial identity formation
and even to the formation of identities tied to sexuality. Similarly, Michael Oliver’s
rendering of an alternative Survey of Disabled Adults (Reading 18)—which
parallels Martin Rochlin’s classic Heterosexual Questionnaire (Reading 17)—
serves as an example of the insights that can be gained by a change of perspective.
In all, our aim has been to select readings that help identify both what is unique
and what is shared across our experiences of difference.
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES
Five features make The Meaning of Difference distinctive:
• First, it offers a conceptual framework by which to understand the common-
alities among these categories of difference. This encompassing conceptual
approach makes The Meaning of Difference unique.
• Second, no other book provides an accessible and historically grounded discus-
sion of the Supreme Court decisions critical to the structuring of these categor-
ical differences.
• Third, The Meaning of Difference has been designed with an eye toward the
pedagogic diffi culties that often accompany this subject matter. In our experi-
ence, when the topics of race, sex and gender, social class, sexual orientation,
and disability are treated simultaneously , as they are here, no one group can be
easily cast as victim or victimizer.
• Fourth, no other volume includes a detailed discussion and set of readings on
how to challenge and change the constructions of difference.
• Finally, The Meaning of Difference is the fi rst book of its kind to incorporate
disability as a master status functioning in ways analogous to the operation of
race and ethnicity, sex and gender, sexual orientation, and social class.
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE SEVENTH EDITION
This edition includes twenty-seven new readings, one new personal account,
and, in Reading 37, a discussion of two important new Supreme Court Cases:
U.S. v. Windsor (2013), which established federal recognition of the rights of
married same-sex couples and Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affi rmative
Action, Integration and Immigration Rights and Fight for Equality By Any
Means Necessary (BAMN) (2013), in which the Court upheld an amendment
to the Michigan state constitution banning affi rmative action in public employ-
ment, education, or contracting.
New to this volume are several readings that focus on education as a key site
for the construction of difference and inequality. Paul Gorski considers how the
myth of the culture of poverty affects teachers; Tracy Poon Tambascia , Jonathan
Wang, Breanne Tcheng, and Viet T. Bui refl ect on the impact of the model minority
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Preface xiii
myth on undocumented immigrant Asian American university students; Tanya
McNeill details the promotion of heterosexual monogamy in the policies of pub-
lic schools; Peter Sacks describes the processes by which, over the last thirty
years, American higher education has come to exclude poor and working-class
students; and Christine Sleeter places the emergence of the idea of learning
disability in the context of the educational reforms of the 1960s and 1970s. In
combination with John Larew’s timeless article on legacy admissions at elite
universities and coverage of several Supreme Court cases about affi rmative action
in higher education, we believe the volume now allows faculty the opportunity
for concentrated focus on education should they choose that.
Several readings new to this edition focus on the dramatic increase of economic
inequality in the United States and the still-unfolding outcomes of the Great
Recession. In “The Great Divergence,” Timothy Noah describes the nature and
extent of U.S. inequality; in “Wealth Stripping,” James Carr details the effect of
predatory “alternative” lending such as pay-day and auto-title loans; in “ Rethinking
American Poverty,” Mark Rank considers the structural factors that shape relatively
high rates of American poverty; and in “(Re)Creating a World in Seven Days,”
Emily Askew analyzes the messages about social class and disability embedded
in ABC’s hit television show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition .
In addition to the inclusion of new readings, we have, as always, concentrated
on updating the Framework Essays, as these are the “text” portion of this text/
reader. We aim for essays that offer a conceptual structure for thinking about (and
teaching) this material, but in this edition in particular we thought of the essays
as a place in which to grapple with how, increasingly, American constructions of
difference appear to be both fl uid and stable.
To highlight some of the changes in this edition, the fi rst framework essay now
considers the effects of our 21st century mapping of the human genome—an
accomplishment that many predicted would be the death knell of the idea of race.
What we see instead is that race is surprisingly resilient in both popular opinion
and science, albeit now framed and profi tably marketed as “geographic ancestry.”
In contrast to this persistence, however, the essay also examines the ways that
ideas about race have broadened, especially as revealed by the use of multi-racial
self-identifi cations. As discussed in this essay, increased breadth and fl uidity also
appears to characterize gender and sexuality categorizations, for example in the
increased visibility and acceptance of those who identify as transgender and the
emergence of bisexuality as a viable scientifi c and self-identifi cation category.
In this edition, the second Framework Essay gives special attention to the idea
of intersectionality, that is, the interaction of stigmatized statuses. Long a topic
in women’s studies scholarship, we have tried to make this complicated idea more
accessible to students while also showing the practical consequences of
acknowledging, or failing to acknowledge, intersectionality. Updates to the third
Framework Essay have included the topics of intermarriage and residential
segregation. The readings in the third section—focused on education, ideology,
law, and public policy—are now organized into the master-status subsections used
throughout the book.
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Several readings from the previous edition have been retained not only because
of their wide popularity among students and faculty, but also because they are
classics in the fi eld. Included in this category are F. James Davis’s “Who Is Black?
One Nation’s Defi nition”; Ruth Frankenberg’s “Whiteness as an ‘Unmarked’
Cultural Category”; Michael Oliver’s “Disability Defi nitions”; Sally French’s
“Can You See the Rainbow?”; John Hockenberry’s “Public Transit”; C. J. Pascoe’s
“Dude You’re a Fag”; and Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink in Black and White.” We
also believe several readings new to this edition will become classics: Cordelia
Fine’s “Delusions of Gender”; Lisa Diamond’s “Sexual Fluidity”; Laurence
Ralph’s “What Wounds Enable”; David Haines’s “Safe Haven in America?”;
Amartya Sen’s “The Many Faces of Gender Inequality”; and Eric Anderson’s
“Adolescent Masculinity in an Age of Decreased Homohysteria” all have this
potential.
SUPPLEMENTS
Instructor’s Manual/Test Bank
An Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank accompany this volume. In this edition,
we have added a special section of advice on how to teach this material. Instructors
can access this password-protected material on the website that accompanies the
seventh edition of The Meaning of Difference at www.mhhe.com/rosenblum7e .
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many colleagues and friends have helped us clarify the ideas we present here.
David Haines has been unfailing in his willingness to help Karen think through
conceptual, technical, and ethical dilemmas. She could not imagine a colleague
more supportive or wise. Theodore W. Travis provided insight on Supreme Court
decisions, their relationship to social values, and their impact on American society.
Since this project fi rst emerged, Victoria Rader has been generous in sharing her
knowledge as a teacher and writer. Her wisdom especially guided our develop-
ment of the “Bridging Differences” section. We are also grateful to our colleague
and friend Beth Omansky for helping us understand the critical relationship of
disability to our work. As a friend and friendly editor, none could be better than
Sheila Barrows. Finally, we owe thanks to our students at George Mason University
for sharing their experiences with us.
For this edition, we again convey our appreciation to Joan Lester and the Equity
Institute of Emeryville, California, for their understanding of the progress that can
be made through a holistic analysis.
Jamie Daron of McGraw-Hill and Melanie Lewis of ansrsource shepherded this
volume to completion. Fred Courtright’s work on acquiring permissions was espe-
cially appreciated. As in previous editions, McGraw-Hill proved itself committed
to a thorough review process by putting together a panel of accomplished scholars
xiv Preface
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with broad teaching expertise. All offered detailed and insightful critiques, and
we are much in their debt:
Naomi Greyser, University of Iowa
Shepherd M. Jenks, Jr., Central New Mexico Community College
Earnest Perry, University of Missouri
Gloria L. Rowe, Cincinnati State Technical and Community College.
Karen Rosenblum
Toni-Michelle Travis
George Mason University
Preface xv
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1
S E C T I O N I
CONSTRUCTING CATEGORIES
OF DIFFERENCE
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2 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
FRAMEWORK ESSAY
In this book we consider how difference is constructed in contemporary American
society. We explore how categories of people are seen as signifi cantly different
from one another and how people’s lives are affected by these conceptions of
difference. The four sections of the book are organized around what we consider
to be the key questions about difference: how it is constructed, how it is experi-
enced by individuals, how meaning is attributed to difference, and how differences
can be bridged.
We believe that race, sex, social class, sexuality, and disability are currently
the primary axes of difference in American society—they are also what social
scientists would call master statuses. In common usage, the term status means
prestige or esteem. But for social scientists, the term status refers to positions in
a social structure. In this sense, statuses are like empty slots (or positions) that
individuals fi ll. The most obvious kinds of statuses are kinship, occupation, and
age. At any time an individual occupies multiple statuses, including those of race,
sex, social class, sexuality, and disability.
This latter set of statuses—the ones we focus on in this book—are signifi cantly
more powerful than most other social statuses. Social scientists refer to these as
master statuses because they so profoundly affect a person’s life: “in most or all
social situations master status will overpower or dominate all other statuses. . . .
Master status infl uences every other aspect of life, including personal identity.”
1

These master statuses may be said to “frame” how people are seen by others—
especially strangers—as well as how they see themselves and much of what they
experience in the world.
2
This does not mean, however, that people always under-
stand the impact of the master statuses or “frames” that they occupy. Indeed, much
of this book is about recognizing that impact.
This text will explore similarities in the operation of these master statuses.
Although there are certainly differences of history, experience, and impact, we
believe that similar processes are at work when people “see” differences of
color, sex and gender, social class, sexuality, and disability, and we believe
that there are similarities in the consequences of these master statuses for
individuals’ lives. Nonetheless, there are risks in our focus on similarities
across master statuses, not the least of which is the assumption that similarity
is a better ground for social change than a recognition of difference.
3
Thus,
our focus on similarities across master statuses is literally only one side of
the story.
Racism, sexism, homophobia, and diversity have been pervasive topics for dis-
cussion in American society for at least the last fi fty years. Although the substance
of these conversations has changed in many ways—for example, the term diversity
once fl agged the need for equal opportunity but now functions more as a market-
ing tool—the intensity around most of these topics persists. Many Americans have
strong opinions on these subjects, and that is probably also the case for readers
of this text. Two perspectives—essentialism and constructionism—are core to this
book and should help you understand your own reaction to the material.
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Framework Essay 3
The Essentialist and Constructionist Perspectives
The difference between the constructionist and essentialist perspectives is illus-
trated in the tale of the three umpires, fi rst apparently told by social psychologist
Hadley Cantril:
Hadley Cantril relates the story of three baseball umpires discussing their profession.
The fi rst umpire said, “Some are balls and some are strikes, and I call them as they are.”
The second replied, “Some’s balls and some’s strikes, and I call ’em as I sees ’em.” The
third thought about it and said, “Some’s balls and some’s strikes, but they ain’t nothing
’till I calls ’em.”
4

The fi rst umpire in the story can be described as an essentialist. When he says,
“I call them as they are,” he assumes that balls and strikes exist in the world
regardless of his perception of them. For this umpire, balls and strikes are easily
identifi ed, and he is merely a neutral observer; he “regards knowledge as objective
and independent of mind, and himself as the impartial reporter of things ‘as
they  are.’”
5

Thus, the essentialist perspective presumes that items in a category all share
some “essential” quality, their “ball-ness” or “strike-ness.” For essentialists, race,
sex, sexual orientation, disability, and social class identify signifi cant, empirically
verifi able differences among people. From the essentialist perspective, each of
these exists apart from any social processes; they are objective categories of real
differences among people.
The second umpire is somewhat removed from pure essentialism. His statement,
“I call ’em as I sees ’em,” conveys the belief that while an independent, objective
reality exists, it is subject to interpretation. For him, the world contains balls and
strikes, but individuals may have different perceptions about which is which.
The third umpire, who says “they ain’t nothing ’till I calls ’em,” is a construc-
tionist. He operates from the belief that “conceptions such as ‘strikes’ and ‘balls’
have no meaning except that given them by the observer.”
6
For this constructionist
umpire, reality cannot be separated from the way a culture makes sense of
it; strikes and balls do not exist until they are constructed through social processes.
From this perspective, difference is created rather than intrinsic to a phenomenon.
Social processes—such as those in political, legal, economic, scientifi c, and
religious institutions—create differences, determine that some differences are
more important than others, and assign particular meanings to those differences.
From this perspective, the way a society defi nes difference among its members
tells us more about that society than the people so classifi ed. The Meaning of
Difference operates from the constructionist perspective, since it examines how
we have arrived at our race, sex, disability, sexuality, and social class categories.
Few of us have grown up as constructionists. More likely, we are essentialists
who believe that master statuses such as race or sex entail clear-cut, unchanging,
and in some way meaningful differences. Still, not everyone is an essentialist.
Those who grew up in multiple racial or religious backgrounds are familiar with
the ways in which identity is not clear-cut. They grow up understanding how
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4 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
defi nitions of self vary with the context; how others try to defi ne one as belong-
ing in a particular category; and how, in many ways, one’s very presence calls
prevailing classifi cation systems into question. For example, the experience Jelita
McLeod describes in Reading 23 of being asked “What are you?” is a common
experience for multiracial people. Such experiences make evident the social con-
structedness of racial identity.
Most of us are unlikely to be exclusively essentialist or constructionist. As
authors of this book, although we take the constructionist perspective, we have
still relied on essentialist terms we fi nd problematic. The irony of questioning
the idea of race but still talking about “blacks,” “whites,” and “Asians,” or of
rejecting a dualistic approach to sexual identity while still using the terms gay
and straight, has not escaped us. Indeed, we have sometimes used the cur-
rently favored essentialist phrase sexual orientation over the more construc-
tionist sexual preference because sexual preference is an unfamiliar phrase to
many people.
a

Further, there is a serious risk that a text such as this falsely identifi es people on
the basis of either their sex, race, sexuality, disability, or social class, despite the
fact that master statuses are not parts of a person that can be broken off from one
another like the segments of a Tootsie Roll.
7
All of us are always simultaneously
all of our master statuses, an idea encompassed by the concept of intersectionality
(a topic to which we will return in the Framework Essay for Section II).
While the readings in this section may make it seem as if these were separable
statuses, they are not. Indeed, even the concept of master status could mislead us
into thinking that there could be only one dominating status in one’s life.
Both constructionism and essentialism can be found in the social sciences.
Indeed, social science research routinely operates from essentialist assumptions:
when researchers report the sex, race, or ethnicity of their interviewees or
experimental subjects they are treating these categories as “real,” that is, as existing
independent of the researchers’ classifi cations. Both perspectives also are evident
in social movements, and those movements sometimes shift from one perspective
to the other over time. For example, some feminists and most of those opposed
to feminism hold the essentialist belief that women and men are inherently dif-
ferent. The constructionist view that sexual identity is chosen dominated the gay
rights movement of the 1970s,
8
but today, the essentialist view that sexual identity
is something one is born with appears to dominate. By contrast, some of those
opposed to gay relationships now take the constructionist view that sexuality is
chosen and could therefore be changed. In this case, language often signals which
perspective is being used. For example, sexual preference conveys active, human
decision making with the possibility of change (constructionism), while sexual
orientation implies something fi xed and inherent to a person (essentialism).
Americans are now about equally split between those who hold essentialist and
constructionist views on homosexuality—40 percent of those who responded to a
a
The term sexual identity seems now to be replacing sexual orientation . It could be used in either
an essentialist or a constructionist way.
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Framework Essay 5
2012 Gallup Poll answered that being gay was something a person was born with,
compared to 37 percent who said that being gay was the result of upbringing or
other social factors. Thirty-fi ve years ago those opinions were the reverse, with
56 percent saying sexuality was the result of upbringing or other environmental
factors.
9
This shift toward a more essentialist view of sexuality began in the late
1990s, when, as Roger Lancaster describes in Reading 16, the media focused on
the biological (i.e., essentialist) research on the origin of homosexuality, much of
which has now been discredited. Later in this chapter we will describe what
appears to be another change in attitudes about sexuality, which is a turn toward
a constructionist approach, at least among college students.
This example from journalist Darryl Rist shows the appeal that essentialist
explanations might have for gay rights activists:
[Chris Yates’s parents were] Pentecostal ministers who had tortured his adolescence with
Christian cures for sexual perversity. Shock and aversion therapies under born-again doctors
and gruesome exorcisms of sexual demons by spirit-fi lled preachers had culminated in a
plan to have him castrated by a Mexican surgeon who touted the procedure as a way to
make the boy, if not straight, at least sexless. Only then had the terrifi ed son rebelled.
Then, in the summer of 1991, the journal Science reported anatomical differences
between the brains of homosexual and heterosexual men. . . . The euphoric media—those
great purveyors of cultural myths—drove the story wildly. Every major paper in the country
headlined the discovery smack on the front page. . . . Like many others, I suspect, Chris
Yates’s family saw in this newly reported sexual science a way out of its wrenching impasse.
After years of virtual silence between them and their son, Chris’s parents drove several
hundred miles to visit him and ask for reconciliation. Whatever faded guilt they might have
felt for the family’s faulty genes was nothing next to the reassurance that neither by a per-
verse upbringing nor by his own iniquity was Chris or the family culpable for his urges and
actions. “We could never have condoned this if you could do something to change it. But
when we fi nally understood that you were born that way, we knew we’d been wrong. We
had to ask your forgiveness.”
10

Understandably, those who are discriminated against would fi nd essentialist
orientations appealing, just as the expansiveness of constructionist approaches
would be appealing in more tolerant eras. Still, either perspective can be used to
justify discrimination, since people can be persecuted for the choices they make
as well as for their genetic inheritance. As Lisa Diamond concludes in Reading 15,
on a topic as politicized as sexuality, there are no “safe” scientifi c fi ndings—any
fi nding can be used for just about any purpose.
Our inclusion here of disability as a social construction may generate an intense
reaction—many will want to argue that disability is about real physical, sensory,
or cognitive differences, not social constructs. However, two factors are at work
here. One involves impairment, that is, “the physical, cognitive, emotional or
sensory condition within the person as diagnosed by medical professionals.”
11
The
second is “the loss or limitation of opportunities to take part in the normal life
of the community on an equal level with others due to physical and social barri-
ers.”
12
This latter dimension, called disability, has been the emphasis of what is
called the “social model” of disability, which contends that disability is created
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6 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
by social, political, and environmental obstacles—that is, that social processes
such as discrimination or lack of access to corrective technologies turn impair-
ments into disabilities.
13
This form of discrimination is sometimes called ableism.
In the historic words of Britain’s Union of the Physically Impaired against Seg-
regation (UPIAS), one of the fi rst disability liberation groups in the world and
the fi rst run by disabled people themselves:
14

It is society which disables physically impaired people. Disability is something imposed on
top of our impairment by the way we are unnecessarily isolated and excluded from full
participation in society. Disabled people are therefore an oppressed group in society.
15

That perspective is refl ected in the 2007 United Nations Convention on the
Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which reads in part:
[D]isability should be seen as the result of the interaction between a person and his or her
environment. Disability is not something that resides in the individual as the result of some
impairment. . . . Disability resides in the society, not in the person. [For example,] in a
society where corrective lenses are available for someone with extreme myopia (nearsight-
edness), this person would not be considered to have a disability, however someone with
the same condition in a society where corrective lenses were not available would be con-
sidered to have a disability, especially if the level of vision prevented the person from
performing tasks expected of this person. . . .
16

For example, John Hockenberry (Reading 34) describes how mass transit sys-
tems that are inaccessible to wheelchair users “disable” them by making it diffi cult
or impossible to work, attend school, or be involved in social activities. Beyond
architectural, educational, and occupational barriers, disability is also constructed
through cultural stereotypes and everyday interactions in which difference is
defi ned as undesirable. We once heard a student with spina bifi da tell a story
addressing this point: In her fi rst day at elementary school, other students kept
asking what was “wrong” with her. As she put it, she had always known she was
different, but she hadn’t thought she was “wrong.”
Not only can disability be understood as the result of disabling environments
and cultural stereotypes, the categories of impairment and disability are also them-
selves socially constructed through medical and legal processes. “[I]llness, dis-
ease, and disability are not ‘givens’ in nature . . . but rather socially constructed
categories that emerge from the interpretive activities of people acting together in
social situations.”
17
Learning disabilities are an example of this process.
Before the late 1800s when observers began to write about “word blindness,” learning dis-
ability (whatever its name) did not exist, although the human variation to which it ambiguously
refers did—sort of! People who today might be known as learning disabled may have formerly
been known as “slow,” “retarded,” or “odd.” But mostly they would not have been known as
unusual at all. The learning diffi culties experienced today by learning disabled youth have not
been experienced by most youth throughout history. For example, most youth have not been
asked to learn to read. Thus, they could not experience any reading diffi culties, the most com-
mon learning disability. As we have expected youth to learn to read and have tried to teach
them to do so, many youth have experienced diffi culty. However, until the mid-1960s we
typically did not understand those diffi culties as the consequences of a learning disability.
18

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Framework Essay 7
The social model of disability fi rst emerged out of the disabled people’s move-
ment in the 1970s in opposition to the “medical model,” which approached dis-
ability as a matter of individual defi ciencies or defects, rather than societal
responses. From the perspective of the medical model, individuals have problems
that need to be treated by medical specialists; from that of the social model, indi-
vidual problems are the result of social structures that need to be changed. Thus,
for adherents of the social model, the important questions are about civil rights
such as equal access. The survey questions posed by Mike Oliver in Reading 18
show how the world is perceived differently from these two perspectives. Still, as
Laurence Ralph describes in Reading 19, the social model of disability becomes
less relevant when we consider the numbers of young black and Hispanic men
disabled by gun violence (second to car accidents, gunshot wounds are the most
common source of disability in urban areas). Ralph describes the case of a group
of Chicago ex-gang members, now paralyzed by spinal cord injuries from gunshots.
Although the social model would argue that society has disabled these young men,
the men themselves operate from the medical model—in their mission to save
teenagers from a similar fate, they focus on the defects of their bodies.
Why have we spent so much time describing the essentialist and construction-
ist perspectives? Discussions about race, sex, disability, sexual identity, and social
class generate great intensity, partly because they involve the clash of essentialist
and constructionist assumptions. Essentialists are likely to view categories of
people as “essentially” different in some important way; constructionists are likely
to see these differences as socially created and arbitrary. An essentialist asks what
causes people to be different; a constructionist asks about the origin and conse-
quence of the categorization system itself. While arguments about the nature and
cause of racism, sexism, homophobia, and poverty are disputes about power and
justice, from the perspectives of essentialism and constructionism they are also
disputes about the meaning of differences in color, sexuality, and social class.
In all of this, the constructionist approach has one clear advantage. From that
perspective, one understands that all this talk has a profound signifi cance. Such
talk is not simply about difference; it is itself the creation of difference. In the
sections that follow, we examine how categories of people are named, dichoto-
mized, and stigmatized—all toward the construction of difference.
Naming
Difference is constructed fi rst by naming categories of people. Therefore, con-
structionists pay special attention to the names people use to refer to themselves
and others—the times at which new names are asserted, the negotiations that
surround the use of particular names, and those occasions when people are grouped
together or separated out.
Asserting a Name Both individuals and categories of people face similar issues
in the assertion of a name. A change of name involves, to some extent, the claim
of a new identity. For example, one of our colleagues no longer wanted to be called
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8 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
by her nickname because it had come to seem childish to her, so she asked people
to use her “real” name instead. It took a few times to remind people that this was
her new name, and with most that was adequate. One colleague, however, argued
that he could not adapt to the new name; she would just have to tolerate his con-
tinued use of the nickname. This was a small but public battle about who had the
power to name whom. Did she have the power to enforce her own naming, or did
he have the power to name her despite her wishes? Eventually, she prevailed.
A more disquieting example was a young woman who wanted to keep her
maiden name after she married. Her fi ancé agreed with her decision, recognizing
that he would be reluctant to give up his name were the tables turned. When his
mother heard of this possibility, however, she was outraged. In her mind, a rejec-
tion of her family’s name was a rejection of her family. She urged her son to
reconsider getting married.
Thus, asserting a name can create social confl ict. On both a personal and soci-
etal level, naming can involve the claim of a particular identity and the rejection
of others’ power to impose a name. For example, is one Native American,
American Indian, or Sioux; African American or black; girl or woman; Asian,
Asian American, Korean, or Korean American; gay or homosexual; Chicano,
Mexican American, Mexican, Latino/a, or Hispanic? For instance,
[j]ust who is Hispanic? The answer depends on whom you ask.
The label was actually coined in the mid-1970s by federal bureaucrats working under
President Richard M. Nixon. They came up with it in response to concerns that the government
was wrongly applying “Chicano” to people who were not of Mexican descent, and otherwise
misidentifying and underserving segments of the population by generally classifying those with
ancestral ties to the Spanish cultural diaspora as either Chicano, Cuban, or Puerto Rican.
Nearly three decades later, the debate continues to surround the term Hispanic and its
defi nition. Although mainly applied to people from Latin American countries with linguistic
and cultural ties to Spain, it also is used by the U.S. government to refer to Spaniards
themselves, as well as people from Portuguese-speaking Brazil.
19

Comedian Carlos Mencia (a Honduran-born American) captures this confusion
in a story about talking to college students twenty years ago, but its substance
applies just as easily today: “I said ‘Latinos,’ and they said, ‘We’re not Latin!’
And then I said ‘Chicano,’ and they said, ‘We’re not of Mexican descent.’ So I
said ‘I don’t know what to say—Hispanic? And they said, ‘There’s no such coun-
try as Hispania!’ ”
20
As of 2011, 33 percent of Hispanic/Latinos preferred His-
panic, 14 percent preferred Latino, but 53 percent had no preference. 21
Deciding what name to use for a category of people is not easy. It is unlikely
that all members of the category use the same name; the name members use for
one another may not be acceptable for outsiders to use; nor is it always advisable
to ask what name a person prefers. We once saw an old friend become quite angry
when asked whether he preferred the term black or African American. “Either one
is fi ne with me,” he replied, “ I know what I am.” To him, the question meant that
he was being seen as a member of a category, not as an individual.
Because naming may involve a redefi nition of self, an assertion of power, and
a rejection of others’ ability to impose an identity, social change movements often
claim a new name, while opponents may express opposition by continuing to use
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Framework Essay 9
the old name. For example, in the 1960s black emerged in opposition to Negro as
the Black Power movement sought to distinguish itself from the Martin Luther
King–led moderate wing of the civil rights movement. The term Negro had itself
been put forward by infl uential leaders such as W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T.
Washington as a rejection of the term colored that had dominated the mid- to late
19th century: “[D]espite its association with racial epithets, ‘Negro’ was defi ned to
stand for a new way of thinking about Blacks.”
22
Similarly, in 1988, Ramona H.
Edelin, president of the National Urban Coalition, proposed that African American
be substituted for black. Now both terms are used about equally. b Among blacks
who have a preference, Gallup polls suggest a gradual trend toward the label “Afri-
can American.” Still, “a clear majority of blacks say they don’t care which label is
used”
23
and some still prefer the term Negro. “The immediate reason the word
Negro is on the [2010] Census is simple enough: in the 2000 Census, more than
56,000 people wrote in Negro to describe their identity—even though it was already
on the form. Some people, it seems, still strongly identify with the term, which
used to be a perfectly polite designation,” but is now considered by many an insult.
24

Each of these name changes—from Negro to black to African American —was
fi rst promoted by activists as a way to demonstrate their commitment to a new
social order. A similar theme is refl ected in the history of the terms Chicano and
Chicanismo. Although the origin of the terms is unclear, the principle was the
same. As reporter Ruben Salazar wrote in the 1960s, “a Chicano is a Mexican-
American with a non-Anglo image of himself.”
25
( Anglo is a colloquialism for
white used in the southwestern and western United States.)
Similarly, the term homosexual was fi rst coined in 1896 by a Hungarian physi-
cian hoping to decriminalize same-sex relations between men. It was incorporated
into the medical and psychological literature of the time, which depicted nonproc-
reative sex as pathological. In the 1960s, activists rejected the pathological char-
acterization along with the name associated with it, turning to the terms gay c and
lesbian rather than homosexual (and using gay to refer to men, or both men and
women). Later, the 1990s group Queer Nation transformed what had been a com-
mon epithet into a slogan—“We’re here! We’re queer! Get used to it!”
Well, yes, “gay” is great. It has its place. . . . [But] using “queer” is a way of reminding
us how we are perceived by the rest of the world. It’s a way of telling ourselves we don’t
have to be witty and charming people who keep our lives discreet and marginalized in the
straight world.  . . . Queer, unlike gay, doesn’t mean male. . . . Yeah, queer can be a rough
word but it is also a sly and ironic weapon we can steal from the homophobe’s hands and
use against him.
26

b
Thus, one can fi nd Black Studies, Afro-American Studies, and African American Studies programs
in universities across the country.
c
In the 17th century, gay became associated with an addiction to social dissipation and loose moral-
ity, and was used to refer to female prostitutes (e.g., gay girl ). The term was apparently fi rst used in
reference to homosexuality in 1925 in Australia. “It may have been both the connotations of feminin-
ity and those of immorality that led American homosexuals to adopt the title ‘gay’ with some self-
irony in the 1920s. The slogan ‘Glad to Be Gay,’ adopted by both female and male homosexuals,
and the naming of the Gay Liberation Front, which was born from the Stonewall resistance riots
following police raids on homosexual bars in New York in 1969, bear witness to a greater self-
confi dence.”
27

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10 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
Now, all terms—homosexual, gay and lesbian, gay as including both women
and men or just men, queer, and the acronyms GLBTQ (gay, lesbian, bisexual,
transgender, and questioning) and LGBTQ—appear to be in common use. People
who identify as asexual, that is, not experiencing sexual attraction, also appears
to be a growing category, with the likelihood that the LGBTQ umbrella will
someday expand to LGBTQA. While “queer” maintains some of its history as
both pejorative and defi ant, it was apparently acceptable enough to serve as the
title of a popular reality show, Queer Eye, that aired from 2003 to 2007.
Just as each of these social movements has involved a public renaming that
proclaims pride, the women’s movement has asserted woman as a replacement for
girl. A student who described a running feud with her roommate illustrates
the  signifi cance of these terms. The student preferred the word woman, arguing
that girl, when applied to females past adolescence, was insulting, almost as if
one could never grow up. Her female roommate just as strongly preferred the term
girl and regularly applied it to the females she knew. Each of them had such
strong feelings on the matter that it was clear they would not last as roommates.
How could these two words destroy their relationship? It appears that English
speakers use the terms girl and woman to refer to quite different qualities. Woman
is understood to convey adulthood, power, and sexuality; girl connotes youth,
powerlessness, and irresponsibility. (The same qualities of age, power, responsibil-
ity, and sexuality operate in the choice between boy and man. ) The two roommates
were asserting quite different places for themselves in the world. One claimed
adulthood; the other saw herself as not having achieved that yet. This explanation
is offered by many females: It is not so much that they like being girls, as that
they value youth and/or do not yet feel justifi ed in calling themselves women.
But  the effort to remain a “girl” can create its own inconsistencies. We once
overheard a woman describe a friend as a “girl”—the friend was fi fty and about
to adopt a child.
It seems to us that college students now often refer to themselves as “girls”
and “boys.” Sociologist Michael Kimmel argues that the use of boys, but more
importantly, guys, speaks to the development of a new age demographic for
American males, specifi cally an extended period in which they are neither depen-
dent (like boys) or responsible (like men). On the use of woman, some of our
students have said that they avoid the word because it is associated with feminism,
and they are right to conclude that it is. After all, it is called the women’s move-
ment, not the girls’ movement! The name conveys an identity: “we cannot be girls
anymore, we must be women.” In a now classic essay, political philosopher Penny
Weiss (Reading 27) “diagnoses” the phrase that has been used by women for at
least the last fi fty years: “I’m not a feminist, but. . . .”
In all, different categories of people may claim a wide range of names for
themselves. A name may refl ect the analysis and aspirations of a social movement,
and it may be the battleground for competing conceptions of the world. The name
invoked by movement activists may have no immediate bearing on the language
used by people in the streets, or everyday language may come to be shaped
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Framework Essay 11
by policymakers external to the social movement. Sometimes, a variety of names
may be in use—each with a constituency that feels strongly that only some words
are appropriate.
Of all the master statuses we are considering in this book, the naming of those
with disabilities is perhaps the least settled. The term handicapped, which pre-
dominated in the period following World War II, shifted to disabled with the
emergence of the disability rights movement in the 1970s. As we have seen,
theorists from the British social model draw a distinction between impairment,
referring to “the physical, cognitive, emotional or sensory condition within the
person as diagnosed by medical professionals,” and disability, which is reserved
for the social processes that disable a person
28
—but the U.S. disability rights
movement uses disability to cover both of these features. The style guide for the
American Psychological Association urges a “people fi rst” approach, as in “people
with disabilities” rather than “disabled people,” and “people fi rst” terminology has
been formally authorized by some state and local governments. By contrast, one
of the founders of the British disability rights movement—Mike Oliver—argued
that disabled people is ultimately more appropriate:
It is sometimes argued, often by [nondisabled] professionals and some disabled people, that
“people with disabilities” is the preferred term, for it asserts the value of the person fi rst
and the disability then becomes an appendage. This liberal and humanist view fl ies in the
face of reality as it is experienced by disabled people themselves who argue that far from
being an appendage, disability is an essential part of the self. In this view, it is nonsensical
to talk about the person and the disability separately, and consequently, disabled people are
demanding acceptance as they are, disabled people.
29

In all, the names that we call ourselves and others are rarely a matter of indif-
ference; they are often carefully chosen to refl ect worldview and aspirations, and
they can materially shape our lives.
Creating Categories of People While individuals and groups may assert
names for themselves, governments also have the power to categorize. The history
of the race and ethnicity questions asked in the U.S. Census illustrates this process.
Every census since the fi rst one in 1790 has included a question about race.
By 1970, the options for race were white, Negro or black, American Indian (with
a request to print the name of the enrolled or principal tribe), Japanese, Chinese,
Filipino, Hawaiian, Korean, and Other with the option of specifying. The 1970
census began the practice of allowing the head of the household to identify the
race of household members: before that, the census taker had made that decision.
Thus, in 1970 the Census Bureau began treating race as primarily a matter of
self -identifi cation. Still, it was assumed that a person could only be a member
of one racial group, so respondents were allowed only one option for each house-
hold member.
The 1970 census also posed the fi rst ethnicity question, asking whether the
individual was of Hispanic or non-Hispanic ancestry. (Ethnicity, which generally
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12 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
refers to national or cultural ancestry, is a subject we will return to shortly.) The
Hispanic/non-Hispanic question was added at the recommendation of the Census
Bureau’s Hispanic Advisory Committee as a way to correct for the differential
undercount of the Hispanic population. A differential undercount means that
more people are undercounted in one category than in another; for example, the
census yields a larger undercount of those who rent their homes than of those
who own them. Undercounting primarily affects the data on low-income residents
of inner cities. This is the case because the poor often move and are thus diffi cult
to contact; are more likely to be illiterate or non-English speakers (there was no
Spanish-language census form until 1990); and are more likely to be illegal
immigrants afraid to respond to a government questionnaire. (The Constitution
requires a count of all the people in the United States, not just those who are
citizens or legal residents.) Because census data affect the distribution of billions
of dollars of federal aid, undercounting has a signifi cant impact. Apart from the
apportionment of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, the census helps
“determine how more than $400 billion dollars of federal funding each year [will
be] spent on infrastructure and services like hospitals, job training centers,
schools, senior centers, bridges, tunnels and other-public works projects, and
emergency services.”
30

Most important for our purposes, census data can be used to identify patterns
of discrimination and support the enforcement of civil rights. Thus, to improve
the collection of this data, in the 1970s the Commission on Civil Rights reviewed
the race categorization practices of federal agencies, concluding that while “the
designations do not refer strictly to race, color, national or ethnic origin,” the
categories were nonetheless what the general public understood to be minority
groups who were subject to discrimination. 31
This understanding of the meaning of “minority group” was part of a remark-
able bipartisan consensus that characterized the decade following the 1964 Civil
Rights Act.
It was a bipartisan project, including from both parties liberals and conservatives. . . . In
the signature minority rights policy, affi rmative action, the federal government went
beyond African Americans and declared that certain groups were indeed “minorities”—an
undefi ned term embraced by policymakers, advocates, and activists alike—and needed new
rights and programs for equal opportunity and full citizenship. In the parlance of the
period, minorities were groups seen as “disadvantaged” but not defi ned by income or
education. African Americans were the paradigmatic minority, but there were three other
ethnoracial minorities: Latinos, Asian Americans, and American Indians. Immigrants,
women, and the disabled of all ethnic groups were also included and won new rights
during this revolutionary period.
32

In this context, in 1977, the Offi ce of Management and Budget (OMB)
issued Statistical Directive No. 15, “Race and Ethnic Standards for Federal
Statistics and Administrative Reporting,” which established standard categories
and defi nitions for all federal agencies, including the Bureau of the Census.
Directive No. 15 defi ned four racial and one ethnic category: American Indian
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Framework Essay 13
or Alaskan Native, Asian or Pacifi c Islander, Negro or Black, White, and
Hispanic. “The questions [on the census] follow the categories required by
the  federal Offi ce of Management and Budget for federal statistics.”
33
Thus,
the question about Hispanic origin remains the only ethnicity question on the
decennial census. (A question asking respondents to identify their “ancestry
or national origin” is, however, included in the Census Bureau’s annual
American Community Survey, which samples U.S. households). Reading 3,
“The Evolution of Identity,” shows how census questions on race and ethnicity
changed between 1860 and 2000.

Figure  1 shows the relevant questions in the
2010 census.
F I G U R E 1
Questions from the 2010 Census.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2010 Census.
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14 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
For our purposes, the most notable recent change in the census has been
recognition that a person may identify himself or herself as being a member of
more than one racial group, although the census did not include a category called
multiracial. This change was one outcome of a comprehensive review and revision
of OMB’s Directive No. 15 that included public hearings, sample surveys of
targeted populations, and collaboration among the more than thirty federal agen-
cies that collect and use data on race and ethnicity. While this change was spurred
by activists who identifi ed themselves as multiracial, the Bureau’s pretesting also
indicated that less than 2 percent of respondents would mark more than one race
for themselves, and thus the historical continuity with previous censuses would
not be compromised. The Bureau’s expectation was close to the mark for the 2000
census—2.4 percent of the population, 6.8 million people, marked two or more
races for themselves. But by the 2010 census, that fi gure had risen to 2.9 percent,
or 9 million people.
34

One change that has not been made in the census, however, is the inclusion of
an ethnic category called Arab or Middle Eastern, because public comment did
not indicate agreement on a defi nition for this category. For census purposes, white
“refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the
Middle East, or North Africa. It includes people who indicated their race(s)[on
the Census] as “white” or reported entries such as Irish, German, Italian, Lebanese,
Arab, Moroccan, or Caucasian.”
35

As in previous censuses, undercounting remains an important fi scal and polit-
ical issue, given the disproportionate undercounting of people of color and the
poor. Still, gay couples may well be the most undercounted population. Since
the 1990 census, the form has provided unmarried partner as a possible answer
to the question of how the people in the household are related to one another.
The 2010 census showed 131,729 same-sex couples who identifi ed as spouses
(which is a rate of 2.3 same-sex spouses per 1,000 male/female spouses) and
514,735 same-sex couples who identifi ed themselves as unmarried partners (a
rate of 70 same-sex, unmarried partners for every 1,000 unmarried male/female
partners).
36
Certainly the unmarried, same-sex partner category is a signifi cant
undercount, attributable to respondents’ reluctance to report.
We end this phase of our discussion with three cautions. First, on a personal
level, many of us fi nd census categorizations objectionable. But as citizens, we
still seek the benefi ts and protections of the laws and policies based on these
data—and as citizens we share the goal of eliminating discriminatory practices.
For example, in the case of racial discrimination,
[r]eliable racial data are crucial to enforcing our basic laws against intentional racial dis-
crimination, which enjoy broad public support. For example, in order to demonstrate that
an employer is engaging in a broad-based “pattern or practice” of discrimination in viola-
tion of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a plaintiff must rely on statistical proof that goes
beyond the plight of an individual employee. Supreme Court precedent in such cases
requires plaintiffs to show a statistically signifi cant disparity between the proportion of
qualifi ed minorities in the local labor market and the proportion within the employer’s
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Framework Essay 15
work force. A disparity of more than two standard deviations creates a legal presumption
that intentional discrimination is occurring, since a disparity of that magnitude almost never
occurs by accident.
Demographic information, in other words, provides the “big picture” that places indi-
vidual incidents in context. Voting rights cases require similar proof, as do many housing
discrimination cases and suits challenging the discriminatory use of federal funds. Without
reliable racial statistics, it would be virtually impossible for courts or agencies to detect
institutional bias, and antidiscrimination laws would go unenforced. More fundamentally,
we simply cannot know as a society how far we’ve come in conquering racial discrimination
and inequality without accurate information about the health, progress and opportunities
available to communities of different races.
37

Second, we need to remember that although the census is a fairly direct count
of how people classify themselves, many other “counts” are taking place that may
not be consistent with census categorization. For example, a student who describes
herself as of multiple race and ethnic ancestry will be considered “Hispanic” by
the federal Department of Education if even one of those categories can be classed
as that, but she will be classifi ed as Asian and Hispanic by the National Center
for Health Statistics. Her birth certifi cate may have no racial designation or an
option for multiple designations; these designations may be assigned by her
mother or by the attending nurse or doctor. In all, we cannot expect consistency
across data collection instruments.
38

Last, when considering offi cial counts of the population, we must be careful
not to assume that what is counted is real. Although census data contribute to the
essentialist view that the world is populated by distinct, scientifi cally defi ned
categories of people, this brief history demonstrates that not even those who
collect the data make that assumption. As even the Census Bureau notes, “The
concept of race as used by the Census Bureau refl ects self-identifi cation by people
according to the race or races with which they most closely identify. These
categories are socio-political constructs and should not be interpreted as being
scientifi c or anthropological in nature. Furthermore, the race categories include
both racial and national-origin groups.”
39

Aggregating and Disaggregating
The federal identifi cation policies we have been describing collapse nonwhite
Americans into three categories—American Indians, Blacks, and Asian or Pacifi c
Islanders—and recognize one “ethnic group,” that is, Hispanics. In effect, this
process aggregates categories of people; that is, it combines, or “lumps together,”
different groups. For example, the ethnic category Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish
origin includes 28 different census categories. d While census data distinguishes
d
The Census Bureau’s Hispanic or Latino origin categories are Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban,
Dominican; Costa Rican, Guatemalan, Honduran, Nicaraguan, Panamanian, Salvadoran, and Other
Central American; Argentinian, Bolivian, Chilean, Colombian, Ecuadorian, Paraguayan, Peruvian,
Uruguayan, Venezuelan, and Other South American; and fi nally Other Hispanic or Latino, including
Spaniard, Spanish, Spanish American, and All other Hispanic or Latino.
40

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16 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
many of these groups, in public discussion the more common reference is to
“Hispanics and Latinos,” which both aggregates all those categories and masks
which groups predominate. (The Census Bureau’s 2011 American Community
Survey found that 65 percent of U.S. Hispanics identify themselves as of Mexican
origin, 9 percent as of Puerto Rican origin, 4 percent as of Salvadoran origin,
4 percent as of Cuban origin, and 3 percent as of Dominican origin.)
41
On top of
that, the category “Hispanic and Latino” is used to encompass recent immigrants,
Puerto Ricans (who are U.S. citizens), and those from some of the earliest settle-
ments in what is now the United States.
The diffi culty with determining who counts as Hispanic is that Hispanics do not appear to
share any properties in common. Linguistic, racial, religious, political, territorial, cultural,
economic, educational, social class, and genetic criteria fail to identify Hispanics in all
places and times. . . .
[Nonetheless], we are treated as a homogeneous group by European Americans and
African Americans; and even though Hispanics do not in fact constitute a homogeneous
group, we are easily contrasted with European Americans and African Americans because
we do not share many of the features commonly associated with these groups.
42

The groups that are lumped together in this aggregate have historically regarded
one another as different, and thus in people’s everyday lives the aggregate cate-
gory is likely to disaggregate, or fragment, into its constituent national-origin
elements. For example, a 2013 survey of adults found that “when describing their
identity, more than half (54%) of Hispanics say they most often use the name of
their ancestors’ Hispanic origin (such as Mexican, Dominican, Salvadoran or
Cuban).” Only 20 percent said they most often described themselves as “Hispanic”
or “Latino.” (Twenty-three percent reported most often describing themselves as
“American.”)
43
Not surprisingly, 69 percent of Latinos surveyed in the 2011 Cen-
sus Bureau’s American Community Survey said that they do not share a common
culture with other Latinos.
44

And how do “Hispanics” identify themselves by race? In 2011, census data
showed that 36 percent identifi ed themselves as white, 10 percent identifi ed them-
selves as black, 26 percent identifi ed themselves as some other race, and 25  percent
identifi ed their race as Hispanic/Latino.
45
Indeed, most of those who choose “some
other race” on the Census are Latinos.
46
Nonetheless, as Tanya Golash-Boza and
William Darity, Jr. write in Reading 6, the way that Latinos describe their race is
changeable, because it is responsive to their skin color and experiences of dis-
crimination, and—for those who are recent immigrants—also responsive to defi ni-
tions of race in their home country. All of these factors interact, and not
necessarily in predictable ways.
In the same way that many differences are masked by the terms Latino and
Hispanic, the category Asian Pacifi c American or Asian American includes groups
with different languages, cultures, and religions, and sometimes centuries of mutual
hostility. Like Hispanic / Latino, the category Asian American is based more on geog-
raphy than on any cultural, racial, linguistic, or religious commonalities. “Asian
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Framework Essay 17
Americans are those who come from a region of the world that the rest of the world
has defi ned as Asia.”
47

e

Much the same can be said for the terms Middle East and Middle Eastern. As
John Tehranian writes in Reading 24, the term Middle East emerged at the begin-
ning of the 20th century as part of political strategies. As a region that encom-
passes multiple continents, languages, ethnic groups, and religions, “the term is
riddled in ambiguity, sometimes encompassing the entire North African coast,
from Morocco to Egypt and other parts of Africa, including the Sudan and
Somalia, the former Soviet Caucasus Republics of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and
Armenia, and occasionally Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkistan. The Middle East
is therefore a malleable geopolitical construct of relatively recent vintage.”
Aggregate classifi cations have also been promoted by social movements; terms
such as Latino or Asian American were not simply the result of federal classifi ca-
tions. Student activists inspired by the Black Power and civil rights movements
fi rst proposed the terms. Asian American, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, and Latino
are examples of panethnic terms, that is, classifi cations that span national-origin
identities. Student activists inspired by the Black Power and civil rights move-
ments supported (and sometimes initiated) these panethnic classifi cations as a way
to highlight the experiences of discrimination that groups within each classifi ca-
tion shared. Thus, panethnic terminology often signaled the development of bridg-
ing organizations and other forms of solidarity across groups.
The concept of panethnicity is useful at many levels, but unstable in practice.
“The elites representing such groups fi nd it advantageous to make political demands
by using the numbers and resources panethnic formations can mobilize. The state,
in turn, can more easily manage claims by recognizing and responding to large
blocs as opposed to dealing with the specifi c claims of a plethora of ethnically
defi ned interest groups.”
50
At the same time, competition and historic antagonisms
make such alliances unstable. “At times it is advantageous to be in a panethnic
bloc, and at times it is desirable to mobilize along particular ethnic lines.”
51

The disability movement is similar to panethnic movements in that it has
brought together people with all types of impairments. This approach was a
e
In census classifi cation, the category Asian includes Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese,
Korean, Vietnamese; Other Asian includes Bangladeshi, Bhutanese, Burmese, Cambodian, Hmong,
Indo-Chinese, Indonesian, Iwo Jiman, Laotian, Malaysian, Maldivian, Mongolian, Nepalese,
Okinawan, Pakistani, Singaporean, Sri Lankan, Thai, and Taiwanese. The category Pacifi c Islander
includes Native Hawaiian, Guamanian or Chamorro, Samoan; Other Pacifi c Islander includes
Carolinian, Chuukese, Fijian, Kirabati, Kosraean, Mariana Islander, Marshallese, Melanesian,
Micronesian, New Hebridian, Palauan, Papua New Guinean, Pohnpeian, Polynesian, Saipanese,
Solomon Islander, Tahitian, Tokelauan, Tongan, and Yapese.
48

In 1980, Asian Indians successfully lobbied to change their census classifi cation from white to
Asian American by reminding Congress that historically, immigrants from India had been classed as
Asian . With other Asians, those from India had been barred from immigration by the 1917 Immigra-
tion Act, prohibited from becoming naturalized citizens until 1946, and denied the right to own land
by 1920 Alien Land Law. Indeed, in 1923 the U.S. Supreme Court (in U.S. v. Thind ) ruled that Asian
Indians were nonwhite, and could therefore have their U.S. citizenship nullifi ed.
49
Thus, for most of
their history in the United States, Asian Indians had been classed as Asian .
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18 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
historic “fi rst,” running counter both to the tradition of organizing around specifi c
impairments and to the fact that the needs of people with different impairments
are sometimes in confl ict. For example, some of the curb cuts that make wheel-
chair access possible can make walking more diffi cult for blind people who need
to be able to feel the edges of a sidewalk with their canes. The aggregating of
disabled people that began with the disability rights movement was reinforced in
the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
The terms Native American and African American are also aggregate classifi ca-
tions, but in this case they are the result of conquest and enslavement.
The “Indian,” like the European, is an idea. The notion of “Indians” was invented to distin-
guish the indigenous peoples of the New World from Europeans. The “Indian” is the person
on shore, outside of the boat. . . . There [were] hundreds of cultures, languages, ways of
living in Native America. The place was a model of diversity at the time of Columbus’s
arrival. Yet Europeans did not see this diversity. They created the concept of the “Indian”
to give what they did see some kind of unifi cation, to make it a single entity they could
deal with, because they could not cope with the reality of 400 different cultures.
52

f

Conquest made “American Indians” out of a multitude of tribes and nations
that had been distinctive on linguistic, religious, and economic grounds. It was
not only that Europeans had the unifying concept of Indian in mind—after all,
they were suffi ciently aware of cultural differences to generate an extensive body
of specifi c treaties with individual tribes. It was also that conquest itself—
encompassing as it did the appropriation of land, the forging and violation of
treaties, and policies of forced relocation—structured the lives of Native Ameri-
cans along common lines. Whereas contemporary Native Americans still identify
themselves by tribal ancestry, rather than “Native American” or “American Indian,”
their shared experience of conquest also forged the common identity refl ected in
the collective name, Native American.
Similarly, the capture, purchase, and forced relocation of Africans, and their
experience of forcibly being moved from place to place as personal property, cre-
ated the category now called African American. This experience forged a single
people out of a culturally diverse group; it produced an “oppositional racial con-
sciousness,” that is, a unity-in-opposition. “Just as the conquest created the ‘native’
where once there had been Pequot, Iroquois, or Tutelo, so too it created the ‘black’
where once there had been Asante or Ovimbundu, Yoruba or Bakongo.”
53

Even the categories of gay and straight, male and female, people of color,
and poor and middle class are aggregations that presume a commonality by
virtue of shared master status. For example, the category gay and lesbian assumes
that sharing a sexual identity binds people together despite all the issues that
f
The idea of Europe and the European is also a constructed, aggregate category. “Physically, Europe
is not a continent. Where is the water separating Europe from Asia? It is culture that separates Europe
from Asia. Western Europe roughly comprises the countries that in the Middle Ages were Latin
Christendom, and Eastern Europe consists of those countries that in the Middle Ages were Eastern
Orthodox Christendom. It was about A.D. 1257 when the Pope claimed hegemony over the secular
emperors in Western Europe and formulated the idea that Europeans, Christians, were a unifi ed
ethnicity even though they spoke many different languages.”
54

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Framework Essay 19
might divide them as men and women, people of color, or people of different
social classes. And, just as in the cases we have previously discussed, the forma-
tion of alliances between gays and lesbians will depend on the circumstances
and specifi c issues.
Still, our analysis has so far ignored one category of people. From whose
perspective do the categories of Native American, Asian American, African
American, Middle Eastern American, Arab American, and Latino / Hispanic exist?
Since “difference” is always “difference from, ” from whose perspective is “dif-
ference” determined? Who has the power to defi ne “difference”? If “we” are in
the boat looking at “them,” who precisely are “we”?
Every perspective on the social world emerges from a particular vantage point,
a particular social location. Ignoring who is in the boat treats that place as if it
were just the view “anyone” would take. Historically, the people in the boat were
European; at present, they are white Americans. As Ruth Frankenberg frames it
in Reading 7, in the United States “whites are the nondefi ned defi ners of other
people,” “the unmarked marker of others’ differentness.” Failing to identify the
“us” in the boat means that “white culture [becomes] the unspoken norm,” a
category that is powerful enough to defi ne others while itself remaining invisible
and unnamed.
Thus,
[F]or most whites, most of the time, to think or speak about race is to think or speak about
people of color, or perhaps, at times, to refl ect on oneself (or other whites) in relation to
people of color. But we tend not to think of ourselves or our racial cohort as racially distinc-
tive. Whites’ “consciousness” of whiteness is predominantly unconsciousness of whiteness.
55

Because whites do not usually identify themselves by race, they do not easily
understand the signifi cance of racial identities.
56
In all, those with the most power
in a society are best positioned to have their own identities left unnamed, thus
masking their power.
The term androcentrism describes the world as seen from a male-centered
perspective. For example, if we defi ne a good employee as one who is willing to
work extensive overtime, we are thinking from a male-centered perspective, since
women’s child-care responsibilities often preclude extra work commitments. We
may also describe Eurocentric and physicalist 57 perspectives, that is, viewpoints
that assume everyone is of European origin or physically agile. Similarly, the term
heteronormativity turns our attention to the ways that heterosexuality is built into
the assumptions and operation of all aspects of daily life, both sexual and non-
sexual.
58
Heteronormativity is one of a set of terms that has emerged to describe
individual- and societal-level treatment of homosexuality. In 1972, in Society and
the Healthy Homosexual, psychologist George Weinberg offered the term
homophobia to describe the aversion to homosexuals that he found among people
at the time. As he said later, “It was a fear of homosexuals which seemed to be
associated with a fear of contagion, a fear of reducing the things one fought
for—home and family. . . . [I]t led to great brutality as fear always does.”
59
The
term was a watershed; it defi ned the problem as heterosexual intolerance, not
homosexuality.
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20 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
Weinberg was not thinking of homophobia in clinical terms,
60
for example, pho-
bias are usually experienced as “unpleasant and dysfunctional,” which is not the
case with “homophobia.” Nonetheless, the term is now pervasive and routinely
identifi ed as part of the triumvirate, “sexism, racism, and homophobia.” One prob-
lem with that, however, is that homophobia focuses on individual prejudices rather
than societal structures. Thus, in 1990, psychologist Gregory Herek offered the word
heterosexism to describe “an ideological system that denies, denigrates, and stigma-
tizes any nonheterosexual form of behavior, identity, relationship or community.”
61

A decade later, he suggested that the term sexual prejudice replace homophobia. 62
The more recent concept of heteronormativity turns our attention to all the ways
in which heterosexuality is presumed to be the natural, normal, and inevitable
structure of society. It is the “view from the boat.” First put forward by English
professor Michael Warner, heteronormativity describes heterosexuality as akin to
an “offi cial national culture”;
63
a “sense of rightness—embedded in things and
not just in sex—is what we call heteronormativity.”
People are constantly encouraged to believe that heterosexual desire, dating, marriage, repro-
duction, childrearing, and home life are not only valuable to themselves, but the bedrock
on which every other value in the world rests. Heterosexual desire and romance are thought
to be the very core of humanity. It is the threshold of maturity that separates the men from
the boys (though it is also projected onto all boys and girls). It is both nature and culture.
It is the one thing celebrated in every fi lm plot, every sitcom, every advertisement. It is the
one thing to which every politician pays obeisance, couching every dispute over guns and
butter as an effort to protect family, home, and children. What would a world look like in
which all these links between sexuality and people’s ideas were suddenly severed? Nonstan-
dard sex has none of this normative richness, this built-in sense of connection to the mean-
ingful life, the community of the human, the future of the world.
64

. . . [F]rom senior proms to conjugal rights in prison, from couples’ discounts at hotels to
the immediate immigration rights of foreign marital partners, from a nonchalant goodbye
kiss at the airport to incessant male-female couples grinning down from billboards, to fairy
tales with princes rescuing princesses. It is, indeed, diffi cult to fi nd any aspect of modern
life that does not include men desiring women and women desiring men as a premise, as
necessary to being human as thinking and breathing.
65

In all, naming andocentrism, Eurocentrism, physicalism, and heteronormativity
helps us recognize them as particular social locations, like the other master sta-
tuses we have considered. Indeed, it is possible to argue that, no matter what their
master statuses, all Americans operate from these particular biases because they
are built into the basic fabric of our culture.
Dichotomizing
Many forces promote the construction of aggregate categories of people. Frequently,
these aggregates emerge as dichotomies. Sociologists have argued that the creation
of dichotomized categories is a regular feature of social life because it is a way
to resolve life’s routine problems, for example, allocating tasks by gender. More
important, dichotomization inevitably yields categories that will be unequally
valued and rewarded; in social life, the two parts of a dichotomy will never be
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Framework Essay 21
“equal.” Categorical inequalities emerge and persist because some benefi t from
them and because there is a societal cost to transitioning out of their use. Thus,
inequality between categories of people becomes “durable” over interactions, time,
space, and lifetimes. The extent of inequality between dichotomous pairs may
vary, the grounds on which categories are established may differ, and the efforts
directed at reducing such inequalities may change, but dichotomized categorical
inequalities are likely a constant of social life.
66

But to dichotomize is not only to divide something into two parts; it is also to
see those parts as mutually exclusive and in opposition. Dichotomization encourages
the sense that there are only two categories, that everyone fi ts easily in one or the
other, and that the categories stand in opposition to each other. In contemporary
American culture, we appear to treat the master statuses of race, sex, class, sexual
identity, and disability as if each embodied “us” and “them”—as if for each master
status, people could be easily sorted into two mutually exclusive, opposed groupings.
g

Dichotomizing Race Perhaps the clearest example of the historic and continu-
ing dichotomization of race is provided by the “one-drop rule,” which is described
by F. James Davis in Reading 2. This “rule” became a law but now operates only
as an informal social practice, holding that people with any traceable African
heritage should classify themselves as black. President Barack Obama’s identifi ca-
tion of himself as African American on the 2010 census is consistent with this
practice. The rule, which is unique to the United States and South Africa, grew
out of the efforts of southern whites to enforce segregation after the Civil War,
but over time came to be endorsed by both blacks and whites. Consistent with
this practice, only about 4 percent of black Americans identify themselves as
having ancestry from more than one race, even though a much larger percentage
have Native American and/or white ancestry.
67

While the one-drop rule applied to the identifi cation of who was black, the
three racial categories identifi ed by the census throughout the 19th century—
White, Negro, and Indian— were functionally collapsed into a white/nonwhite
binary. For example, in 1854, the California Supreme Court in People v . Hall held
that blacks, mulattos, Native Americans, and Chinese were “not white” and there-
fore could not testify for or against a white man in court. (Hall, a white man, had
been convicted of killing a Chinese man on the testimony of one white and three
Chinese witnesses; the Supreme Court overturned the conviction.) The same
dichotomization can be seen in the Supreme Court’s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson
(1896) described in Reading 37.
At the insistence of the Mexican government, Mexican residents of the south-
west territories ceded to the United States in the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo were placed on the “white” side of the ledger, and accorded the political-
legal status of “free white persons.”
68
European immigrants such as the Irish were
initially treated as nonwhite, and lobbied for their inclusion in American society
on the basis of the white/nonwhite distinction.
g
Springer and Deutsch (1981) coined the term dichotomania to describe the belief that there are male
and female sides of the brain. We think that term also fi ts our discussion.
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22 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
[Immigrants struggled to] equate whiteness with Americanism in order to turn argu-
ments  over immigration from the question of who was foreign to the question of who was
white. . . .
Immigrants could not win on the question of who was foreign. . . . But if the issue
somehow became defending “white man’s jobs” or “white man’s government” . . . [they]
could gain space by defl ecting debate from nativity, a hopeless issue, to race, an ambiguous
one. . . . After the Civil War, the new-coming Irish would help lead the movement to bar
the relatively established Chinese from California, with their agitation for a “white man’s
government,” serving to make race, and not nativity, the center of the debate and to prove
the Irish white.
69

Thus, historically, American has meant white, as many contemporary Americans
of Asian ancestry learn when they are complimented on their English—a compli-
ment that presumes that someone who is Asian could not be a native-born
American.
h
A story from the 1998 Winter Olympics illustrates the same point. At
the conclusion of the fi gure skating competition, MSNBC posted a headline that
read “American Beats Out Kwan for Women’s Figure Skating Title.” The refer-
ence was to Michelle Kwan, who won the silver medal, losing the gold to Tara
Lapinsky. But both Kwan and Lapinsky are Americans. While Kwan’s parents
immigrated from Hong Kong, she was born and raised in the United States, is a
U.S. citizen, and was a member of the U.S. team. The network attributed the
mistake to overworked staff and apologized. But for Asian American activists, this
was an example of how people of Asian descent have remained perpetual foreign-
ers in American society.
African American novelist Toni Morrison would describe this as a story about
“how American means white ”:
Deep within the word “American” is its association with race. To identify someone as South
African is to say very little; we need the adjective “white” or “black” or “colored” to make
our meaning clear. In this country it is quite the reverse. American means white, and
Africanist people struggle to make the term applicable to themselves with . . . hyphen after
hyphen after hyphen.
70

Insofar as American means white, those who are not white are presumed to be
recent arrivals and often told to go “back where they came from.” Thus, we appear
to operate within the dichotomized racial categories of American / non – American —
these are racial categories, because they effectively mean white / nonwhite.
Yet it is possible that the “white/nonwhite dichotomy” is in the midst of an
ironic transformation, into what Lee and Bean in Reading 8 characterize as a
“black/nonblack” dichotomy. Unlike Latinos and Asian Americans who, with suc-
cess, have come to be seen as similar to whites, African Americans are seen by
whites as dissimilar no matter what their success, just as the children of black-
white parentage are perceived by both blacks and whites as black. This black/
h
Since the historic American ban on Asian immigration remained in place until 1965, it is the case
that a high proportion of Asian Americans—about 75 percent—are foreign born (although the
percentage who are foreign-born varies by national origin).
71

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Framework Essay 23
nonblack dichotomy argues for an “African American exceptionalism” to the
incorporation of minority groups into whiteness.
Defi ning Race and Ethnicity But what exactly is race? First, we need to
distinguish race from ethnicity. Social scientists defi ne ethnic groups as categories
of people who are distinctive on the basis of national origin or heritage, language,
or cultural practices. “Members of an ethnic group hold a set of common memo-
ries that make them feel that their customs, culture, and outlook are distinctive.”
72

Indeed, in Reading 20, Harlan Lane argues that there is a Deaf-World ethnic group
distinct from those for whom deafness is a hearing impairment.
Thus, ethnicity is very much about the intensity of people’s feelings, and
these may be inconsistent, as well as, change over time. For example, being an
Italian American in the 1920s involved much more intensity of feeling, interac-
tion, and political organization than it does now, and being a Jew has become
an ethnic, rather than a religious, identity for many. For others, such as Bosnian
refugees, ethnic identity can involve a painful choice between religion and
nationality—are they Bosnian, Bosnian Muslim, or Muslim, or do they reject
ethnic identity altogether since “ethnic cleansing” made them refugees in the
fi rst place?
73

Finally, even though ethnic identity is often more important to people than race,
it can be obscured by race. For example, focusing only on race would hide the
important differences between African Americans, Haitians, Somalis, Ethiopians,
or Jamaicans—all black American ethnic groups. Similarly, Americans with
Middle Eastern heritage (who are classifi ed as white in the census) are often
misdescribed as Arabs, which includes only those from Arabic-speaking countries.
A scene in the movie Crash made this point: in vandalizing the store of an Iranian
grocer, the looters left behind graffi ti about “Arabs,” but Iranians speak Farsi and
do not consider themselves Arabic. In all, beneath panethnic terms such as Middle
Eastern, Arab American, Latino, or Asian American, one will fi nd strong ethnic
attachments based on national origin or religion.
The term race fi rst appeared in the Romance languages of Europe in the
Middle Ages to refer to breeding stock. A race of horses described common
ancestry and a distinctive appearance or behavior. Race appears to have been fi rst
applied to New World peoples by the Spanish in the 16th century. Later it was
adopted by the English, again in reference to people of the New World, and it
generally came to mean people, nation, or variety. By the late 18th century,
“when scholars became more actively engaged in investigations, classifi cations,
and defi nitions of human populations, the term race was elevated as the one
major symbol and mode of human group differentiation employed extensively
for non-European groups and even those in Europe who varied in some way from
the subjective norm.”
74

Though elevated to the level of science, the concept of race continued to refl ect
its origins in animal breeding. Farmers and herders had used the concept to
describe stock bred for particular qualities; scholars used it to suggest that human
behaviors could also be inherited. “Unlike other terms for classifying people . . .
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24 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
the term ‘race’ places emphasis on innateness, on the inbred nature of whatever
is being judged.”
75
Like animal breeders, scholars also presumed that appearance
revealed something about potential behavior. Just as the selective breeding of
animals entailed the ranking of stock by some criteria, scholarly use of the concept
of race involved the ranking of humans. Differences in skin color, hair texture,
and the shape of head, eyes, nose, lips, and body were developed into an elaborate
hierarchy of merit and potential for “civilization.”
As described by Audrey Smedley in Reading 1, the idea of race emerged
among all the European colonial powers, although their conceptions of it varied.
However, only the British in colonizing North America and South Africa con-
structed a system of rigid, exclusive racial categories and a social order based on
race , a “racialized social structure.” 76 “[S]kin color variations in many regions of
the world and in many societies have been imbued with some degree of social
value or signifi cance, but color prejudice or preferences do not of themselves
amount to a fully evolved racial worldview.”
77

This racialized social structure—which in the United States produced a race-
based system of slavery and subsequently a race-based distribution of political, legal,
and social rights—was a historical fi rst. “Expansion, conquest, exploitation, and
enslavement have characterized much of human history over the past fi ve thousand
years or so, but none of these events before the modern era resulted in the develop-
ment of ideologies or social systems based on race.”
78
Although differences of color
had long been noted, societies had never before been built on those differences.
The sciences that emerged from this racialized social structure were also racial-
ized; because scientists presumed that “race” involved more than just color, they
sought the biological distinctivness of race categories. Their belief that they had
found such differences followed from their fl awed assumptions and research meth-
ods. By the early 20th century, anthropologists discovered that the physical fea-
tures that had been used to distinguish the races such as height, stature, and head
shape could be changed by environment and nutrition. Thus, the certainties about
“race” and what it meant—at least in the sciences—began to be questioned.
79

In effect, science was confronting a kind of “bottom line” about race: while
there are many ways humans can be grouped, those do not correspond to tradi-
tional notions of race.
If our eyes could perceive more than the superfi cial, we might fi nd race in chromosome 11:
there lies the gene for hemoglobin. If you divide humankind by which of two forms of the
gene each person has, then equatorial Africans, Italians and Greeks fall into the “sickle-cell
race”; Swedes and South Africa’s Xhosas (Nelson Mandela’s ethnic group) are in the healthy
hemoglobin race. Or do you prefer to group people by whether they have epicanthic eye
folds, which produce the “Asian” eye? Then the !Kung San (Bushmen) belong with the
Japanese and Chinese. . . . [D]epending on which traits you pick, you can form very surpris-
ing races. Take the scooped-out shape of the back of the front teeth, a standard “Asian” trait.
Native Americans and Swedes have these shovel-shaped incisors, too, and so would fall in
the same race. Is biochemistry better? Norwegians, Arabians, north Indians and the Fulani
of northern Nigeria . . . fall into the “lactase race” (the lactase enzyme digests milk sugar).
Everyone else—other Africans, Japanese, Native Americans—form the “lactase-deprived
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Framework Essay 25
race” (their ancestors did not drink milk from cows or goats and hence never evolved the
lactase gene). How about blood types, the familiar A, B, and O groups? Then Germans and
New Guineans, populations that have the same percentages of each type, are in one race;
Estonians and Japanese comprise a separate one for the same reason. . . . The dark skin of
Somalis and Ghanaians, for instance, indicates that they evolved under the same selective
force (a sunny climate). But that’s all it shows. It does not show that they are any more
closely related in the sense of sharing more genes than either is to Greeks. Calling Somalis
and Ghanaians “black” therefore sheds no further light on their evolutionary history and
implies—wrongly—that they are more closely related to each other than either is to some-
one of a different “race.”
80

As one anthropologist has put it, “Classifying people by color is very much
like classifying cars by color. Those in the same classifi cation look alike . . . but
the classifi cation tells you nothing about the hidden details of construction or
about how the cars or people will perform.”
81

By the late 1960s, a “no race” position came to be widely accepted in physical
anthropology and human genetics. This perspective argues that “(1) Biological
variability exists but this variability does not conform to the discrete packages
labeled races. (2) So-called racial characteristics are not transmitted as complexes.
(3) Races do not exist because isolation of groups has been infrequent; popula-
tions have always interbred.”
82
Yet while there is a kind of “commonsense” under-
standing in the social sciences that race is a social construction, that recognition
has not especially shaped the substance of social science research.
[I]t will suffi ce to point out that virtually all scholars who write about “race and intelligence”
assume that the “races” which they study are distinguished on the basis of biologically
relevant criteria. So accepted is this fact that most scholars engaged in such research never
consider it necessary to justify their assignment of individuals to this or that “race.” . . .
[Thus], the layman who reads the literature on race and racial groupings is justifi ed in
assuming that the existent typologies have been derived through the application of theories
and methods current in disciplines concerned with the biological study of human variation.
Since the scientifi c racial classifi cations which a layman fi nds in the literature are not too
different from popular ones, he can be expected to feel justifi ed in the maintenance of his
views on race.
83

The complexities of incorporating a “no race” position into social science
research is highlighted by how the professional associations in anthropology and
sociology treat the concept. In 1998, the American Anthropological Association
(AAA) adopted an unambiguous “Statement on Race”: “Racial beliefs constitute
myths about the diversity in the human species and about the abilities and behavior
of people homogenized into ‘racial’ categories.” But for the American Sociological
Association (ASA), that does not mean we should stop collecting data on race: its
2002 statement, “The Importance of Collecting Data and Doing Social Scientifi c
Research on Race,” urges the continued study of race as a social phenomenon
because it affects major aspects of social life—including employment, housing,
education, and health. The title of the ASA’s press release on the topic reads,
“Would ‘Race’ Disappear if the United States Offi cially Stopped Collecting Data
on It?” Their answer to that is clearly “no”; anthropologists would certainly agree.
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26 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
Still, the assumption that racial categories are biologically distinctive has not
disappeared—indeed, it gathered strength with the mapping of the human genome
at the beginning of the 21st century. Completion of the Human Genome Project
was met with pronouncements that, fi nally, our notions of race could be put to
rest since humans were found to share shared 99.9 percent of all genetic material.
Yet attention quickly shifted to fi nding groupings within that genetic material and
determining the signifi cance of the 0.1 percent difference. (Because humans and
chimpanzees share 98.7 percent of their genes, for example, that 0.1 percent dif-
ference could make a difference.)
By 2002, in a landmark article published in Science, “researchers announced
that they had ‘identifi ed six main genetic clusters, fi ve of which correspond to
major geographic regions.’” Although race was not mentioned, the “major geo-
graphic regions” that matched the genetic clusters they discovered—Africa,
Eurasia, East Asia, Oceania, and America—were quickly translated into tradi-
tional racial divisions.”
84
Other research along this line followed, using similar
sampling techniques and contributing to a burgeoning data set. Thus, as legal
scholar Dorothy Roberts frames it, “geographic ancestry” emerged as a proxy
for race.
Yet each decision in this research—sampling isolated (and thereby “pure”)
populations rather than regions like India where people are not easily classifi able,
“cherry picking” population samples that fi t preexisting conceptions of race rather
than pursuing a random sample of the global population, deciding that the statis-
tical analysis of a huge data set is best captured by a model of six rather than
twenty geographic regions, as in the Science article—draws on preexisting con-
ceptions of race.
[R]emember, the number of genetic clusters is dictated by the computer user, not the com-
puter program. . . . Rosenberg [lead author of the Science article] later revealed that his
team also analyzed the data set using six to twenty clusters. . . . The larger number of
clusters identifi ed by the study could just as easily have been highlighted to demonstrate
the diffi culty of dividing human beings into genetic races. There is nothing in the team’s
fi ndings to suggest that six clusters represent human population structure better than ten, or
fi fteen, or twenty.
85

The six groupings mapped onto conventional notions of race—indigenous people
from fi ve continents plus one isolated group in Northern Pakistan. Instead of talk-
ing about race, we could talk about ancestry.
New marketing opportunities for “ancestry” fl ourish; each reinforces the idea
of biological races. For example, many students in high school learn about DNA
by sending a sample to a company that analyzes it for the geographic origins of
the student’s family (using the same questionable sampling and data sets described
earlier). Because those geographic groupings are broken down into the continents
we associate with race, it is not surprising that the results are read as being one’s
“racial” composition, as if there were “pure” racial groups and we are some mix
of these (“I am 43 percent European, 26 percent Sub-Saharan African, and
31  percent East Asian,” sounds very much like white, black, and Asian).
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Framework Essay 27
But many more lucrative opportunities exist in the realm of race-specifi c med-
ications, the fi rst of which was BiDil, a 2004 drug for heart disease and the fi rst
race-targeted medication approved by the FDA. (BiDil is a combination of two
generic drugs and thus could be patented as something new.) If race were not
“real,” how could the drug be more effective for African Americans, as the man-
ufacturer claimed? Actually, whether BiDil has a differential effect by race remains
unknown. The fi rst clinical trial of the drug found that a small subsample of
African Americans did better than whites. On that basis, the drug went to a full-
scale clinical trial, but only on self-identifi ed African Americans; there was no
comparison with other groups. Why not? Because the drug’s manufacturer,
NitroMed, “had a fi nancial disincentive for fi nding that BiDil worked regardless
of race—its patent (and market monopoly) applied only to its use by African
American patients.”
86
Ultimately, BiDil was neither especially prescribed nor
used; NitroMed went out of business in 2009.
87

Certainly, the search for “race”-based drugs continues. These efforts to fi nd the
biological distinctiveness of racial categories function much as earlier efforts did,
that is, as a distraction from the social factors that affect the quality and length
of people’s lives.
By looking at what’s in the blood, [geneticists] avoid the messy stuff that happens when
humans interact with each other. It’s easier to look inside the body because genes, proteins,
and SNP [single nucleotide polymorphisms] patterns are far more measurable than the com-
plex dynamics of society. . . .
When you’re talking about genetic diseases, there’s usually something in the environment
that triggers their onset. Shouldn’t we be talking about the trigger?
Take the case of black men and prostate cancer. African-American males have twice
the prostate cancer rate that whites do. Right now, the National Cancer Institute is search-
ing for cancer genes among black men. They’re not asking, How come black men in the
Caribbean and in sub-Saharan Africa have much lower prostate cancer rates than all
American men?
A balanced approach might involve asking, Is there something in the American environ-
ment triggering these high rates? Is it diet, stress or what?
88

The primary signifi cance of race is as a social concept. We “see” race; we
expect it to tell us something signifi cant about a person, and we organize social
policy, law, and the distribution of wealth, power, and prestige around it. From
the essentialist position, race is assumed to exist independently of our perception
of it; it is assumed to signifi cantly distinguish one group of people from another.
From the constructionist perspective, race exists because we have created it as a
meaningful category of difference among people.
Race has been characterized as a biological fiction, but a social fact. Yet
the strength of this fiction suggests that it functions like a contemporary folk
story.
Most Americans do not deduce that biological races exist from sound scientifi c evidence
and reasoning. They are inculcated with this belief in the same way a child is raised in a
religion. Children in the United States learn to divide all people into racial groups and come
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28 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
to have faith in race as a self-evident truth, like a traditional creation story that explains
how the world works.
According to folklorist Judith Neulander, for a folk story to persist it must contain “ele-
ments that can be modifi ed without changing what the tale is about,” enabling it “to dodge
later discreditation” Science has been responsible for giving racial folklore its superfi cial
plausibility by updating its defi nitions, measurements, and rationales without changing what
the tale is about: once upon a time human beings all over the world were divided into large
biological groups called races.
Believing in race can be compared to believing in astrology. People who have faith in
astrology fi nd constant confi rmation that horoscope predictions are reliable and that astro-
logical signs determine personality types.
89

Dichotomizing Sexuality Many similarities have existed in the construction of
race and sexuality categories. First, historically both have been dichotomized—
into black/white, white/nonwhite, or gay/straight—and individuals have been
expected to fi t easily into one category or the other. Scientists have also sought
biological differences between gay and straight people just as they have looked
for such differences between the “races.” Usually the search has been for what
causes same-sex attraction, rather than for what causes heterosexuality—the point
made by Martin Rochlin’s Heterosexual Questionnaire (Reading 17). But, as with
investigations of race difference, the research is suspect here as well, because we
are unlikely to fi nd any biological structure or process that all gay people share
but no straight people have. Still, as Roger Lancaster describes in Reading 16,
the conviction that such differences must exist propels the search and leads to the
popularization of questionable fi ndings.
As with race, sexual identity appears more straightforward than it really is.
Because sexuality encompasses physical, social, and emotional attraction, as
well as fantasies, self-identity, and actual sexual behavior over a lifetime, deter-
mining one’s sexual “identity” may require emphasizing one of these features
over the others. Further, there is no necessary correspondence between identity
and sexual behavior (which Esther Rothblum explores for women in Reading 30).
Someone who self-identifi es as gay is still likely to have had some heterosexual
experience; someone who self-identifi es as straight may have had some same-sex
experience; and even those who have had no sexual experience may lay claim
to being gay or straight. Identity is not always directly tied to behavior. Indeed,
a person who self-identifi es as gay may have had more heterosexual experience
than someone who self-identifi es as straight. Yet just as the system of racial
classifi cation asks people to pick one race, the sexual-identity system has so far
required that all the different aspects of sexuality be distilled into one of two
options.
For example, an acquaintance described the process by which he came to self-
identify as gay. In high school and college he had dated and been sexually active
with women, but his relationships with men had always been more important to
him. He looked to men for emotional and social gratifi cation, as well as for relief
from the “gender games” he felt required to play with women. He had been
engaged to be married, but when that ended, he spent his time exclusively with
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Framework Essay 29
other men. Eventually, he established a sexual relationship with another man and
came to identify himself as gay. His experience refl ects the varied dimensions of
sexuality and shows the resolution of those differences by choosing a single sex-
ual identity.
Until recently, “gay” and “straight” would have been his only real options.
Despite commonplace use of the term, bisexuality has rarely been taken seriously
by sex researchers or those in the gay and lesbian communities, where bisexual-
ity has been demeaned as a phase, a form of homophobia, or simple promiscuity.
The possibility of male bisexuality has especially been discounted by self- identifi ed
gay men.
Describing “biphobia” and “bi erasure,” a newly emerging movement of self-
identifi ed bisexuals has been supported by survey and sexuality research. In 2011,
the Williams Institute, which specializes in LGBT research, reported on their
review of eleven surveys, fi nding that “among adults who identify as L.G.B.,
bisexuals comprise a slight majority.”
90
Indeed, one of the larger surveys the
Williams Institute reviewed found that more American adults identifi ed them-
selves as bisexual than as gay/lesbian (3.1 percent compared to 2.5 percent).
Similarly, as population sampling and sexuality research methods have broad-
ened, it has become possible to demonstrate patterns of arousal that are bisex-
ual,
91
with one possibility that “what makes a bisexual person may be less about
what they’re strongly attracted to and more about what they’re not averse to.”
92

While sexual fl uidity has long been seen as a characteristic of women but not
men, even the author of one of our readings, Lisa Diamond, has revised her
opinion. Five years after the publication of her 2009 book (from which our read-
ing is taken), she presented a paper titled “I Was Wrong! Men are Pretty Darn
Sexually Fluid, Too!”
93

Why has bisexuality been so systematically “erased”? The convenience of
dichotomous thinking, fear of prejudice (people who identify as straight appear
to have more negative attitudes about those who are bisexual than about those
who are gay or lesbian);
94
lack of visible bisexuals (only 28 percent of people
who identify as bisexual say they are open about it);
95
and the very contentious
debate about whether sexuality is fi xed and innate or changeable, would all have
contributed to the invisibility of bisexuality. Finally, people may simply want to
reduce the complexity of their lives: “To come out as bisexual now would be like
starting over in a way. My mom and dad would fall over. It was hard enough to
convince them that I was gay.”
96

To return to our initial comparison of sexual identity and race, one last analogy
bears discussion. Most Americans would not question the logic of this sentence:
“Tom has been married for 30 years and has a dozen children, but I think he’s
really gay.” In a real-life illustration of the same logic, a young man and woman
were often seen kissing on our campus. When this became the subject of a class
discussion, a suggestive ripple of laughter went through the room: Everyone
“knew” that the young man was really gay.
How could they “know” that? For such conclusions to make sense, we
must believe that someone could be gay irrespective of his or her actual behavior.
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30 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
Just as it is possible in this culture for one to be “black” even if one looks “white,”
apparently one may be gay despite acting straight. Just as “black” can be estab-
lished by any African heritage, “gay” is apparently established by displaying any
behavior thought to be associated with gays, especially for men. Indeed, “gay”
can be “established” by reputation alone, by a failure to demonstrate heterosexu-
ality, or even by the demonstration of an overly aggressive heterosexuality. There-
fore, “gay” can be assigned no matter what one does. In this sense, “gay” can
function as an essential identity, 97 that is, an identity assigned to an individual
irrespective of his or her actual behavior, as in “I know she’s a genius even
though she’s fl unking all her courses.” Because no behavior can ever conclusively
prove one is not gay, this label is an extremely effective mechanism of social
control.
In all, several parallels exist between race and sexuality classifi cations. At least
until recently, we have assumed there are a limited number of possibilities—
usually two, but no more than three—and we have assumed individuals can easily
fi t into one option. We have treated both race and sexuality as encompassing
populations that are internally homogeneous and profoundly dissimilar from each
other. In both cases, this presumption of difference has prompted a wide-ranging
search for the biological distinctiveness of the categories. Different races and
sexualities have been judged superior and inferior to one another, and members
of each category historically have been granted unequal legal and social rights.
Finally, we have assumed that sexual orientation, like skin color, tells us some-
thing meaningful about a person.
You may notice we used the past tense in the previous paragraph. This is
because it seems to us that the traditional race and sexuality systems are undergo-
ing change, although probably not to the same extent. As with the increasing
presence of people who identify as multiracial, bisexuality has emerged as a
category around which people organize. The outstanding question, however, is
whether bisexuality will emerge as a “third” option, or upend our notions of
sexuality altogether. College students and perhaps young people generally appear
to have an increasing desire to move away from gender and sexuality labels.
Accompanying the increased visibility and acceptance of both gay and transgen-
der people—and the conceptual system that understands these as separate deci-
sions, one about sexuality and the other about sex—there is a case that youth
especially are less inclined to sexuality/gender classifi cations and more open in
their own sexual behavior. We are not sure how widespread this change is, but
have included in the readings an article by Eric Anderson (Reading 55), who
contends that we are now past the era of “homohysteria.” Anderson’s conclusions
are at odds with other readings in this volume, but we think this speaks to the
real lack of clarity about the future of American sexuality and gender systems.
We turn now to the topic of dichotomies in gender.
Dichotomizing Sex and Gender As is the case for sexuality, the meanings of
the terms sex and gender have also become destabilized. Traditionally, research in
the social sciences used sex to refer to females and males—that is, to chromosomal,
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Framework Essay 31
hormonal, anatomical, and physiological differences—and gender to describe the
socially constructed roles associated with each sex, that is, masculinity and femi-
ninity. Over the last thirty or so years, however, gender has come to be used in
popular culture to encompass both biological differences and social behavior. For
example, it has become common to see descriptions of male and female voting
patterns as gender differences, rather than as sex differences. In this same period,
many scholars in the humanities and social sciences began conceptualizing sex in
ways similar to gender, that is, they came to the conclusion that biological sex,
like masculinity and femininity, was socially created. Thus, the language of schol-
arship also turned toward gender and away from sex.
Like sexuality, even physiological/biological sex refers to a complex set of
attributes that may sometimes be inconsistent with one another or with individu-
als’ sense of their own identity. As Alice Dreger in Reading 9 describes, even
those on the Olympic Committee who want to use a hormone-based system to
identify the sex of athletes (rather than letting the athletes self-identify), under-
stand that determining sex is very complicated. As Dreger writes, “There’s no one
magical gene, chromosome, hormone, or body part that can do for us the hard
work of sharp division into male and female leagues.” Ultimately, biological/
physiological sex is the product of a decision.
But in day-to-day life, rather than recognize the complexity of sex, we have
commonly assumed that there are two and only two sexes and that people can be
easily classifi ed as one or the other. Despite the popularity of the word gender,
apart from scholars the language of gender has not signaled a move away from
the idea of biological sex as fi xed and dichotomous. Rather, just as with race and
sexuality categories, people are assigned as male or female irrespective of incon-
sistent or ambiguous evidence. Indeed, as Riki Wilchins describes in Reading 10,
we have tried to make bodies “at the margins” fi t into our existing categories. Out
of the imperative that there be consistency between the physical and the psycho-
logical, some people pursue sex change surgery to produce a body consistent with
their self-identity. Others pursue psychotherapy to fi nd a self-identity consistent
with their body. In either case, it has made more sense to use surgery and/or
therapy to create consistency than to accept inconsistency.
All of this now seems up for discussion. A move away from the idea of bio-
logical sex as unitary, binary, and fi xed has been spurred by transgender activism,
which encompasses people who live as a gender different from their birth assign-
ment, who identify with neither of the currently available biological sexes, who
feel themselves to be both genders simultaneously or sequentially, whose biologi-
cal/physiological sex is inconsistent, who have undergone sex reassignment hor-
mone treatment or surgery, and/or who cross dress occasionally or regularly.
Since the early 1990s when the term was coined, the category trans-gender has come to be
understood as a collective category of identity which incorporates a diverse array of male-
and female-bodied gender variant people who had previously been understood as distinct
kinds of persons, including self-identifi ed transexuals and transvestites. . . . In its collectiv-
ity, the capacity of transgender to incorporate all gender variance has become a powerful
tool of activism and personal identifi cation. And, even more remarkably, in the period since
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32 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
the early 1990s it has already become institutionalized in a vast range of contexts, from
grassroots activism, social service provision, and individual identifi cation, to journalistic
accounts. . . . Most importantly, transgender identifi cation is understood across these
domains to be explicitly and fundamentally different in origin and being from homosexual
identifi cation. . . . In short, “transgender” has changed the terms by which U.S. Americans
understand and differentiate between gendered and sexual variance.
98

Although it is not yet “mainstream” to treat sex as neither fi xed nor dichoto-
mous, it is not marginal either. For example, in 2014 Facebook added an option
that provided about fi fty different terms people could use to identify their sex;
advertisements run by luxury retailer Barneys New York featured transgender
models; newspaper space was devoted to the experience of parents whose young
children rejected gender binaries; and courts ruled on which bathrooms transgen-
der elementary students may use. Perhaps most important, “transgender” (rather
than transgender ed , which connotes directionality) has become a way to identify
oneself. Intrinsic to that self-identifi cation is movement beyond the simple gender/
sex binary that has predominated until now.
Dichotomizing Class Any discussion of social class in the United States must
begin with the understanding that Americans “almost never speak of themselves
or their society in class terms. In other words, class is not a central category of
cultural discourse in America.”
99
Indeed, considering the time and attention
Americans devote to sexual orientation, sex/gender, or race, it is hard not to con-
clude that discussion of social class is “the last taboo.”
100
Because social class is
so seldom discussed, the vocabulary for talking about it is not well developed.
Class analyses . . . are not curricular themes covered in schools at the primary or secondary
level and are seldom included in university-level courses. . . . Every major U.S. daily news-
paper includes a separate business section, but none includes a separate “class” or even
“labor” section. . . . Politicians typically avoid class-based rhetoric, especially the use of
language and policy labels that might openly emphasize or reveal the confl icting economic
and political interests of working-class versus privileged-class members. . . . [P]olitical
candidates, especially presidential candidates, who violate what amounts to an unwritten
rule against framing class inequalities as legitimate public policy issues, risk being accused
of promoting divisive and disruptive “class warfare” by privileged-class-based mainstream
media pundits. . . . Only two exceptions exist to the taboo on public discussions of class
issues. First, it is acceptable to discuss the “middle class” and problems faced by this class.
Because large numbers of Americans identify themselves as middle class, references to
this  group actually serve to disguise and mute class differences because the term is so
inclusive. . . . The second exception to avoidance of class issues includes mass media
glimpses into the lives of the privileged class, as well as tours of the excluded class. . . .
The glamour of life at the top is routinely showcased on both conventional and tabloid style
TV news magazines. . . . The grim realities of life-at-the-bottom experiences turn up most
often on occasional PBS or cable TV documentaries. . . .
101

Despite its relative invisibility, as Michael Zweig notes in Reading 12, social
class operates in ways quite similar to race and sex. That is, just as American culture
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Framework Essay 33
offers interpretations of what differences in color or sex mean, it also provides
interpretations about what differences in income, wealth, or occupation might mean.
As sociologists Perrucci and Wysong noted in the quote above, social class is also
often dichotomized, usually into those called poor and those called middle class.
What is especially interesting about this language of “poor” and “middle class”
is the degree to which it masks the real polarization of income in American society,
which now can be described as between the rich and everyone else. As Timothy
Noah writes in Reading 14, the share of total income going to the top earners
increased steadily after the 1970s, while the share going to middle- and low-
earners shrank. Social scientists have been aware of this change for some time; it
is especially signifi cant since it reverses the closing of the income gap that took
place between the 1930s and 1970s. As Noah notes, no one would have expected
an advanced industrial democracy to become more unequal over time. The growth
of this gap seems to have been unaffected by the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009:
from 2009 to 2011 the income of the top 1 percent of families grew by 11.2  percent,
while the income of the bottom 99 percent shrunk by 0.4 percent.
102

Thus, “In simple but stark terms, by the end of the twentieth century all of the
declines in inequality achieved in the New and Fair Deals had been wiped out
and the United States had unambiguously returned to levels of inequality not seen
since the laissez-faire era of the 1920s.”
103
Despite the recent Great Recession,
the fl eeting Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011, and the fact that the vast
majority of Americans have been negatively affected by change in income distri-
bution over the last thirty years, it still can be argued that class is not a central
category of cultural discourse in America. How can this be the case?
Just as American culture offers interpretations of what differences in color or
sex mean, it also provides interpretations about what differences in income,
wealth, or occupation might mean. In the Framework Essay for Section III we
will more thoroughly discuss the concept of ideology —culturally dominating
beliefs which, though widely shared, refl ect the experience of only a few—but
ideology certainly helps understand why social class remains an underdeveloped
concept in American culture.
For example, it is a commonplace American belief that social class refl ects a
person’s merit rather than social or economic forces. Surveys show that over half
of the American public believes “that lack of effort by the poor was the principal
reason for poverty, or a reason at least equal to any that was beyond a person’s
control. . . . Popular majorities did not consider any other factor to be a very
important cause of poverty—not low wages, or a scarcity of jobs, or discrimina-
tion, or even sickness.”
104

The belief that merit is rewarded—and, conversely, that the lack of merit is
punished—stands as a uniquely American belief. As Noah writes, surveys consis-
tently show that Americans— more than people of any other country —believe that
people are rewarded for their intelligence, skill, and effort. The American attach-
ment to this belief is particularly ironic, since, as Noah discusses, virtually every
developed nation in the world has more income mobility than the United States.
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34 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
That Americans could persist in a belief so detached from reality speaks to the
power of ideology.
But Americans have not always thought this way. In the early part of the 20th
century, those who were poor were more likely to be considered hardworking,
economically productive, constrained by artifi cial barriers, and probably in the
majority. Today, however, “many of the least well off are not regarded as produc-
tive in any respect”
105
; popular opinion and even social science research are more
likely to explain social class standing in terms of individual attributes and values
rather than economic changes or discrimination.
106
Although it is beyond the scope
of this text, these ideologies changed in response to new economic assumptions
and policies (generally called neoliberalism). Thus, while ideologies are embed-
ded in social context, but they are not outside historical change.
This attribution of poverty and wealth to individual merit hides not only the
complex reality of American social class, it is an essentialist myth that legitimates
the dramatic and increasing inequality of American society.
Dichotomization and Disability Our discussion of race, sexuality, sex and
gender, and social class has emphasized that each of these categories encompasses
a continuum of behavior and characteristics rather than a fi nite set of discrete or
easily separated groupings. It has also stressed that difference is a social creation—
that differences of color or sex, for example, have no meaning other than what is
attributed to them.
Can the same be said about disability? It is often assumed that people are eas-
ily classed as disabled or nondisabled, but that is no more true in this case than
it is for the other master statuses. Sociologist Irving Zola provided the classic
critique of how our use of statistics contributes to this misconception.
The way we report statistics vis-à-vis disability and disease is generally misleading. If we
speak of ratio fi gures for a particular disease as 1 in 8, 1 in 14, etc., we perpetuate what
Rene Dubos (1961) once called “The Mirage of Health.” For these numbers convey that if
1 person in 10 does get a particular disease, that 9 out of 10 do not. This means, however,
only that those 9 people do not get that particular disease. It does not mean that they are
disease-free, nor are they likely to be so. . . .
Similarly deceptive is the now-popular fi gure of “43 million people with a disability” . . .
for it implies that there are over 200 million Americans without a disability. . . . But the
metaphor of being but a banana-peel slip away from disability is inappropriate. The issue
of disability for individuals . . . is not whether but when , not so much which one but how
many and in what combination. 107
Apart even from how we count the disabled, how do we determine the dis-
ability of any particular person, on any particular day? Zola describes his experi-
ence of being able to work longer hours than others on an assembly line because
his torso was in a brace;
108
although he was “disabled,” on the line he was also
less disabled than others. This situation, where impairment is relative, is more the
rule than the exception and thus undermines notions about fi xed distinctions
between disability and nondisability.
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Framework Essay 35
Constructing the “Other”
We have seen how the complexity of a population may be reduced to aggregates
and then to a simplistic dichotomy. Aggregation assumes that those who share a
master status are alike in “essential” ways. It ignores the multiple and confl icting
statuses any individual inevitably occupies. Dichotomization especially promotes
the image of a mythical other who is not at all like us. Whether in race, sex,
sexuality, social class, or disability, dichotomization yields a vision of “them” as
profoundly different. Ultimately, dichotomization results in stigmatizing those
who are less powerful. It provides the grounds for whole categories of people to
become the objects of contempt.
Constructing “Others” as Profoundly Different The expectation that “others”
are profoundly different can be seen most clearly in the signifi cance that has been
attached to sex differences. In this case, biological differences between males and
females have been the grounds from which to infer an extensive range of nonbio-
logical differences. Women and men are assumed to differ from each other in behav-
ior, perception, and personality, and such differences are used to argue for different
legal, social, and economic roles and rights. The expectation that men and women
are not at all alike is so widespread that we often talk about them as members of the
“opposite” sex; indeed, it is not unusual to talk about the “war” between the sexes.
While this assumption of difference undergirds everyday life, few signifi cant
differences in behavior, personality, or even physical ability have been found
between men and women of any age. Indeed, there are more differences within
each sex than between the sexes. Psychologist Susan Basow illustrates this point
in the following:
The all-or-none categorizing of gender traits is misleading. People just are not so simple
that they either possess all of a trait or none of it. This is even more true when trait dispo-
sitions for groups of people are examined. Part [a] of Figure 2 [next page] illustrates what
such an all-or-none distribution of the trait “strength” would look like: all males would be
strong, all females weak. The fact is, most psychological and physical traits are distributed
according to the pattern shown in Part [b] of Figure 2 with most people possessing an aver-
age amount of that trait and fewer people having either very much or very little of that trait.
To the extent that females and males may differ in the average amount of the trait they
possess (which needs to be determined empirically), the distribution can be characterized by
overlapping normal curves, as shown in Part [c] of Figure 2 . Thus, although most men are
stronger than most women, the shaded area indicates that some men are weaker than some
women and vice versa. The amount of overlap of the curves generally is considerable. Another
attribute related to overlapping normal curves is that differences within one group are usually
greater than the differences between the two groups. Thus, more variation in strength occurs
within a group of men than between the average male and the average female.
109

The lack of difference between women and men is especially striking given
the degree to which we are all socialized to produce such differences. Thus, while
boys and girls, and men and women, are often treated differently as well as social-
ized to be different, this does not mean they inevitably become different. Yet, even
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36 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
though decades of research have confi rmed few sex differences, the search for
difference continues and some suggest it may even have been intensifi ed by the
failure to fi nd many differences.
The same expectation that the “other” differs in personality or behavior emerges
in race, class, and sexuality classifi cations. Race differences are expected to
involve more than just differences of color, those who are “gay” or “straight” are
expected to differ in more ways than just their sexual orientation, and social
classes are expected to differ in more than their income. In each case, scientifi c
research is often directed toward fi nding such differences.
Sanctioning Those Who Associate with the “Other” There are also simi-
larities in the sanctions against those who cross race, sex, class, or sexual orien-
tation boundaries. Parents sometimes disown children who marry outside of their
racial or social class group, just as they often sever connections with children who
are gay. Those who associate with the “other” are also in danger of being labeled
a member of that category.
For example, during the Reconstruction period following the Civil War, the fear
of invisible black ancestry was pervasive among southern whites, because that
heritage would subject them to a restricted life based on de jure segregation.
“Concern about people passing as white became so great that even behaving like
blacks or willingly associating with them were often treated as more important
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a. All-or-none distribution
b. Normal distribution
c. Overlapping normal curves
Females
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F I G U R E 2
Three types of distribution for the trait “strength.” (Basow, 1992:8; Figure 1 )
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Framework Essay 37
than any proof of actual black ancestry.”
110
Thus, southern whites who associated
with blacks ran the risk of being defi ned as black.
A contemporary parallel can be found in gay/straight relations. Those who
associate with gays and lesbians or defend gay rights are often presumed—by
gays and straights alike—to be gay. Many men report that when they object to
homophobic remarks, they simply become the target of them. Indeed, the prestige
of young men in fraternities and other all-male groups often rests on a willingness
to disparage women and gays.
Similarly, few contemporary reactions are as strongly negative as that against
men who appear feminine. Because acting like a woman is so disparaged, boys
learn at an early age to control their behavior or suffer public humiliation. This
ridicule has its greatest effect on young men; the power and prestige usually
available to older men reduces their susceptibility to such accusations. Young men
must avoid a long list of behaviors for fear of being called feminine or gay: don’t
be too emotional, watch how you sit, don’t move your hips when you walk, take
long strides, don’t put your hands on your hips, don’t talk too much, don’t let
your voice show emotion, don’t be too compliant or eager to please, and so on.
Because boys and men who exhibit such traits are often assumed to be gay,
they become targets for verbal and physical abuse. In Reading 28, for example,
C.J. Pascoe describes the ubiquity and function of the “fag trope” in an American
high school:
Fag talk and fag imitations serve as a discourse with which boys discipline themselves and
each other through joking relationships. Any boy can temporarily become a fag in a given
social space or interaction. This does not mean that boys who identify as or are perceived
to be homosexual aren’t subject to intense harassment. Many are. But becoming a fag has
as much to do with failing at the masculine tasks of competence, heterosexual prowess, and
strength or in any way revealing weakness or femininity, as it does with a sexual identity.
This fl uidity of the fag identity is what makes the specter of the fag such a powerful disci-
plinary mechanism. It is fl uid enough that boys police their behaviors out of fear of having
the fag identity permanently adhere. . . .
The popular linkage of effeminate behavior with gay sexuality is so strong that
it may be the primary criterion most Americans use to decide who is gay:
A  “ masculine” man must be straight; a “feminine” man must be gay. But gender
and sexual orientation are separate phenomena. Knowing that someone is a mas-
culine man or a feminine woman does not tell us what that person’s sexual ori-
entation is—indeed, our guesses are most likely to be “false negatives”; that is,
we are most likely to falsely identify someone as straight. Because we do not
know who among us is gay, we cannot accurately judge how gay people behave.
In the world of mutual “othering,” being labeled one of “them” is a remarkably
effective social control mechanism. Boys and men control their behavior so that
they are not called gay. Members of racial and ethnic groups maintain distance
from one another to avoid the criticism that might be leveled by members of their
own and other groups. These social controls are effective because all parties con-
tinue to enforce them.
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38 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
Stigma
The term stigma comes from ancient Greece, where it meant a “bodily sign
designed to expose something unusual and bad about the moral status of [an
individual].” Such signs were “cut or burnt into the body to advertise that the
bearer was a slave, a criminal, or a blemished person, ritually polluted, to be
avoided, especially in public places.”
111
Stigmatized people are those “marked”
as bad, unworthy, and polluted because of the category they belong to: for exam-
ple, because of their disability, or their race, sex, sexuality, or social class category.
The core assumption behind stigma is that internal merit is revealed through
external features—for the Greeks, that a brand or a cut showed a person’s lack
of moral worth. This is not an unusual linkage. For example, physically attractive
people are often assumed to possess a variety of positive attributes. We often
assume that people who look good must be good.
Judgments of worth based on membership in certain categories have a self-
fulfi lling potential. Those who are judged superior by virtue of their membership
in some category are given more opportunity to prove themselves; those who are
judged less worthy by virtue of membership in a stigmatized category have dif-
fi culty establishing their merit no matter what they do. For example, social psy-
chology experiments show that many whites perceive blacks as incompetent,
regardless of evidence to the contrary: white subjects were “reluctant or unable
to recognize that a black person is higher or equal in intelligence compared to
themselves.”
112
This would explain why many whites react negatively to affi rma-
tive action programs. If they cannot conceive of black applicants being more
qualifi ed than whites, they will see such programs as mandates to hire the less
qualifi ed.
Stigma involves objectifi cation and devaluation. Objectifi cation means treating
people as if they were objects, members of a category rather than possessors of
individual characteristics. In objectifi cation, the “living, breathing, complex indi-
vidual” ceases to be seen or valued.
113
In its extreme, those who are objectifi ed
are “viewed as having no other noteworthy status or identity. When that point is
reached, a person becomes nothing but ‘a delinquent,’ ‘a cripple,’ ‘a homosexual,’
‘a black,’ ‘a woman.’ The indefi nite article ‘a’ underlines the depersonalized
nature of such response.”
114

Examples of Stigmatized Master Statuses: Women, Poor People, and Disabled
People Sociologist Edwin Schur argues that because women are subject to both
objectifi cation and devaluation, they are discredited, that is, stigmatized. First, con-
sidering objectifi cation, Schur argues that women are seen
as all alike, and therefore substitutable for one another; as innately passive and objectlike;
as easily ignored, dismissed, trivialized, treated as childlike, and even as a non-person; as
having a social standing only through their attachments to men (or other non-stigmatized
groups); and as a group which can be easily victimized through harassment, violence, and
discrimination.
115

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Framework Essay 39
Objectifi cation occurs when women are thought of as generally indistinguish-
able from one another; for example, when someone says, “Let’s get the woman’s
angle on this story.” It also occurs when women are treated as nothing more than
their body parts, for example, when young girls are assumed to be sexually pro-
miscuous because they are big-breasted; they are nothing more than their cup size;
they are objects.
The T-shirt designed for a 2012 fraternity party at Amherst College exemplifi es
both objectifi cation and devaluation:
[W]hen a fraternity at self-described “elite” Amherst College in Massachusetts (not a big
university in the South where we stereotypically assume these things occur) designed a
T-shirt for their pig roast party of a pig smoking a cigar and watching a naked woman roast
on a spit with the words ROASTING FAT ONES SINCE 1847, the guys didn’t understand
why that was such a problem. Here’s Dana Bloger, a female student at Amherst, explaining
why the T-shirt is a problem:
The woman on the shirt is depicted as an animal—or rather, as inferior to an animal,
since she has not only replaced the pig on the spit but is being roasted by it. She is
objectifi ed as a literal piece of meat, whose thoughts, feelings, and humanity are rendered
nonexistent and her consent therefore irrelevant. The hypersexualization of her body links
violence with sex, thus perpetuating the notion that violence is sexy and sexuality violent.
While I am not suggesting that this image would ever directly cause the infl iction of
violence on any individual woman, dehumanization is always the fi rst step toward justi-
fying such violence.
116

African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and gay/lesbian people are often
similarly treated as indistinguishable from one another. Indeed, hate crimes have
been defi ned by precisely this quality of interchangeability, such as an attack on
any black family that moves into a neighborhood or the assault of any woman or
man who looks gay. Hate crimes are also marked by excessive brutality and per-
sonal violence rather than property destruction—all of which indicate that the
victims have been objectifi ed.
Some members of stigmatized categories objectify themselves in the same
ways that they are objectifi ed by others. Thus, women may evaluate their own
worth or the worth of other women in terms of physical appearance. In the process
of self-objectifi cation, a woman “joins the spectators of herself”; that is, she views
herself as if from the outside, as if she were nothing more than what she looked
like.
117
While young men are also objectifi ed in terms of their bodies, over their
lifetime they are likely to be objectifi ed in terms of wealth and power.
There is a strong case that American women as a category continue to remain
devalued, a conclusion drawn from the characteristics most frequently attributed
to men and women. Research conducted over the last forty years has documented
a remarkable consistency in those attributes. Both sexes are described as possessing
valued qualities, but the characteristics attributed to men are more valued in the
culture as a whole. For example, the female-valued characteristics include being
talkative, gentle, religious, aware of the feelings of others, security oriented, and
attentive to personal appearance. Male-valued traits include being aggressive,
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40 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
independent, unemotional, objective, dominant, active, competitive, logical,
adventurous, and direct.
118

i
(Remember that these attributes are only people’s
beliefs about sex differences.)
In many ways, the characteristics attributed to women are inconsistent with
core American values. Although American culture values achievement, individual-
ism, and action—all understood as male attributes—women are expected to sub-
ordinate their own desires for individual achievement to the needs of their family.
Therefore, “women are asked to become the kind of people that this culture does
not value.”
120
Thus, it is more acceptable for women to display masculine traits,
since these are culturally valued, than it is for men to display the less-valued
feminine characteristics.
Much of what we have described about the stigmatization of women applies
to people who are poor as well. Indeed, being poor is a much more obviously
shameful status than being female. The category poor is intrinsically devalued.
As Paul Gorski describes in Reading 33, it is presumed that there is little com-
mendable to be said about people who are poor; “they” are primarily constructed
as a “problem.” Poor people are also objectifi ed; they are described as “ the poor,”
as if they were all alike, substitutable for and interchangeable with one another.
Most of the writing about poor people, even by sympathetic observers, tells us that they are
different, truly strangers in our midst: Poor people think, feel, and act in ways unlike
middle-class Americans. . . .
We can think about poor people as “them” or as “us.” For the most part, Americans have
talked about “them.” Even in the language of social science, as well as in ordinary conver-
sation and political rhetoric, poor people usually remain outsiders, strangers to be pitied or
despised, helped or punished, ignored or studied, but rarely full citizens, members of a larger
community on the same terms as the rest of us. They are . . . “those people,” objects of
curiosity, analysis, prurience, or compassion, not subjects who construct their own lives and
history. Poor people seem cardboard cutouts, fi gures in single dimension, members of infe-
rior categories, rarely complex, multifaceted, even contradictory in the manner of other
persons.
121

And, like women, those who are poor are not expected to display attributes valued
in the culture as a whole.
Everything that we have described about stigma also applies directly to the expe-
rience of disabled people. The concept of stigma was initially developed by soci-
ologist Erving Goffman with disabled people in mind, and there are so many ways
that the term applies that it is diffi cult to select a single focus. From assumptions
that one is pitiable, sick, unhappy, incompetent, dependent, childlike, unattractive,
i
“Compared with White women, Black women are viewed as less passive, dependent, status conscious,
emotional and concerned about their appearance. . . . Hispanic women tend to be viewed as more
‘feminine’ than White women in terms of submissiveness and dependence. . . . [A] similar stereotype
holds for Asian women, but with the addition of exotic sexuality. . . . Native-American women
typically are stereotyped as faceless . . . drudges without any personality. . . . Jewish women are
stereotyped as either pushy, vain ‘princesses’ or overprotective, manipulative ‘Jewish mothers’ . . .
working-class women are stereotyped as more hostile, confused, inconsiderate and irresponsible than
middle-class women . . . and lesbians are stereotyped as possessing masculine traits.”
119

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Framework Essay 41
and sexually undesirable, to notions that disability is a punishment for sin, disabled
people are cast as essentially unworthy.
In addition to the stigma, those who are disabled—like many others in stigma-
tized categories—must also manage the paternalism of those who are not disabled.
Taken from the position of a father toward his children, paternalism is the auto-
matic assumption of superiority.
Paternalism is often subtle in that it casts the oppressor as benign, as protector. . . . Paternal-
ism often must transform its subjects into children or people with childlike qualities. . . .
Paternalism is experienced as the bystander grabs the arm of a blind person and, without
asking, ‘helps’ the person across the street. . . . It is most of all, however, the assumption
that people with disabilities are intrinsically inferior and unable to take responsibility for
their own lives.
122

For those of us outside the stigmatized group, a paternalistic attitude is
dangerous because it keeps us from actually seeing the person in front of us:
“A person who cannot see or is using a wheelchair for mobility may be a happy,
prosperous, well-adjusted person, but most people encountering him or her
immediately feel pity.”
123

Stereotypes About People in Stigmatized Master Statuses Finally, in an
effort to capture the general features of what “we” say about “them,” let us con-
sider fi ve common stereotypes about individuals in stigmatized master statuses.
First, they are presumed to lack the values the culture holds dear. Neither
women nor those who are poor, disabled, gay, black, Asian American, or Latino
are expected to be independent, unemotional, objective, dominant, active, com-
petitive, logical, adventurous, or direct. Stigmatized people are presumed to lack
precisely those values that nonstigmatized people are expected to possess.
Second, stigmatized people are likely to be seen as a problem. Certainly black,
Latino, and Native American men and women, gay and lesbian people of all
colors, white women, all disabled people, and people living in poverty are con-
structed as having problems and being problems. Often the implication is that
they are also responsible for many of our national problems. While public celebra-
tions often highlight the historic contributions of such groups to the culture, little
in the public discourse lauds their current contributions. Indeed, those in stigma-
tized categories are often constructed as nothing but a problem, as if they did not
exist apart from those problems. This was once illustrated by a black student who
described her shock at hearing white students describe her middle-class neighbor-
hood as a “ghetto.”
Ironically, this depiction of stigmatized people as nothing but a problem is often
accompanied by the trivialization of those problems. For example, there is a sig-
nifi cant gap between black and white assessments of the persistence of race dis-
crimination. The same gap holds in terms of the perception of sex discrimination:
On the one hand, men and women largely agree that discrimination against women was
much greater in the past compared to the present. . . . [On the other hand], men perceive
the discrimination gap (the relative degrees of discrimination facing women versus men) to
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42 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
be smaller at all time periods than women do. Moreover, men believe that there is now
relatively little difference in the amount of discrimination facing men versus women.
124

Similarly, despite the participation of thousands of people in annual Gay Pride
marches throughout the country, images from the parades typically trivialize par-
ticipants by focusing on the small number in drag or leather. Indeed, much of
what is disparaged as “gay lifestyle” has been forged by gay and lesbian people
who have been excluded from mainstream, heterosexual society. Finally, despite
dramatic federal reductions in the cash assistance programs to poor people begun
in 1994 under President Bill Clinton’s pledge to “end welfare as we know it,”
stereotypes about poor people getting government “handouts” persist. In all, the
problems that stigmatized categories of people create for those in privileged sta-
tuses are highlighted, while the problems they experience are discounted, espe-
cially those problems created by “us.”
Third, people in stigmatized master statuses are often stereotyped as lacking
self-control; they are characterized as being lustful, immoral, and carriers of dis-
ease.
125
Currently, such accusations hold center stage in the depiction of gay men,
but historically such charges have been leveled at African American, Latino, and
Asian American men (e.g., Chinese immigrants in the late 19th century). Poor
women and women of color have been and continue to be depicted as promiscu-
ous, while poor men and women are presumed to be morally irresponsible.
Fourth, people in stigmatized categories are often marked as having too much
or too little intelligence, and in either case as tending to deception or criminality.
Many stigmatized categories of people have been assumed to use their “excessive”
intelligence to unfair advantage. This was historically the charge against Jews,
and now appears to be a characterization of Asian Americans.
[T]he educational achievement of Asian American students was, and continues to be,
followed by a wave of reaction. The image of Asian Americans as diligent super-students
has often kindled resentment in other students. Sometimes called “damned curve raisers,” a
term applied fi rst to Jewish students at elite East Coast colleges during the 1920s and 1930s,
Asian American students have increasingly found themselves taking the brunt of campus
racial jokes.
126

Fifth, people in stigmatized categories are depicted as both childlike and
savagely brutal. Historically, characterizations of Native Americans, enslaved
Africans, and Chinese immigrants refl ected these conceptions. Currently, the same
is true for the poor in their representation as both pervasively violent and
irresponsible. A related depiction of women as both “virgins and whores” has
been well documented in scholarship over time.
Perhaps because people in stigmatized master statuses are stereotyped as devi-
ant, it appears that those who commit violence against them are less severely
punished. For example, “most murders in the USA are intra-racial, that is, the
alleged perpetrator and the victim are of the same race. . . . Yet of the 845
prisoners executed between 17 January 1977 and 10 April 2003, 53 percent were
whites convicted of killing whites and 10 percent were blacks convicted of killing
blacks.”
127
Although a number of factors are operating here, one conclusion is
that  stigmatized minority victims are valued less than white victims. The same
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conclusion could be reached in terms of the punishment meted out to those
accused of sexual assault. “Major offenses against women, which we profess to
consider deviant, in practice have been responded to with much ambivalence.”
128

Indeed, some have argued that one way to recognize a stigmatized category of
people is that the violence directed at them is not treated seriously.
Overall, individuals in stigmatized master statuses are represented not only as
physically distinctive but also as the antithesis of the culture’s desired behaviors
and attributes. Such characterizations serve to dismiss claims of discrimination and
unfair treatment, affi rming that those in stigmatized categories deserve such treat-
ment, that they are themselves responsible for their plight. Indeed, many of these
stereotypes are also applied to teenagers, whom the media depict as violent, reck-
less, hypersexed, ignorant, out of control, and the cause of society’s problems.
129

A Final Comment
It is disheartening to think of oneself as a member of a stigmatized group, just
as it is disheartening to think of oneself as thoughtlessly perpetuating stigma. Still,
there are at least two important points to bear in mind. First, the characteristics
attributed to stigmatized groups are similar across a great variety of master
statuses. They are not tied to the actual characteristics of any particular group; in
a way, they are quite impersonal. Second, people who are stigmatized have often
formed alliances with those who are not stigmatized to successfully lobby against
these attributions.
As we said at the outset of this essay, our hope is to provide you with a frame-
work by which to make sense of what sex, disability, race, social class, and
sexuality mean in contemporary American society. Clearly, these categorizations
are complex; they are tied to emotionally intense issues that are uniquely American;
and they have consequences that are both mundane and dramatic. From naming,
to aggregating, to dichotomizing, and ultimately to stigmatizing, difference has a
meaning for us. The readings in Section I will explore the construction of these
categorizations; the readings in Section II examine how we experience them; the
readings in Section III address the meaning that is attributed to difference; and
the readings in Section IV describe how we can bridge these differences.
KEY CONCEPTS
ableism Analogous to racism and sexism, a  system of
cultural, institutional, and individual discrimination
against people with impairments. Disablism is the
British term; disability oppression is  synonymous.
(page 6)
aggregate To combine or lump together (verb); some-
thing composed of different elements (noun).
(pages  15)
-centrism or -centric Suffi x meaning centered around,
focused around, taking the perspective of. Thus,
androcentric means focused around or taking the
perspective of men; heterocentric means taking the
perspective of heterosexuals; and Eurocentric means
having a European focus. (page 19)
constructionism The view that reality cannot be sepa-
rated from the way a culture makes sense of it—that
meaning is “constructed” through social, political,
legal, scientifi c, and other practices. From this per-
spective, differences among people are created
through social processes. (page 3)
Framework Essay 43
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44 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
dichotomize To divide into two parts and to see those
parts as mutually exclusive. (page 20)
differential undercount In the census, undercounting
more of one group than of another. (page 12)
disability The loss or limitation of opportunities to
take part in the normal life of the community on an
equal level with others because of physical and
social barriers (page 3)
disaggregate To separate something into its constitu-
ent elements. (pages 16)
essential identity An identity that is treated as core
to a person. Essential identities can be attributed to
people even when they are inconsistent with actual
behavior. (page 30)
essentialism The view that reality exists independently
of our perception of it, that we perceive the meaning
of the world rather than construct that meaning. From
this perspective, there are real and important (essential)
differences among categories of people. (page 3)
ethnic group, ethnicity Those who share a sense of
being a “people,” usually based on national origin,
language, or religion. (page 23)
gender Masculinity and femininity; the acting out of
the behaviors thought to be appropriate for a particu-
lar sex. (page 30)
heteronormativity All the beliefs, norms, and social
structures that contribute to the presumption that
heterosexuality is the natural, normal, and inevitable
structure of society (page 19)
impairment Physical, cognitive, emotional, or sensory
conditions within the person as diagnosed by medi-
cal professionals (page 5)
intersectionality Consideration of the ways that mas-
ter statuses interact and mutually construct one
another. (page 4)
master status A status that has a profound effect on
one’s life, that dominates or overwhelms the other
statuses one occupies. (page 2)
objectifi cation Treating people as if they were
objects, as if they were nothing more than the attri-
butes they display. (page 38)
Other A usage designed to refer to those considered
profoundly unlike oneself. (page 11)
panethnic A classifi cation that spans ethnic identities.
(page 17)
race The conception that people can be classifi ed into
groups based on skin color, hair texture, shape of
head, eyes, nose, and lips. (pages 3)
sex The categories of male and female. (page 3)
status A position in society. Individuals occupy mul-
tiple statuses simultaneously, such as occupational,
kinship, and educational statuses. (page 2)
stigma An attribute for which someone is
considered bad, unworthy, or deeply discredited.
(pages 38)
transgender People who systematically ignore or vio-
late gender expectations; sometimes includes people
who are transsexual. (page 32)
NOTES
1. Scott and Marshall, 2009:452–53.
2. Ridgeway, 2011. Ridgeway argues that gender “fram-
ing,” i.e., the processes by which behavior is interpreted
through the “lens” of gender, accounts for the contem-
porary inability to fully eliminate inequalities between
women and men.
3. For example see Janet Jacobsen, “Queers Are Like Jews,
Aren’t They? Analogy and Alliance Politics,” in Queer
Theory and the Jewish Question edited by Daniel Boya-
rin, Daniel Itzkovitz, and Ann Pellegrini. New York: Co-
lumbia University Press, 2003, 64–90; Tina Grillo and
Stephanie M. Wildman. “Obscuring the Importance of
Race: The Implication of Making Comparisons between
Racism and Sexism or other Isms,” in Critical Race
Feminism edited by Adrien Katherine Wing. New York:
NYU Press, 1997; Barbara F. Reskin, “Including Mech-
anisms in Our Models of Ascriptive Inequality,” Ameri-
can Sociological Review, 2003, v. 68 Feb: 1–21.
4. Henshel and Silverman, 1975:26.
5. Pfuhl, 1986:5.
6. Ibid.
7. Spelman, 1988.
8. Faderman, 1991; Armstrong, 2002.
9. Saad, 2012.
10. Rist, 1992: 425–26.
11. Omansky, 2006:27.
12. Disabled People’s International, 1982.
13. Barnes and Mercer, 2003; Oliver, 1990, 1996, 2009.
14. Hunt, 2001.
15. Union of Physically Impaired Against Segregation, 1973:4.
16. United Nations, 2007.
17. Schneider, 1988:65.
18. Higgins, 1992:53.
19. Schmidt, 2003.
20. Grigsby Bates, 2014.
21. Pew Research Hispanic Trends Project, 2013.
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22. Smith, 1992:497–98.
23. Gallup, 2007.
24. Kiviat, 2010.
25. Shorris, 1992:101.
26. Queer Nation Manifesto, 1990.
27. Mills, 1989:102.
28. Omansky, 2006:27.
29. Oliver, 1990:xiii.
30. U.S. Census, 2010.
31. U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1973:39.
32. Skrentny, 2002:2.
33. U.S. Census, 2010.
34. U.S. Census, 2012.
35. Ibid.
36. Gates and Cook, nd.
37. Jenkins, 1999:15–16.
38. Saulny, 2011.
39. U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2010a.
40. U.S. Census Bureau, 2006–2008, American Community
Survey.
41. Pew Research Hispanic Trends Project, 2013.
42. Gracia, 2000:204–5.
43. Lopez, 2013.
44. Pew Research Hispanic Trends Project, 2013.
45. Ibid.
46. Cohn, 2012.
47. Hu-Dehart, 1994.
48. U.S. Census Bureau, 2001.
49. Espiritu, 1992:124–25.
50. Omi, 1996:180.
51. Omi, 1996:181.
52. Mohawk, 1992:440.
53. Omi and Winant, 1994:66.
54. Mohawk, 1992:439–40.
55. Flagg, 1993:970.
56. Okizaki, 2000:483.
57. Russell, 1994.
58. Warner, 1993.
59. Herek, 2004:7.
60. Ibid.
61. Herek, 1990:316.
62. Herek, 2000.
63. Berlant and Warner, 1998:547.
64. Warner, 1999:47.
65. Dennis, 2004:383.
66. Tilly, 1999.
67. Lee and Bean, 2004.
68. Omi and Winant, 1994.
69. Roediger, 1994:189–90.
70. Morrison, 1992:47.
71. Pew Research Social and Demographic Trends, 2012.
72. Blauner, 1992.
73. Haines, 2007.
74. Smedley, 1993:39.
75. Ibid.
76. Omi and Winant, 1994.
77. Smedley, 1993:25.
78. Ibid.
79. Gould, 1981.
80. Begley, 1995:67, 68.
81. Cohen, 1998:12.
82. Lieberman, 1968:128.
83. Marshall, 1993:117, 121.
84. Roberts, 2011:59 Emphasis added.
85. Ibid., p. 60.
86. Ibid., p. 172.
87. Zuger, 2012.
88. Dreifus, 2005.
89. Roberts, 2011:78.
90. Gates, 2011.
91. Rosenthal, et al, 2011:112–115.
92. Denizet-Lewis, 2014.
93. Ibid.
94. Ibid.
95. Pew Research Center, 2013.
96. Denizet-Lewis, 2014.
97. Katz, 1975.
98. Valentine, 2007:80.
99. Ortner, 1991:169.
100. Perrucci and Wysong, 2008.
101. Perrucci and Wysong, 2008:48–50.
102. Saez, 2013.
103. Massey, 2007:35–6.
104. Schwarz and Volgy, 1992:11.
105. Arrow, Bowles, and Durlauf, 2000:x.
106. Kahlenberg, 1997; Mincey, 1994.
107. Zola, 1993:18.
108. Ibid.
109. Basow, 1992:8.
110. Davis, 1991:56.
111. Goffman, 1963:1.
112. Gaertner and Dovidio, 1986:75.
113. Allport, 1958:175.
114. Schur, 1984:30–1.
115. Ibid., 33.
116. Wiseman, 2013:20.
117. Berger, 1963:50.
118. Baron and Byrne, 2004; Sczesny et al., 2008.
119. Basow, 1992:4.
120. Richardson, 1977:11.
121. Katz, 1989:6, 126.
122. Charlton, 2000:53.
123. Ibid., 55.
124. Bosson, Vandello, Michniewicz & Lenes,
2012:228–9.
125. Gilman, 1985, 1991.
126. Takagi, 1992:60
127. Amnesty International, 2003.
128. Schur, 1984:7.
129. Males, 1994.
Framework Essay 45
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46 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
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Framework Essay 49
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50 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
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READING 1: “Race” and the Construction of Human Identity 51
new social identities, and ethnic identity itself was
fl uid and malleable.
Until the rise of market capitalism, wage labor,
the Protestant Ethic, private property, and posses-
sive individualism, kinship connections also oper-
ated as major indices that gave all peoples a sense
of who they were. Even in the technologically and
politically most advanced societies of the ancient
world such as in Rome, kinship was the important
diacritic of connectedness to the social system. In
all of the mostly patrilineal societies of the Middle
East. Africa, and the Mediterranean, the normal
person was identifi ed by who his or her father was.
The long list of names of who begat whom in the
Old Testament (Book of Genesis) attests to the
importance, especially at the tribal and chiefdom
levels, of genealogical identity.
Another important diagnostic of identity was
occupation. Whether one was a farmer, carpenter,
fi sherman, tanner, brass worker, herdsman, philoso-
pher, government offi cial, senator, poet, healer,
warrior, or harlot, was signifi cantly salient in the
eyes of the ancient world to require the label.
Occupations determined to some extent how people
were viewed and treated, as well as underscored
their contribution to the society.
Throughout much of the period of the early im-
perial states, numerous groups were in contact with
one another, and individuals often traveled from
one region to another as traders, warriors, crafts-
men, travelers, geographers, teachers, and so forth.
From one end of the Mediterranean to another, in
spite of the lack of modern forms of transportation,
many men and women were interacting in an inter-
ethnic melange that included a wide range of cul-
tures and peoples. From time to time, a conquest
state would expand outward and incorporate some
or most of this great variety. Populations did not
necessarily lose any form of ethnic identity, but
change was clearly understood as virtually inevita-
ble as each society learned something new from the
cultures of others. . . .
R E A D I N G 1
“Race” and the Construction
of Human Identity
Audrey Smedley
HISTORICAL CONSTRUCTIONS
OF IDENTITY
Historical records, including the Old and New
Testaments of the Bible, evince scenarios of inter-
ethnic interaction that suggest some very different
principles in operation throughout much of human
history.
1
Ethnic groups have always existed in the
sense that clusters of people living in demarcated
areas develop lifestyles and language features that
distinguish them from others and they perceive
themselves as being separate societies with distinct
social histories. Although some confl icts among
different groups have been characteristic from the
earliest recorded histories, hostilities were usually
neither constant nor the basis on which long-term
relationships were established.
One factor separates many in the contemporary
world, at least some of our understandings of it,
from earlier conceptions of human identity. That
is that “ethnic” identity was not perceived as in-
eluctably set in stone. Individuals and groups of
individuals often moved to new areas or changed
their identities by acquiring membership in a dif-
ferent group. People of the ancient world seemed
to have understood that cultural characteristics
were external and acquired forms of behavior, and
that “barbarians” could learn to speak the lan-
guage of the Romans or the Greeks and become
participants in those cultures, and even citizens of
these states. Languages were indeed avenues to
WHAT IS RACE? WHAT IS ETHNICITY?
Audrey Smedley is professor emeritus of anthropology at
Virginia Commonwealth University.
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52 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
When Alexander conquered peoples and lands all
the way to the Indus Valley in India, interacting with
“civilized” populations, nomadic pastoralists, settled
villagers, and a variety of hunting and fi shing peo-
ples, he exhorted his warriors to intermarry with the
peoples they conquered in order to learn their lan-
guages and cultures. Garrisons of military men were
stationed all over the Roman world, from Brittany to
the Danube and the Black Sea, from Gibraltar to the
Tigris/Euphrates valley and the Indian Ocean, and
soldiers often took local women as wives. When
the armies of the Moroccan king brought down the
Songhai empire in 1591, his soldiers stayed on the
Western Sudan frontier area and intermarried with
the local people. Most of northern Africa, including
Egypt of the Delta, has been periodically invaded
and ruled by outsiders for the last three thousand
years or so. Hittites and Hyksos from the mountainous
areas of Turkey, Assyrians, Persians, Syrians, Phoe-
nicians, Greeks, Babylonians, Romans, and various
more recent Turkish and Arabian groups have settled
in the towns of the coasts and interacted with the in-
digenous Berbers and other peoples like the Libyan
groups, the Garamantes, the Carthaginians, Syngam-
brians, and many others. Less well known is the fact
that both the Greeks and the Romans used mercenar-
ies from inner Africa ( Nubians, Ethiopians, Kushites,
among others) in confl icts such as the Persian and
Peloponnesian wars (Herodotus, in Godolphin
1942).
2

Peoples of different cultures coexisted for the
most part without strife, with alien segments often
functioning in distinct roles in the larger cities.
One-third of the population of Athens were
foreigners as early as the Classical period, fi ve
hundred years before the Christian era (Boardman
et al. 1986:222). And the city of Alexandria was
(and still is) a heterogeneous, sophisticated, and
complex community under the Greeks, Romans,
Christians, and Arabs. Carthage was founded in
North Africa by Phoenicians, but peoples from all
over the Mediterranean world and other parts of
Africa made their residence, or served as slaves, in
this great trading city. Moreover, men and women
of different ethnic groups intermarried frequently,
largely because marriage was often used as a
political or economic strategy. Men gave their
daughters and sisters to other men, the historians
tell us, because they desired political and/or eco-
nomic alliances with powerful and wealthy men,
without regard to ethnic origins. Timotheus was the
son of a Jewish mother and a Greek father. Samson
married a Philistine woman; Moses married an
Ethiopian woman; and many leaders, and lesser
men, of the Greeks and Romans married women
not from their own societies.
Different societies and localized segments of
larger societies were known either by their ethnic
name for themselves or by the region, town, or vil-
lage of their origins. That identities of this type
were fl uid is indicated by the depictions of indi-
vidual lives. Paul of Tarsus traveled and preached
extensively throughout much of the known Medi-
terranean world during the early Christian era and
encountered individuals of different ethnic back-
grounds. He even identifi ed himself as a Roman on
occasion when it was useful to do so. There are
other examples of individuals in ancient writings
who changed their ethnic identities for personal or
private reasons.
Scholars who have studied African societies, es-
pecially African history, have also been aware of the
malleability of ethnic identity on that continent. New
ethnic groups have emerged out of the colonial pe-
riod, and individuals have been known to transform
themselves according to their ethnic or religious mi-
lieus. One may be a Christian in one context, and a
Muslim in another, with no sense of ambivalence or
deception. I have encountered this phenomenon
myself. Most Africans spoke several different lan-
guages, and this facilitated the molding of multiple
ethnicities by providing immediate access to cultural
knowledge. In situations of potential or real confl ict,
allegiances could be fi rmly established without de-
nial of the extrinsic nature of social/ethnic identities
(Connah 1987; Davidson 1991).
In addition to identities that are predicated on
place of birth, membership in kin groups, or descent
in the male or female line from known ancestors,
language spoken, and lifestyle to which individuals
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READING 1: “Race” and the Construction of Human Identity 53
have been conditioned, another feature critical to
individual identity in the state systems was social
position. Aristocrats seemed to have been recog-
nized even beyond the boundaries of their immedi-
ate societies. And certain men were widely famed
for their specialized skills or crafts that set them
above others. Every society had its large body of
commoners and usually a great number of slaves
captured in war or traded in when this enterprise
became a common regional feature. Slaves were
usually outsiders, but slavery was not considered
by law and custom a permanent condition as slaves
could be manumitted, redeemed by kinspeople,
or  could purchase their own freedom (Smedley
[1993]1999: ch. 6). While enslavement was consid-
ered an unfortunate circumstance and most slaves
did the menial and onerous tasks of society, the
roles of slaves varied widely. There are numerous
examples of slaves rising to political power in the
ancient states of the Mediterranean and in the
Muslim world. Often they held positions as gener-
als who led armies of conquest and were frequently
rewarded for their successes. Whole slave dynasties
like the Mamluks in Egypt reigned in various areas
of the Muslim world (Hitti 1953).
With the appearance of the proselytizing univer-
sal religions, Christianity and later Islam, that be-
came competitors with one another for the souls of
all human groups, a new focus of identity was grad-
ually and increasingly placed on membership in a
religious community. During the Middle Ages of
Europe, Christians and Muslims were competing
not only for land and souls, but for political power
and infl uence. And various sects that developed
within each large religious community complicated
matters by fostering internal dissension and even
warfare inter alia . Whether one was Sunni or Shiite,
Protestant or Catholic, was a critical determinant of
one’s identity locally and in the wider world. As with
other aspects of ethnicity and ethnic differences,
individuals often changed their religious affi liation
under circumstances prompted by self-interest, or
self-preservation, as in the case of the 300,000 or
more Jews who were forced to convert to Catholi-
cism in Medieval Spain during the Inquisition
(Castro 1971). Yet Christians, Jews, and Muslims
had lived together in relative amity, and even inter-
married, for several hundred years after the Muslim
conquests and before the rise of the Christian king-
doms to challenge Muslim power.
What was absent from these different forms of
human identity is what we today would perceive as
classifi cations into “racial” groups, that is, the orga-
nization of all peoples into a limited number of un-
equal or ranked categories theoretically based on
differences in their biophysical traits. There are no
“racial” designations in the literature of the ancients
and few references even to such human features as
skin color. Frank Snowden has demonstrated that
ever since at least the second millennium b.c. the
peoples of the Mediterranean world have interacted
with other groups having a variety of physical traits
that differed from the Italians and Greeks. Artistic
depictions of Africans of clear “negroid” features
have been found, and numerous statues and paint-
ings throughout the classical era show that physical
variations in different populations were recognized
and accurately depicted (Snowden 1983).
Except for indigenous Americans, members of
all three of the large geographic areas that came to
be categorized as “races” in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries (Mongoloid, Negroid, and
Caucasoid) interacted in the ancient world. Chinese
porcelain vases have been found widely distributed
in the East African coastal trading cities, indicating
trade between these peoples at least two thousand
years old. The peoples of the Malagasy Republic
represent a mixture of African and Asian (Indone-
sian) ancestry dating back several thousand years.
Greek sailors sailed down the Red Sea into the
Indian Ocean and met East Africans long before the
Christian era. The peoples of the Mediterranean
regularly traded with dark-skinned peoples of the
upper Nile valley (and all those in between) north-
west Africa, and the contrasting lighter-skinned
peoples of Northern Europe. Various states of the
Mediterranean called upon and used Ethiopian
warriors as mercenaries in their armies, as we have
seen. Some of the more desired slaves were very
fair-skinned Slavs (from whom the term slave was
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54 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
external physical features. We have been socialized
to an ideology about the meaning of these differ-
ences based on a notion of heredity and perma-
nence that was unknown in the ancient world and in
the Middle Ages.
RACE: THE MODERN
CONCEPTION OF HUMAN
DIFFERENCES AND HUMAN
IDENTITY
In the eighteenth century this new mode of structur-
ing inequality in human societies evolved in the
American colonies and soon was present through-
out the overseas territories of the colonizing coun-
tries of Western Europe. “Race” was a form of
social identifi cation and stratifi cation that was
seemingly grounded in the physical differences of
populations interacting with one another in the
New World, but whose real meaning rested in so-
cial and political realities. The term race had been
used to refer to humans occasionally since the six-
teenth century in the English language but was
rarely used to refer to populations in the slave trade.
It was a mere classifi catory term like kind, type, or
even breed, or stock, and it had no clear meaning
until the eighteenth century. During this time, the
English began to have wider experiences with var-
ied populations and gradually developed attitudes
and beliefs that had not appeared before in Western
history and which refl ected a new kind of under-
standing and interpretation of human differences.
Understanding the foundations of race ideology is
critical to our analysis.
English settlers in North America failed to as-
similate the peoples whom they conquered; indeed
they generally kept them at great length and social
distance from themselves (Morgan 1975; Nash
1982). Indigenous Indians were different in both
cultural and biological features, but this was not the
necessary and suffi cient reason for the English hab-
its and policies of separateness. They had had
a  long history of enmity with earlier peoples,
especially the Irish, on their very borders and had
derived) who were traded down the Danube by
German tribesmen. Northern European slaves were
shipped as far away as Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia,
and the Muslim capital at Baghdad (Davis 1966).
What seems strange to us today is that the bio-
logical variations among human groups were not
given signifi cant social meaning. Only occasionally
do ancient writers ever even remark on the physical
characteristics of a given person or people. Herodo-
tus, in discussing the habits, customs, and origins
of different groups and noting variations in skin
color, specifi cally tells us that this hardly matters.
The Colchians are of Egyptian origin, he wrote, be-
cause they have black skins and wooly hair “which
amounts to but little, since several other nations are
so too.”
3
Most writers explained such differences as
due to natural environmental factors such as the hot
sun causing people to be dark skinned. No structur-
ing of inequality, whether social, moral, intellec-
tual, cultural or otherwise, was associated with
people because of their skin color, although all
“barbarians” varied in some ways from the somatic
norm of the Mediterranean world. But barbarians
were not irredeemably so, and, as we have seen,
nothing in the values of the public life denied
the transformability of even the most backward of
barbarians.
We in the contemporary Western world have
often found it diffi cult to understand this phenom-
enon and assume that differences in skin color must
have had some important meaning. Historians have
tried to discover “racial” meanings in the literature
of the ancients, assuming that these writers had the
same attitudes and beliefs about human differences
found in nineteenth- and twentieth-century North
America. The reason for our myopia has to do with
our deeply entrenched conditioning to the racial
worldview (Smedley 1993, 1998). When “race” ap-
peared in human history, it brought about a subtle
but powerful transformation in the world’s percep-
tions of human differences. It imposed social mean-
ings on physical variations among human groups
that served as the basis for the structuring of the
total society. Since that time many people in the
West have continued to link human identity to
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READING 1: “Race” and the Construction of Human Identity 55
“Race” emerged as a social classifi cation that re-
fl ected this greatly expanded sense of human separ-
ateness and differences. Theodore Allen (1997)
argues that the “invention” of the white race took
place after an early, but unsuccessful, colonial revolt
of servants and poor freedmen known as Bacon’s
Rebellion in 1676. Colonial leaders subsequently de-
cided it would be useful to establish a division among
the masses of poor to prevent their further collabora-
tion against the governmental authorities. As African
servants were vulnerable to policies that kept them in
servitude indefi nitely, and European servants had the
protection of English law, colonial leaders developed
a policy backed by new laws that separated African
servants and freedmen from those of European back-
ground. Over the next half century, they passed nu-
merous laws that provided resources and benefi ts to
poor, white freedmen and other laws that restricted
the rights of “Africans,” “mulattoes,” and “Indians.”
Calling upon the model of the Chain of Being, and
using natural differences in physical features, they
created a new form of social identity. “Race” devel-
oped in the minds of some Europeans as a way to
rationalize the conquest and brutal treatment of Na-
tive American populations, and especially the reten-
tion and perpetuation of slavery for imported
Africans. As an ideology structuring social, eco-
nomic, and political inequality, “race” contradicted
developing trends in England and in Western Euro-
pean societies that promoted freedom, democracy,
equality, and human rights. Europeans justifi ed this
attitude toward human differences by focusing on
the physical features of the New World populations,
magnifying and exaggerating their differences, and
concluding that the Africans and Indians and their
descendants were lesser forms of human beings, and
that their inferiority was natural and/or God-given.
The creation of “race” and racial ideology im-
posed on the conquered and enslaved peoples an
identity as the lowest status groups in society.
Myths about their inferior moral, intellectual, and
behavioral features had begun to develop and these
facilitated proscription of any competition with
Europeans. By the mid-eighteenth century, Negroes
had been segregated from poor whites in the laws
generated out of their hostility with the Irish an
image of “savagery” that became institutionalized
as a major part of public consciousness about “the
other.” The policies and practices of the English in
Ireland functioned to keep those Irish who refused
to accept English domination segregated from
themselves. Failing to even attempt an understand-
ing of Irish customs and institutions, the English
expressed an abiding contempt and hatred for both
Irish culture and people that reached a crescendo
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
when the English were also settling in the New
World. It was an extreme form of ethnocentrism or
ethnic chauvinism that some historians believe
came close to being racial (Allen 1994; Canny
1973; Liggio 1976).
“Savagery” was an image about human differ-
ences that became deeply embedded in English life
and thought and provided a foil against which they
constructed their own identity as “civilized” Eng-
lishmen. They brought this image of what savagery
was all about with them to the New World where it
was soon imposed on the native populations when
they, too, began to resist English encroachment.
Savagery carried with it an enormous burden of
negative and stereotypic characteristics grotesquely
counterposed against the vision that the English
had of themselves as a civilized people. Every new
experience, along with a growing technological su-
periority, widened the differences and denigrated
all other peoples who were not part of the civilized
world. The concept of “civilized” polities in con-
trast to savagery and barbarism was beginning to
take hold in much of Western Europe, and in this
sense Englishmen were not much different from the
rest of the Western world. But English notions of
their own superiority were enhanced by their tech-
nological, material, and political successes, by their
earlier successful split from the Catholic realm, by
the early rise of merchant capitalism, the develop-
ment of new forms of wealth, notions about indi-
vidual freedom, property rights, and self-suffi ciency,
and by a growing sense of their own uniqueness
even among other Europeans. This was summed up
in the myth of Anglo-Saxonism (Horsman 1981).
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56 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
longer possible. American society had made “race”
(and the physical features connected to it) equiva-
lent to, and the dominant source of, human identity,
superseding all other aspects of identity.
The problems that this has entailed, especially for
the low-status “races,” have been enormous, im-
mensely complex, and almost intractable. Constant
and unrelenting portrayals of their inferiority condi-
tioned them to a self-imagery of being culturally
backward, primitive, intellectually stunted, prone to
violence, morally corrupt, undeserving of the benefi ts
of civilization, insensitive to the fi ner arts, and (in the
case of Africans) aesthetically ugly and animal-like.
Because of the cultural imperative of race ideology,
all Americans were compelled to the view that a ra-
cial status, symbolized by biophysical attributes, was
the premier determinant of their identity. “Race”
identity took priority over religion, ethnic origin,
education and training, socioeconomic class, occupa-
tion, language, values, beliefs, morals, lifestyles, geo-
graphical location, and all other human attributes that
hitherto provided all groups and individuals with a
sense of who they were. The dilemma for the low-
status races was, and still is, how to construct a posi-
tive identity for themselves in the light of the “racial”
identity imposed on them by the dominant society.
In recent decades, one response to this dilemma
on the part of some African Americans has been
Afrocentrism (which is not the same as an older
version of “Negritude” that black intellectuals had
developed earlier in this century). And for some
Indians a new form of “Nativism” has emerged, har-
kening back to a Native American lifestyle. Afro-
centrism seeks to reidentify with the peoples and
cultures of Africa and to elevate Africans to a posi-
tion of esteem by emphasizing valuable aspects of
African cultures. Some Afrocentrists also make
assertions about the positive qualities of African
people and seek to recognize and objectify African-
isms in the behavior of African-descended peoples
who have been scattered all over the New World.
Many assume or operate on the premise that all
peoples who descended from Africans during the
diaspora maintain certain behaviorisms that mark
them off from other peoples. Their arguments seem
of most colonies and transformed into property as
slaves in a state of permanent bondage.
Edmund Morgan (1975) also interpreted the ac-
tions of the early colonists in the process of estab-
lishing “racial” identities as stemming from the
propertied colonists’ fear of poor whites and pos-
sibly slaves engaging in rebellions together. Colo-
nial leaders consciously formulated policies that
would separate poor whites from Indians, blacks,
and mulattoes and proceeded to provide the white
poor, whom they had hitherto treated with contempt
and hatred, with some privileges and special advan-
tages.
4
In time, class divisions diminished in the
minds of poor whites and they saw themselves as
having something in common with the propertied
class, symbolized by their light skins and common
origins in Europe. With laws progressively
continuing to reduce the rights of blacks and
Indians, it was not long before the various European
groups coalesced into a white “racial” category
whose high-status identity gave them access to
wealth, power, opportunity, and privilege.
5

By the mid-nineteenth century virtually all
Americans had been conditioned to this arbitrary
ranking of the American peoples, and racial ideol-
ogy had diffused around much of the world, includ-
ing to the colonized peoples of the Third World and
among Europeans themselves.
“RACE” AS IDENTITY
In the United States the biophysical features of
different populations, which had become markers
of social status, were internalized as sources of
individual and group identities. After the Civil War,
although slavery ended, race and racial ideology re-
mained and were strengthened. African Americans
particularly had to grapple with the reality of being
defi ned as the lowest status group in American soci-
ety and with the associated stereotyping that be-
came increasingly part of the barriers to their
integration into American society (Conrad 1969).
And Native Americans had to try to reinvent their
identities, whether in towns or isolated on remote
reservations where traditional lifestyles were no
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READING 1: “Race” and the Construction of Human Identity 57
Historically, “race” was grounded in the myth of
biologically separate, exclusive, and distinct popu-
lations. No social ingredient in our race ideology
allowed for an identity of “mixed-races.” Indeed
over the past century and a half, the American pub-
lic was conditioned to the belief that “mixed-race”
people (especially of black and white ancestry)
were abnormal products of the unnatural mating of
two species, besides being socially unacceptable in
the normal scheme of things. The tragedy for
“mixed” people is that powerful social lie, the as-
sumption at the heart of “race,” that a presumed
biological essence is the basis of one’s true identity.
Identity is biology, racial ideology tells us, and it is
permanent and immutable. The emphasis on and
signifi cance given to “race” precludes any possibil-
ity for establishing our premier identities on the
basis of other characteristics. In this sense it may be
argued that the myth of “race” has been a barrier to
true human identities.
The unfortunate consequence of race ideology
is  that many of the people with this “mixed-race”
background have also been conditioned to the
belief in the biological salience of “race.” Their
efforts to establish a “Mixed-Race” category in the
American census forms show a total misunder-
standing of what “race” is all about, and this is, of
course, a major part of the tragedy. Their arguments
imply a feeling of having no identity at all because
they do not exist formally (that is, socially) as a
“biological” category.
The fact is that from the standpoint of biology,
there have been “mixed” people in North America
ever since Europeans fi rst encountered indigenous
Americans and the fi rst Africans were brought to
the English colonies in the 1620s. The average
African American has about one-quarter of his or
her genes from non-African (nonblack) ancestors,
although most estimates are likely to be conserva-
tive (cf. Marks 1995; Reed 1969). There is a greater
range of skin colors, hair textures, body sizes, nose
shapes, and other physical features among black
Americans than almost any other people identifi ed
as a distinct population. Virtually all of them could
identify as of “mixed-race.” But the physical
similar to that of the biological determinists in the
dominant society, but most would probably not go
so far as to assert a genetic basis to certain “African”-
originated behaviors. Those who take the position
asserting a common African personality or behavior
refl ect the degree to which the ideology of “race”
has been implanted in them. Like most Americans,
they fi nd it diffi cult to think beyond the racial world-
view and draw upon the same strategies as white
racists in claiming superior features for “African”
people. At the same time, there are many Afrocen-
trists who are very conscious of the fact that theirs is
a political position and that they are using the same
biological arguments as racists, the people whom
they theoretically oppose. They fail to realize that
operating within the racial worldview, accepting its
premises that biologically distinct races exist, each
with unique cultural/behavioral features, and simply
denying inferiority while asserting African superior-
ity does nothing to change the racism in our society.
However, we also must understand that what
Afrocentrism is really intended to do is to restore a
sense of pride and dignity to ordinary African
Americans, regardless of how whites and others
regard their positions. By looking to the “real”
Africa, studying her history, learning about and
being involved in certain rituals and festivals that
focus on African arts, dance, dress, music, and so
on, some activists feel that they are engendering
this pride and helping to remove the contempt and
denigration that has accompanied our ideas about
Africa in the past. They understand that for too long
African Americans have been conditioned to the
same negative beliefs about Africa and Africans as
have whites and others and that there is a need to
eliminate the self-deprecation and self-hatred that
black Americans have experienced with regard to
their African ancestry. . . .
THE NON-PROBLEM OF
“MIXED-RACE” PEOPLE
One of the more tragic aspects of the racial world-
view has been the seeming dilemma of people
whose parents are identifi ably of different “races.”
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58 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
including American culture, have changed, some
of them drastically, during that time. Cultures con-
stantly change without any corresponding changes
in biological features.
Americans should understand clearly that hu-
mans learn cultural features from one another all the
time because that has been one of the most profound
experiences of human, and especially American,
history. What prevents us from understanding this is
that component in the ideology of “race,” as we
have seen, that holds that each race has separate,
biologically determined patterns of cultural behav-
ior. The racial worldview, with its emphasis on as-
sumptions of innateness and immutability, makes it
possible to interpret all forms of human behavior as
hereditary. In fact, it almost mandates such a per-
spective because of powerful forces within our cul-
ture that preserve and promote hereditarian ideas.
The belief in racially determined cultural behavior,
despite all evidence to the contrary, is perpetuated in
American society by the popular media and as a part
of folk wisdom about human differences. Witness
the inordinate attention to and sales of Herrnstein
and Murray’s The Bell Curve (1994). This belief has
been a necessary component of the ideology of
“race,” because it helps to perpetuate the notion that
major differences between “races” exist.
People who consider themselves of “mixed race”
and experience some form of psychic stress be-
cause they feel they have no identity in American
society, perhaps more than most, need to have un-
derstanding of this history. . . .
TRANSCENDING
THE RESTRICTIONS OF
“RACIAL” IDENTITY
Today scholars are beginning to realize that “race”
is nothing more and nothing less than a social in-
vention. It has nothing to do with the intrinsic, or
potential, qualities of the physically differing popu-
lations, but much to do with the allocation of power,
privilege, and wealth among them. This conceptual
separation of actual physical variations within the
markers of race status are always open to interpre-
tation by others. “Race” as social status is in the eye
of the beholder. “Mixed” people will still be treated
as black if their phenotypes cause them to be so
perceived by others. Insistence on being in a sepa-
rate classifi cation will not change that perception or
the reaction of people to them.
What compounds and complicates matters is an-
other lie that is one of the basic tenets, or constitu-
ent components, of the racial worldview: the myth
that biology has some intrinsic connection to cul-
ture. Some advocates of a new “mixed-race” cate-
gory have argued that they want to recognize the
“culture” of their other parent. For example, in a
black/white mixed marriage, a black parent pre-
sumably has “black” culture, and the white parent
has “white” culture. These advocates fail to realize
what anthropologists have long known, that there is
no relationship between one’s culture or lifestyle
and one’s genes or biological features. All native-
born Americans share some basic cultural similari-
ties, and the ancestors of modern African Americans
have been “American” longer than the ancestors of
most European Americans.
6
It is the ideological
myths of the racial worldview that prevent us from
seeing how very much alike culturally black and
white Americans are. (This is not to suggest that
there are not differences in the way blacks and
whites experience our culture and lifestyle varia-
tions that refl ect social-class differences and the
isolation of inner-city populations.)
On the other hand, if one parent did come from
a very different cultural background (e.g., recently
emigrated from Asia), a child does not automati-
cally have that culture because of the biology of
the parent. Humans acquire culture; it is learned
behavior. In order for Tiger Woods (a golfi ng star)
to have Thai culture, he would have to learn the
language and the elements of Thai culture. One can
learn these without having a single gene from a
Thai parent. Moreover, there is no reason why one
should learn the cultures of ancestors merely
because of some genetic or genealogical connec-
tions. None of us have the cultures of any of our
ancestors two centuries ago because all cultures,
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READING 1: “Race” and the Construction of Human Identity 59
Hazel O’Leary (just appointed as U.S. Secretary of
Energy) and Thurgood Marshall, Justice of the
United States Supreme Court, identifi ed as “black”
in American society when it was obvious that they
were not. I explained some of the history of the
idea of “race” and the interactions among peoples
in the New World. I also pointed out that there is a
great deal more to the identifi cation of African
Americans than similarities in physical traits, that
in fact, biological variations have little to do with
the social categories of race. Indeed the people of
the African Diaspora are a biogenetically diverse
category of people who have an identity derived
from common experiences of exploitation and rac-
ism. It is far more accurate and more fruitful to
scholarship, and possibly to the future of human-
kind, to defi ne African American people by their
sense of community, consciousness, and commit-
ment than by some mystical “racial” essence. It is
the Community into which they were born and
reared, a Consciousness of the historical realities
and shared experiences of their ancestors, and a
Commitment to the perspectives of their “black-
ness” and to the diminishing of racism that is criti-
cal to the identities of the Thurgood Marshalls and
Hazel O’Learys of our society. The social catego-
ries of “race” have always encompassed more than
mere physical similarities and differences. Theo-
dore Allen tells us in the acknowledgements to his
two-volume excoriation of white racism that he has
learned to say, “I am not white” (1994).
Even without all of the intermixtures of peoples,
some Americans have already experienced a high
level of uncertainty about the “racial” status of indi-
viduals with whom they have had some interaction.
Many peoples in the world, from Morocco to the
Persian Gulf, to the islands in the South Pacifi c
Ocean, have physical features that cause them to be
“mistaken” for black Americans. In that broad band
of the earth called the tropics we fi nd indigenous
peoples with tan to brown to dark brown skins, and
hair that may be frizzly, kinky, curly, or straight. As
more and more of these peoples either travel to the
United States or are encountered by Americans on
missions abroad, Americans must deal with their
species from the socially invented characterizations
of them represents a major paradigm shift in how
many scholars now think about the human experi-
ence. Anthropologists and biologists no longer see
“races” as discrete populations defi ned by blood-
group patterns or “types” defi ned by averages of
statistical measurements. Biophysical variations
are seen as continuous and gradual, overlapping
population boundaries, fl uid, and subject to evolu-
tionary changes. In like manner, scholars honestly
examining the history of American attitudes toward
human differences have concluded that “race” was
a social invention of the eighteenth century that
took advantage of the superfi cial physical differ-
ences among the American population and the so-
cial roles that these peoples played, and transposed
these into a new form of social stratifi cation. The
symbols of race identity became the substance.
Recognizing the reality of the racial worldview
and how it developed as a sociocultural reality re-
quires a whole new way of looking at human diver-
sity in all of its many forms. It means that (1) we
can better recognize and comprehend accurately
and objectively the natural causes of human physi-
cal variations around the world without attempting
to homogenize people into limited “racial” catego-
ries; (2) we can liberate ourselves from the need to
utilize physical differences in apprehending human
identities; (3) freed from the myths of racial deter-
minism, we can now improve our understanding of
the true nature of culture and cultural differences
and begin to view the processes of cultural change
in a more accurate light; and (4) we can begin to
understand the real nature of “race” as a social con-
struct and to deal with the problems that racial
identities have imposed on people.
For example, using this new perspective, we
would be able to avoid the problems encountered
when scholars examine the African Diaspora and
attempt to determine which peoples are legiti-
mately black products of this massive process of
displacement. Several years ago, two Asian stu-
dents who had recently immigrated to the United
States came to me confi dentially after class with a
puzzle. They wanted to know why were people like
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60 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
found around the world. Fast foods, music, dance,
dress, Hollywood fi lms, whole industrial complexes
(including the world of computers), and a wide
range of political, religious, and social beliefs have
diffused around the world. Few cultures have not
experienced the impact of such massive infusion of
new traits.
The peoples who have resulted from all this con-
tinuous blending of genetic features and cultural
traits are truly “universal” human beings, regard-
less of what languages they speak or cultures they
participate in. The concept of “universal” human
beings might very well in time obviate racial cate-
gories (but not ethnic identities) and may help to
bring about the elimination of all such designa-
tions. Many persons will come to recognize them-
selves as “universal” human beings, and there
should be perhaps an early census category that
proclaims this reality. What anthropologists must
do is to make sure that the ideas of “ethnicity” and
“ethnic identity” do not become perceived as
hereditary, permanent, and unalterable, but remain
fl uid forms of identity that will make us all
“ multicultural.”
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Why was the social classifi cation of race
invented?
2. Is Afrocentrism a response to racism?
NOTES
1. Reference materials for this section were taken largely
from the following: Boardman et al. (1986), Godolphin
(1942), and Snowden (1983). But I have read widely in
ancient history and am aware that such materials are not
generally considered part of the anthropological reper-
toire. We need to realize that historical materials are
widely available to all, and we should encourage stu-
dents to avail themselves of them, especially since
American students have been shown to be woefully ig-
norant of history and geography.
2. Herodotus lists more than two dozen different nations
that fought on the different sides in the  Persian wars:
Arabians, Ethiopians, Armenians, Thracians, Libyans,
and many others.
3. The Persian Wars, Book II, p. 130, in Godolphin (1942).
perceptions of these peoples. Some time ago, in the
space of about eight months, I met a Samoan, a
person from the New Guinea area, and a number of
Arabs who in the course of conversations have indi-
cated that they have been “mistaken” for blacks.
7

Many peoples from the southern regions of Saudi
Arabia look very much like their neighboring
Africans across the Red Sea, having evolved in the
same climate and latitude (and having intermingled
over eons of time). To try to maintain racial catego-
ries based on physical features in the face of the
real world of human biological diversity, I suspect,
will be increasingly diffi cult.
There is another option, one that we have not
yet claimed in the establishing and referencing of
our human identities. We cannot ignore the fact
that since the fi fteenth century, what has happened
in the Americas, and to varying degrees in many
parts of the Third World, has been the fusion of
genetic materials from all of the great continents.
So-called “racial” mixture has occurred exten-
sively in Latin America, and to a lesser extent in
North America, so that most people are descen-
dants of ancestors from Europe, Africa, and the
Americas, and in many places like the Caribbean,
from Asia also (Graham 1990: Morner 1967).
Throughout the colonial world, complex genetic
mixtures among various peoples have taken place;
and increasingly Europeans at home are partici-
pants in, and products of, new genetic combina-
tions with individuals absorbed into their societies
from distant lands.
In addition to the increasing genetic heterogene-
ity of individuals and groups, there is the obvious
fact that cultural features have traveled all over the
world independently of the spread of genetic mate-
rial. In the midst of the Sahara desert, signs pro-
claim “Coca-Cola,” everyone from the Siberian
tundra to the Melanesian forests wears “jeans,”
African clothing and designs are found from Paris
to Sydney, Australia, and Americans eat more piz-
zas and tacos (burritos, tortillas, etc.) than almost
any other people outside of Italy and Mexico. White
boys wear dreadlocks, and Chinese and other Asian,
and increasingly African, ethnic restaurants are
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READING 2: Who Is Black? One Nation’s Defi nition 61
Morgan, Edmund S. 1975 American Slavery: American
Freedom . New York: W. W. Norton and Co.
Mörner, Magnus 1967 Race Mixture in the History of Latin
America. Boston: Little, Brown.
Morsy, Soheir 1994 Beyond the Honorary “White”
Classifi cation of Egyptians: Societal Identity in Historical
Context. In Race . S. Gregory and R. Sanjek, eds. Pp. 175–
198. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Nash, Gary 1982 Red, White, and Black: The Peoples of
Early America. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Reed, T.E. 1969 Caucasian Genes in American Negroes.
Science 165 (3,895): 762–768.
Smedley, Audrey [1993]1999 Race in North America: Origin
and Evolution of a Worldview. 2nd edition, revised and
enlarged. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Snowden, Frank M., Jr. 1983 Before Color Prejudice. Revised
edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
R E A D I N G 2
Who Is Black? One Nation’s
Defi nition
F. James Davis
In a taped interview conducted by a blind, black
anthropologist, a black man nearly ninety years old
said: “Now you must understand that this is just a
name we have. I am not black and you are not black
either, if you go by the evidence of your eyes. . . .
Anyway, black people are all colors. White people
don’t look all the same way, but there are more dif-
ferent kinds of us than there are of them. Then too,
there is a certain stage [at] which you cannot tell
who is white and who is black. Many of the people
I see who are thought of as black could just as well
be white in their appearance. Many of the white
people I see are black as far as I can tell by the way
they look. Now, that’s it for looks. Looks don’t
mean much. The things that makes us different is
how we think. What we believe is important, the
ways we look at life” (Gwaltney, 1980:96).
How does a person get defi ned as a black, both
socially and legally, in the United States? What is
4. Morgan claims that the Virginia Assembly “deliberately
did what it could to foster the contempt of whites for
blacks and Indians” (1975:331).
5. For insightful analysis of this process, see also Allen
(1994, 1997).
6. Bohannan and Curtin (1995:13) have observed that half
the ancestors of African Americans were already here in
the United States by 1780 while the median date for the
arrival of European ancestors was “remarkably late,
1890s.” We need more of this kind of honesty in recog-
nizing historical realities on the part of scholars in all
disciplines.
7. See Morsy (1994). When Arabs began to migrate to the
Detroit area several generations ago, many were fre-
quently mistaken for blacks. This became an acute prob-
lem in the area around Dearborn, Michigan, where many
of them settled. There had long been a law in Dearborn
that prohibited blacks from being in the city after sun-
down. The Dearborn police, among others, were often
very confused.
REFERENCES
Allen, Theodore W. [1994]1997 The Invention of the White
Race , vols. 1 and 2, London: Verso.
Boardman, John, J. Griffi n, and O. Murray, eds. 1986 The
Oxford History of the Classical World . Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Canny, Nicholas P. 1973 The Ideology of English Colonial-
ization: From Ireland to America. William and Mary
Quarterly (3rd ser.) 30:575–598.
Castro, Americo 1971 The Spaniards . Berkeley: University
of California Press.
Connah, Graham 1987 African Civilizations. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Conrad, Earl 1969 The Invention of the Negro. New York:
Paul S. Erikson.
Davidson, Basil 1991 African Civilization Revisited.
Trenton, NJ: African World Press.
Davis, David Brion 1966 The Problem of Slavery in Western
Culture . Middlesex, England: Penguin.
Godolphin, Francis R. B., ed. 1942 The Greek Historians ,
vols. 1 and 2. New York: Random House.
Graham, Richard, ed. 1990 The Idea of Race in Latin
America, 1870–1940 . Austin: University of Texas Press.
Hitti, Phillip 1953 History of the Arabs. London: Macmillan
Publishing Co.
Horsman, Reginald 1981 Race and Manifest Destiny . Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Liggio, Leonard P. 1976 English Origins of Early American
Racism. Radical History Review 3(1):1–26.
Marks, Jonathan 1995 Human Biodiversity: Genes, Race,
and History. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
F. James Davis (1920–2012) was professor emeritus of sociol-
ogy at Illinois State University.
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62 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
In his autobiography, Powell recounts some ex-
periences with racial classifi cation in his youth that
left a lasting impression on him. During Powell’s
freshman year at Colgate University, his roommate
did not know that he was a black until his father,
Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., was invited to give a
chapel talk on Negro rights and problems, after
which the roommate announced that because
Adam was a Negro they could no longer be room-
mates or friends.
Another experience that affected Powell deeply
occurred one summer during his Colgate years. He
was working as a bellhop at a summer resort in
Manchester, Vermont, when Abraham Lincoln’s
aging son Robert was a guest there. Robert Lincoln
disliked blacks so much that he refused to let them
wait on him or touch his luggage, car, or any of his
possessions. Blacks who did got their knuckles
whacked with his cane. To the great amusement of
the other bellhops, Lincoln took young Powell for a
white man and accepted his services (Powell,
1971:31–33).
Lena Horne’s parents were both very light in
color and came from black upper-middle-class fam-
ilies in Brooklyn (Horne and Schickel, 1965;
Buckley, 1986). Lena lived with her father’s parents
until she was about seven years old. Her grandfather
was very light and blue-eyed. Her fair-skinned
grandmother was the daughter of a slave woman and
her white owner, from the family of John C.
Calhoun, well-known defender of slavery. One of
her father’s great-grandmothers was a Blackfoot
Indian, to whom Lena Horne has attributed her
somewhat coppery skin color. One of her mother’s
grandmothers was a French-speaking black woman
from Senegal and never a slave. Her mother’s father
was a “Portuguese Negro,” and two women in his
family had passed as white and become entertainers.
Lena Horne’s parents had separated, and when
she was seven her entertainer mother began placing
her in a succession of homes in different states. Her
favorite place was in the home of her Uncle Frank,
her father’s brother, a red-haired, blue-eyed teacher
in a black school in Georgia. The black children in
that community asked her why she was so light and
the nation’s rule for who is black, and how did it
come to be? And so what? Don’t we all know who
is black, and isn’t the most important issue what
opportunities the group has? Let us start with
some  experiences of three well-known American
blacks—actress and beauty pageant winner Vanessa
Williams, U.S. Representative Adam Clayton
Powell, Jr., and entertainer Lena Horne.
For three decades after the fi rst Miss America
Pageant in 1921, black women were barred from
competing. The fi rst black winner was Vanessa
Williams of Millwood, New York, crowned Miss
America in 1984. In the same year the fi rst
runner-up—Suzette Charles of Mays Landing, New
Jersey—was also black. The viewing public was
charmed by the television images and magazine
pictures of the beautiful and musically talented
Williams, but many people were also puzzled. Why
was she being called black when she appeared to be
white? Suzette Charles, whose ancestry appeared to
be more European than African, at least looked like
many of the “lighter blacks.” Notoriety followed
when Vanessa Williams resigned because of the im-
pending publication of some nude photographs of
her taken before the pageant, and Suzette Charles
became Miss America for the balance of 1984.
Beyond the troubling question of whether these
young women could have won if they had looked
“more black,” the publicity dramatized the nation’s
defi nition of a black person.
Some blacks complained that the Rev. Adam
Clayton Powell, Jr., was so light that he was a
stranger in their midst. In the words of Roi Ottley,
“He was white to all appearances, having blue eyes,
an aquiline nose, and light, almost blond, hair”
(1943:220), yet he became a bold, effective black
leader—fi rst as minister of the Abyssinian Baptist
Church of Harlem, then as a New York city council-
man, and fi nally as a U.S. congressman from the
state of New York. Early in his activist career he led
6,000 blacks in a march on New York City Hall. He
used his power in Congress to fi ght for civil rights
legislation and other black causes. In 1966, in
Washington, D.C., he convened the fi rst black
power conference.
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READING 2: Who Is Black? One Nation’s Defi nition 63
perseverance did Jane White make her debut as the
educated mulatto maid Nonnie in the stage version
of Lillian Smith’s Strange Fruit (1944). . . .
THE ONE-DROP RULE DEFINED
As the above cases illustrate, to be considered black
in the United States not even half of one’s ancestry
must be African black. But will one-fourth do, or
one-eighth, or less? The nation’s answer to the
question “Who is black?” has long been that a black
is any person with any known African black ances-
try (Myrdal, 1944:113–18; Berry and Tischler,
1978:97–98; Williamson, 1980:1–2). This defi ni-
tion refl ects the long experience with slavery and
later with Jim Crow segregation. In the South it be-
came known as the “one-drop rule,” meaning that a
single drop of “black blood” makes a person a
black. It is also known as the “one black ancestor
rule,” some courts have called it the “traceable
amount rule,” and anthropologists call it the “hypo-
descent rule,” meaning that racially mixed persons
are assigned the status of the subordinate group
(Harris, 1964:56). This defi nition emerged from the
American South to become the nation’s defi nition,
generally accepted by whites and blacks alike
(Bahr, Chadwick, and Stauss, 1979:27–28). Blacks
had no other choice. This American cultural defi ni-
tion of blacks is taken for granted as readily by
judges, affi rmative action offi cers, and black pro-
testers as it is by Ku Klux Klansmen.
Let us not be confused by terminology. At pres-
ent the usual statement of the one-drop rule is in
terms of “black blood” or black ancestry, while not
so long ago it referred to “Negro blood” or ances-
try. The term “black” rapidly replaced “Negro” in
general usage in the United States as the black
power movement peaked at the end of the 1960s,
but the black and Negro populations are the same.
The term “black” is used [here] for persons with
any black African lineage, not just for unmixed
members of populations from sub-Saharan Africa.
The term “Negro,” which is used in certain histori-
cal contexts, means the same thing. Terms such as
“African black,” “unmixed Negro,” and “all black”
called her a “yellow bastard.” She learned that
when satisfactory evidence of respectable black
parents is lacking, being light-skinned implies ille-
gitimacy and having an underclass white parent and
is thus a disgrace in the black community. When
her mother married a white Cuban, Lena also
learned that blacks can be very hostile to the white
spouse, especially when the “black” mate is very
light. At this time she began to blame the confused
color line for her childhood troubles. She later en-
dured much hostility from blacks and whites alike
when her own second marriage, to white composer-
arranger Lennie Hayton, was fi nally made public in
1950 after three years of keeping it secret.
Early in Lena Horne’s career there were com-
plaints that she did not fi t the desired image of a
black entertainer for white audiences, either physi-
cally or in her style. She sang white love songs, not
the blues. Noting her brunette-white beauty, one
white agent tried to get her to take a Spanish name,
learn some Spanish songs, and pass as a Latin
white, but she had learned to have a horror of pass-
ing and never considered it, although Hollywood
blacks accused her of trying to pass after she played
her fi rst bit part in a fi lm. After she failed her fi rst
screen test because she looked like a white girl try-
ing to play black-face, the directors tried making
her up with a shade called “Light Egyptian” to
make her look darker. The whole procedure embar-
rassed and hurt her deeply. . . .
Other light mulatto entertainers have also had
painful experiences because of their light skin and
other caucasoid features. Starting an acting career is
never easy, but actress Jane White’s diffi culties in
the 1940s were compounded by her lightness. Her
father was NAACP leader Walter White. Even with
dark makeup on her ivory skin, she did not look like
a black person on the stage, but she was not allowed
to try out for white roles because blacks were barred
from playing them. When she auditioned for the
part of a young girl from India, the director was
enthusiastic, although her skin color was too light,
but higher management decreed that it was
unthinkable for a Negro to play the part of an
Asian  Indian (White, 1948:338). Only after great
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64 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
American children in recent decades have them-
selves been racially mixed, but often the fractions
get complicated because the earlier details of the
mixing were obscured generations ago. Like so
many white Americans, black people are forced to
speculate about some of the fractions—one-eighth
this, three-sixteenths that, and so on. . . .
PLESSY, PHIPPS, AND OTHER
CHALLENGES IN THE COURTS
Homer Plessy was the plaintiff in the 1896
precedent-setting “separate-but-equal” case of
Plessy v. Ferguson (163 U.S. 537). This case
challenged the Jim Crow statute that required
racially segregated seating on trains in interstate
commerce in the state of Louisiana. The U.S.
Supreme Court quickly dispensed with Plessy’s
contention that because he was only one-eighth
Negro and could pass as white he was entitled to
ride in the seats reserved for whites. Without ruling
directly on the defi nition of a Negro, the Supreme
Court briefl y took what is called “judicial notice”
of what it assumed to be common knowledge: that
a Negro or black is any person with any black an-
cestry. (Judges often take explicit “judicial notice”
not only of scientifi c or scholarly conclusions, or of
opinion surveys or other systematic investigations,
but also of something they just assume to be so,
including customary practices or common knowl-
edge.) This has consistently been the ruling in the
federal courts, and often when the black ancestry
was even less than one-eighth. The federal courts
have thus taken judicial notice of the customary
boundary between two sociocultural groups that
differ, on the average, in physical traits, not be-
tween two discrete genetic categories. In the ab-
sence of proof of a specifi c black ancestor, merely
being known as a black in the community has usu-
ally been accepted by the courts as evidence of
black ancestry. The separate-but-equal doctrine es-
tablished in the Plessy case is no longer the law, as
a result of the judicial and legislative successes of
the civil rights movement, but the nation’s legal
defi nition of who is black remains unchanged.
are used here to refer to unmixed blacks descended
from African populations.
We must also pay attention to the terms
“ mulatto” and “colored.” The term “mulatto” was
originally used to mean the offspring of a “pure
African Negro” and a “pure white.” Although the
root meaning of mulatto, in Spanish, is “hybrid,”
“mulatto” came to include the children of unions
between whites and so-called “mixed Negroes.”
For example, Booker T. Washington and Frederick
Douglass, with slave mothers and white fathers,
were referred to as mulattoes (Bennett, 1962:255).
To whatever extent their mothers were part white,
these men were more than half white. Douglass was
evidently part Indian as well, and he looked it
(Preston, 1980:9–10). Washington had reddish hair
and gray eyes. At the time of the American Revolu-
tion, many of the founding fathers had some very
light slaves, including some who appeared to be
white. The term “colored” seemed for a time to
refer only to mulattoes, especially lighter ones, but
later it became a euphemism for darker Negroes,
even including unmixed blacks. With widespread
racial mixture, “Negro” came to mean any slave or
descendant of a slave, no matter how much mixed.
Eventually in the United States, the terms mulatto,
colored, Negro, black, and African American all
came to mean people with any known black African
ancestry. Mulattoes are racially mixed, to whatever
degree, while the terms black, Negro, African
American, and colored include both mulattoes and
unmixed blacks. These terms have quite different
meanings in other countries.
Whites in the United States need some help
envisioning the American black experience with
ancestral fractions. At the beginning of miscegena-
tion between two populations presumed to be
racially pure, quadroons appear in the second
generation of  continuing mixing with whites, and
octo roons in  the third. A quadroon is one-fourth
African black and thus easily classed as black in the
United  States,  yet three of this person’s four
grandparents  are white. An octoroon has seven
white great- grandparents out of eight and usually
looks white or almost so. Most parents of black
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READING 2: Who Is Black? One Nation’s Defi nition 65
widely disseminated during the Phipps trial in
1983 (discussed below), fi led as Jane Doe v. State of
Louisiana. This case was decided in a district court
in May 1983, and in June the legislature abolished
its one thirty-second statute and gave parents the
right to designate the race of newborns, and even to
change classifi cations on birth certifi cates if they
can prove the child is white by a “preponderance of
the evidence.” However, the new statute in 1983 did
not abolish the “traceable amount rule” (the one-
drop rule), as demonstrated by the outcomes when
the Phipps decision was appealed to higher courts in
1985 and 1986.
The history in the Phipps (Jane Doe) case goes as
far back as 1770, when a French planter named Jean
Gregoire Guillory took his wife’s slave, Margarita,
as his mistress (Model, 1983:3–4). More than two
centuries and two decades later, their great-great-
great-great-granddaughter, Susie Guillory Phipps,
asked the Louisiana courts to change the classifi ca-
tion on her deceased parents’ birth certifi cates to
“white” so she and her brothers and sisters could be
designated white. They all looked white, and some
were blue-eyed blonds. Mrs. Susie Phipps had been
denied a passport because she had checked “white”
on her application although her birth certifi cate des-
ignated her race as “colored.” This designation was
based on information supplied by a midwife, who
presumably relied on the parents or on the family’s
status in the community. Mrs. Phipps claimed that
this classifi cation came as a shock, since she had
always thought she was white, had lived as white,
and had twice married as white. Some of her rela-
tives, however, gave depositions saying they consid-
ered themselves “colored,” and the lawyers for the
state claimed to have proof that Mrs. Phipps is three
thirty-seconds black (Trillin, 1986:62–63, 71–74).
That was more than enough “blackness” for the dis-
trict court in 1983 to declare her parents, and thus
Mrs. Phipps and her siblings, to be legally black.
In October and again in December 1985, the
state’s Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the
district court’s decision, saying that no one can
change the racial designation of his or her parents
or anyone else’s (479 So. 2d 369). Said the majority
State courts have generally upheld the one-drop
rule. For instance, in a 1948 Mississippi case a
young man, Davis Knight, was sentenced to fi ve
years in jail for violating the antimiscegenation
statute. Less than one-sixteenth black, Knight said
he was not aware that he had any black lineage, but
the state proved his great-grandmother was a slave
girl. In some states the operating defi nition of black
has been limited by statute to particular fractions,
yet the social defi nition—the one-drop rule—has
generally prevailed in case of doubt. Mississippi,
Missouri, and fi ve other states have had the criterion
of one-eighth. Virginia changed from one-fourth to
one-eighth in 1910, then in 1930 forbade white
intermarriage with a person with any black ances-
try. Persons in Virginia who are one-fourth or more
Indian and less than one-sixteenth African black are
defi ned as Indians while on the reservation but as
blacks when they leave (Berry, 1965:26). While
some states have had general race classifi cation
statutes, at least for a time, others have legislated a
defi nition of black only for particular purposes,
such as marriage or education. In a few states there
have even been varying defi nitions for different
situations (Mangum, 1940:38–48). All states re-
quire a designation of race on birth certifi cates, but
there are no clear guidelines to help physicians and
midwives do the classifying.
Louisiana’s latest race classifi cation statute be-
came highly controversial and was fi nally repealed
in 1983 (Trillin, 1986:77). Until 1970, a Louisiana
statute had embraced the one-drop rule, defi ning a
Negro as anyone with a “trace of black ancestry.”
This law was challenged in court a number of times
from the 1920s on, including an unsuccessful at-
tempt in 1957 by boxer Ralph Dupas, who asked to
be declared white so that a law banning “interracial
sports” (since repealed) would not prevent him from
boxing in the state. In 1970 a lawsuit was brought
on behalf of a child whose ancestry was allegedly
only one two-hundred-fi fty-sixth black, and the
legislature revised its law. The 1970 Louisiana
statute defi ned a black as someone whose ancestry
is more than one thirty-second black (La. Rev.
Stat. 42:267). Adverse publicity about this law was
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66 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
the one accepted by the general public and by the
courts. The Census Bureau counts what the nation
wants counted. Although various operational in-
structions have been tried, the defi nition of black
used by the Census Bureau has been the nation’s
cultural and legal defi nition: all persons with any
known black ancestry. Other nations defi ne and
count blacks differently, so international compari-
sons of census data on blacks can be extremely mis-
leading. For example, Latin American countries
generally count as black only unmixed African
blacks, those only slightly mixed, and the very
poorest mulattoes. If they used the U.S. defi nition,
they would count far more blacks than they do, and
if Americans used their defi nition, millions in the
black community in the United States would be
counted either as white or as “coloreds” of different
descriptions, not as black.
Instructions to our census enumerators in 1840,
1850, and 1860 provided “mulatto” as a category
but did not defi ne the term. In 1870 and 1880,
mulattoes were offi cially defi ned to include “qua-
droons, octoroons, and all persons having any
perceptible trace of African blood.” In 1890 enu-
merators were told to record the exact proportion
of the “African blood,” again relying on visibility.
In 1900 the Census Bureau specifi ed that “pure
Negroes” be counted separately from mulattoes,
the latter to mean “all persons with some trace of
black blood.” In 1920 the mulatto category was
dropped, and black was defi ned to mean any per-
son with any black ancestry, as it has been ever
since.
In 1960 the practice of self-defi nition began,
with the head of household indicating the race of
its  members. This did not seem to introduce any
noticeable fl uctuation in the number of blacks,
thus indicating that black Americans generally
apply the one-drop rule to themselves. One ex-
ception is that Spanish-speaking Americans who
have black ancestry but were considered white, or
some designation other than black, in their place
of origin generally reject the one-drop rule if they
can. American Indians with some black ancestry
also generally try to avoid the rule, but those who
of the court in its opinion: “That appellants might
today describe themselves as white does not prove
error in a document which designates their parents
as colored” (479 So. 2d 371). Of course, if the par-
ents’ designation as “colored” cannot be disturbed,
their descendants must be defi ned as black by the
“traceable amount rule.” The court also concluded
that the preponderance of the evidence clearly
showed that the Guillory parents were “colored.”
Although noting expert testimony to the effect that
the race of an individual cannot be determined with
scientifi c accuracy, the court said the law of racial
designation is not based on science, that “individ-
ual race designations are purely social and cultural
perceptions and the evidence conclusively proves
those subjective perspectives were correctly re-
corded at the time the appellants’ birth certifi cates
were recorded” (479 So. 2d 372). At the rehearing
in December 1985, the appellate court also affi rmed
the necessity of designating race on birth certifi –
cates for public health, affi rmative action, and other
important public programs and held that equal pro-
tection of the law has not been denied so long as the
designation is treated as confi dential.
When this case was appealed to the Louisiana
Supreme Court in 1986, that court declined to re-
view the decision, saying only that the court “con-
curs in the denial for the reasons assigned by the
court of appeals on rehearing” (485 So. 2d 60). In
December 1986 the U.S. Supreme Court was
equally brief in stating its reason for refusing to re-
view the decision: “The appeal is dismissed for
want of a substantial federal question” (107 Sup.
Ct. Reporter, interim ed. 638). Thus, both the fi nal
court of appeals in Louisiana and the highest court
of the United States saw no reason to disturb the
application of the one-drop rule in the lawsuit
brought by Susie Guillory Phipps and her siblings.
CENSUS ENUMERATION
OF BLACKS
When the U.S. Bureau of the Census enumerates
blacks (always counted as Negroes until 1980),
it  does not use a scientifi c defi nition, but rather
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READING 2: Who Is Black? One Nation’s Defi nition 67
race with ethnicity. They consider miscegenation
with any “inferior” people to be the ultimate danger
to the survival of their own group and have often
seen the one-drop rule as a crucial component in
their line of defense. Americans in general, how-
ever, while fi nding other ways to discriminate
against immigrant groups, have rejected the appli-
cation of the drastic one-drop rule to all groups but
blacks.
UNIQUENESS OF THE
ONE-DROP RULE
Not only does the one-drop rule apply to no other
group than American blacks, but apparently the
rule is unique in that it is found only in the United
States and not in any other nation in the world. In
fact, defi nitions of who is black vary quite sharply
from country to country, and for this reason people
in other countries often express consternation
about our defi nition. James Baldwin relates a re-
vealing incident that occurred in 1956 at the Con-
ference of Negro-African Writers and Artists held
in Paris. The head of the delegation of writers and
artists from the United States was John Davis. The
French chairperson introduced Davis and then
asked him why he considered himself Negro, since
he certainly did not look like one. Baldwin wrote,
“He is a Negro, of course, from the remarkable
legal point of view which obtains in the United
States, but more importantly, as he tried to make
clear to his interlocutor, he was a Negro by choice
and by depth of involvement—by experience, in
fact” (1962:19).
The phenomenon known as “passing as white”
is diffi cult to explain in other countries or to for-
eign students. Typical questions are: “Shouldn’t
Americans say that a person who is passing as
white is white, or nearly all white, and has previ-
ously been passing as black?” or “To be consis-
tent, shouldn’t you say that someone who is
one-eighth white is passing as black?” or “Why is
there so much concern, since the so-called blacks
who pass take so little negroid ancestry with
them?” Those who ask such questions need to
leave the reservation are often treated as black.
At  any rate, the 1980 census count showed that
self-designated blacks made up about 12 percent
of the population of the United States.
No other ethnic population in the nation,
including those with visibly non-caucasoid
features, is defi ned and counted according to a
one-drop rule. For example, persons whose ances-
try is one-fourth or less American Indian are not
generally defi ned as Indian unless they want to be,
and they are considered assimilating Americans
who may even be proud of having some Indian
ancestry. The same implicit rule appears to apply
to Japanese Americans, Filipinos, or other peoples
from East Asian nations and also to Mexican
Americans who have Central American Indian
ancestry, as a large majority do. For instance, a
person whose ancestry is one-eighth Chinese is
not defi ned as just Chinese, or East Asian, or a
member of the mongoloid race. The United States
certainly does not apply a one-drop rule to its
white ethnic populations either, which include
both national and religious groups. Ethnicity has
often been confused with racial biology and not
just in Nazi Germany. Americans do not insist that
an American with a small fraction of Polish
ancestry be classifi ed as a Pole, or that someone
with a single remote Greek ancestor be designated
Greek, or that someone with any trace of Jewish
lineage is a Jew and nothing else.
It is interesting that, in The Passing of the Great
Race (1916), Madison Grant maintained that the
one-drop rule should be applied not only to blacks
but also to all the other ethnic groups he considered
biologically inferior “races,” such as Hindus, Asians
in general, Jews, Italians, and other Southern and
Eastern European peoples. Grant’s book went
through four editions, and he and others succeeded
in getting Congress to pass the national origins
quota laws of the early 1920s. This racist quota leg-
islation sharply curtailed immigration from every-
where in the world except Northern and Western
Europe and the Western Hemisphere, until it was
repealed in 1965. Grant and other believers in the
racial superiority of their own group have confused
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68 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
participation for blacks are still formidable, and a
fractionally black person cannot escape these ob-
stacles without passing as white and cutting off all
ties to the black family and community. The pain of
this separation, and condemnation by the black
family and community, are major reasons why
many or most of those who could pass as white
choose not to. Loss of security within the minority
community, and fear and distrust of the white world
are also factors.
It should now be apparent that the defi nition of a
black person as one with any trace at all of black
African ancestry is inextricably woven into the his-
tory of the United States. It incorporates beliefs
once used to justify slavery and later used to but-
tress the castelike Jim Crow system of segregation.
Developed in the South, the defi nition of “Negro”
(now black) spread and became the nation’s social
and legal defi nition. Because blacks are defi ned ac-
cording to the one-drop rule, they are a socially
constructed category in which there is wide varia-
tion in racial traits and therefore not a race group in
the scientifi c sense. However, because that category
has a defi nite status position in the society it has
become a self-conscious social group with an eth-
nic identity.
The one-drop rule has long been taken for
granted throughout the United States by whites and
blacks alike, and the federal courts have taken “ju-
dicial notice” of it as being a matter of common
knowledge. State courts have generally upheld the
one-drop rule, but some have limited the defi nition
to one thirty-second or one-sixteenth or one-eighth
black ancestry, or made other limited exceptions for
persons with both Indian and black ancestry. Most
Americans seem unaware that this defi nition of
blacks is extremely unusual in other countries, per-
haps even unique to the United States, and that
Americans defi ne no other minority group in a sim-
ilar way. . . .
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Is black a color category or a status?
2. Do you think passing still occurs?
realize that “passing” is so much more a social
phenomenon than a biological one, refl ecting the
nation’s unique defi nition of what makes a person
black. The concept of “passing” rests on the one-
drop rule and on folk beliefs about race and misce-
genation, not on biological or historical fact.
The black experience with passing as white in
the United States contrasts with the experience of
other ethnic minorities that have features that are
clearly non-caucasoid. The concept of passing ap-
plies only to blacks—consistent with the nation’s
unique defi nition of the group. A person who is
one-fourth or less American Indian or Korean or
Filipino is not regarded as passing if he or she inter-
marries and joins fully the life of the dominant
community, so the minority ancestry need not be
hidden. It is often suggested that the key reason for
this is that the physical differences between these
other groups and whites are less pronounced than
the physical differences between African blacks
and whites, and therefore are less threatening to
whites. However, keep in mind that the one-drop
rule and anxiety about passing originated during
slavery and later received powerful reinforcement
under the Jim Crow system.
For the physically visible groups other than
blacks, miscegenation promotes assimilation,
despite barriers of prejudice and discrimination
during two or more generations of racial mixing.
As noted above, when ancestry in one of these
racial minority groups does not exceed one-fourth,
a person is not defi ned solely as a member of that
group. Masses of white European immigrants have
climbed the class ladder not only through education
but also with the help of close personal relation-
ships in the dominant community, intermarriage,
and ultimately full cultural and social assimilation.
Young people tend to marry people they meet in the
same informal social circles (Gordon, 1964:70–81).
For visibly non-caucasoid minorities other than
blacks in the United States, this entire route to full
assimilation is slow but possible.
For all persons of any known black lineage, how-
ever, assimilation is blocked and is not promoted
by  miscegenation. Barriers to full opportunity and
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READING 2: Who Is Black? One Nation’s Defi nition 69
Horne, Lena, and Richard Schickel. 1965. Lena. Garden
City, NY: Doubleday & Co.
Mangum, Charles Staples, Jr. 1940. The Legal Status of the
Negro in the United States. Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press.
Model, F. Peter, ed. 1983. “Apartheid in the Bayou.”
Perspectives: The Civil Rights Quarterly 15 (Winter–
Spring), 3–4.
Myrdal, Gunnar, assisted by Richard Sterner and Arnold M.
Rose. 1944. An American Dilemma. New York: Harper &
Bros.
Ottley, Roi. 1943. New World A-Coming. Cleveland: World
Publishing Co.
Powell, Adam Clayton, Jr. 1971. Adam by Adam: The Autobi-
ography of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. New York: Dial Press.
Preston, Dickson J. 1980. Young Frederick Douglass: The
Maryland Years. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Trillin, Calvin. 1986. “American Chronicles: Black or
White.” New Yorker, April 14, 1986, pp. 62–78.
White, Walter. 1948. A Man Called White: The Autobiogra-
phy of Walter White. New York: Viking Press.
Williamson, Joel. 1980. New People: Miscegenation and
Mulattoes in the United States. New York: The Free Press.
REFERENCES
Bahr, Howard M., Bruce A. Chadwick, and Joseph H. Stauss.
1979. American Ethnicity. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath & Co.
Baldwin, James. 1962. Nobody Knows My Name. New York:
Dell Publishing Co.
Bennett, Lerone, Jr. 1962. Before the Mayfl ower: A History
of the Negro in America 1619–1962. Chicago: Johnson
Publishing Co.
Berry, Brewton. 1965. Race and Ethnic Relations. 3rd ed.
Boston: Houghton Miffl in Co.
Berry, Brewton, and Henry L. Tischler. 1978. Race and
Ethnic Relations. 4th ed. Boston: Houghton Miffl in Co.
Buckley, Gail Lumet. 1986. The Hornes: An American
Family. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Gordon, Milton M. 1964. Assimilation in American Life.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Grant, Madison. 1916. The Passing of the Great Race. New
York: Scribner.
Gwaltney, John Langston. 1980. Drylongso: A Self-Portrait
of Black America. New York: Vintage Books.
Harris, Melvin. 1964. Patterns of Race in the Americas. New
York: W. W. Norton.
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R E A D I N G 3
The Evolution of Identity
The Washington Post
Decade to decade, the U.S. census has changed its classifications of race and ethnicity. Partially, this reflects the growing diversity of the country. It also
reveals the nation’s evolving politics and social mores. When the first census was taken in 1790, enumerators classified free residents as white or “other,”
while slaves were counted separately. By 1860, residents were classified as white, black, or mulatto. Hispanic origin first became a category in 1970. Here
are the categories used in the decennial counts from 1860 to 2000, as presented by AmeriStat ( www.ameristat.org ).
1860 1870 1880 1890 1 1900 2 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
White
Black
Mulatto

White
Black
Mulatto
Chinese
Indian

White
Black
Mulatto
Chinese
Indian

White
Black
Mulatto
Chinese
Indian
Quadroon
Octoroon
Japanese

White
Black
(Negro descent)
Chinese
Indian

Japanese

White
Black
Mulatto
Chinese
Indian

Japanese

Other

White
Black
Mulatto
Chinese
Indian

Japanese
Filipino
Hindu
Korean

Other

White
Black

Chinese
Indian

Japanese
Filipino
Hindu
Korean
Mexican

Other

White
Black

Chinese
Indian

Japanese
Filipino
Hindu
Korean

Other

White
Negro

Chinese
Amer.
Indian
Japanese
Filipino

Other

White
Negro

Chinese
Amer. Indian

Japanese
Filipino

Aleut
Eskimo
Hawaiian
Part Hawaiian

Other
E
T
H
N
I
C
I
T
Y
White
Negro or Black

Chinese
Indian (Amer.)

Japanese
Filipino

Korean

Hawaiian

Other
Mexican

Puerto Rican
Central/So.
American
Cuban
Other Spanish
(None of these)

White
Black or Negro

Chinese
Indian

Japanese
Filipino
Asian Indian
Korean

Aleut
Eskimo
Hawaiian

Vietnamese
Guamanian
Samoan

Other
Mexican,
Mexican Amer.
Chicano
Puerto Rican

Cuban
Other Spanish/
Hispanic
Not Spanish/
Hispanic
White
Black or Negro

Chinese
Indian (Amer.)

Japanese
Filipino
Asian Indian
Korean

Aleut
Eskimo
Hawaiian

Vietnamese
Guamanian
Samoan
Other Asian
Pacific
Islander

Other race
Mexican,
Mexican Amer.
Chicano
Puerto Rican

Cuban
Other Spanish/
Hispanic
Not Spanish/
Hispanic
White
Black, African
American or
Negro
Chinese
Amer. Indian or
Alaska Native
Japanese
Filipino
Asian Indian
Korean

Native Hawaiian

Vietnamese
Guamanian or
Chamorro
Samoan
Other Asian
Other Pacific
Islander

Some other race
Mexican,
Mexican Amer.
Chicano
Puerto Rican

Cuban
Other Spanish/
Hispanic/Latino
Not Spanish/
Hispanic/Latino
1 In 1890, mulatto was defined as a person who
was three-eighths to five-eighths black. A
quadroon was one-quarter black and an
octoroon one-eighth black.
2 American Indians have been asked
to specify their tribe since the 1900
Census.
Bold letters indicate first usage
since 1860.

NOTE: Before the 1970 Census, enumerators wrote in the race of individuals using the
designated categories. In subsequent censuses, respondents or enumerators filled in circles
next to the categories with which the respondent identified. Also beginning with the 1970
Census, people choosing American Indian, other Asian, other race, or for the Hispanic
question, other Hispanic categories, were asked to write in a specific tribe or group. Hispanic
ethnicity was asked of a sample of Americans in 1970 and of all Americans beginning with
the 1980 Census. The 2000 Census allowed Americans to select more than one race.

Sources: AmeriStat, “200 Years of U.S. Census Taking: Population and Housing Questions 1790–1990,” U.S. Census Bureau.
FROM: The Washington Post; Federal Page, August 13, 2001.
70

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READING 4: Real Indians 71
P E R S O N A L A C C O U N T
A Loaded Vacation
Every summer since I can remember, I go on vacation
with my aunt and uncle. Last summer, my aunt took my
cousin, brother, and me to Florida. My aunt grew up in
Maryland along with my mother. She was college edu-
cated and until recently worked in corporate America.
Now she owns her own daycare center.
I rarely thought about how my background was differ-
ent from my aunt’s until one night in Florida. We were all
in the hotel suite when she asked me about my plans for
the future and what I wanted to do with my degree, since
I was entering college in the fall. I told her I wanted to be
a lawyer. She told me that was going to be a hard goal to
reach for a black female, but then again she said that
I wasn’t really black. I didn’t understand. She went on to
say that if I make it anywhere in life, it would be because
I talk white. She said, “Just remember that, even though
everything about you is white—your clothes, the way you
talk, your friends—doesn’t mean when they look at you
they don’t still see black.”
I didn’t know what to say. I sat there silently taking it all
in. Was this the same aunt I’d known all my life? She told
my brother that anything he accomplished would be due
to his skin complexion, and that if he had been dark
skinned “he wouldn’t have a shot in hell, because white
people determine how far we get in life.” This went
against everything I believed. I said, “What about my high
GPA and the fact that I’m intelligent? That means noth-
ing?” She said, “Exactly. Even with all of that, you’ll only
go as far as they let you.”
After she finished ranting about how far we would go
in life, she went on to say that we were foolish for having
so many white friends, because white people were the
devil. At that point I had to speak up. I told her that I’ve
never had a problem with any of my white friends and
that she shouldn’t talk about people she’s never met.
She replied by saying, “All white people are the same.
Some are just closet racists.” I said that my best friend
Monica is white. How could she be my best friend if she
was racist? My aunt said, “She may be your friend now,
but if the two of you got into any trouble she would throw
you right under the bus.” The conversation ended with
her telling me how naive I was, and that one day I would
learn the truth.
That day came, and soon. A few months after that
dreadful vacation Monica and I got into trouble. Monica
was only 17, whereas I was 18. Because of my age, I
would not be let off with a phone call home. Monica took
the blame and covered for me. Thanks to her, I don’t have
a criminal record. I thought about calling my aunt to tell
her how wrong she had been, but I decided that there
was no point in arguing. I knew the truth.
Niah Grimes
United States specify a minimum blood quantum in
their legal citizenship criteria, with one-quarter
blood degree being the most frequent minimum re-
quirement.
1
(In the simplest instance, an individual
has a one-quarter blood quantum if any one of her
four grandparents is of exclusively Indian ancestry
and the other three are non-Indian.) The remaining
one-third of Indian tribes specify no minimum
blood quantum. They often simply require that any
new enrollee be a lineal (direct) descendant of an-
other tribal member. . . .
Legal defi nitions of tribal membership regulate
the rights to vote in tribal elections, to hold tribal
offi ce, and generally to participate in the political,
and sometimes also the cultural, life of the tribe.
R E A D I N G 4
Real Indians: Identity and the
Survival of Native America
Eva Marie Garroutte
The most common tribal requirement for deter-
mining citizenship concerns “blood quantum,” or
degree of Indian ancestry. . . . About two-thirds of
all federally recognized tribes of the coterminous
Eva Marie Garroutte is a professor of sociology at Boston
College.
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72 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
comes immediately to the minds of many readers.
The legal situation of Indian people, and its atten-
dant opportunities and responsibilities, are the result
of historic negotiations between tribes and the fed-
eral government. In these, the government agreed to
compensate tribes in various ways for the large
amounts of land and other resources that the tribes
had surrendered, often by force.
6
Benefi ts available
to those who can satisfy federal defi nitions of Indian
identity are administered through a variety of agen-
cies, including the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the
Indian Health Service, the Department of Agricul-
ture, the Offi ce of Elementary and Secondary Educa-
tion, and the Department of Labor, to name a few.
7

Legal defi nitions also affect specifi c economic
rights deriving from treaties or agreements that
some (not all) tribes made with the federal govern-
ment. These may include such rights as the use of
particular geographic areas for hunting, harvesting,
fi shing, or trapping. Those legally defi ned as Indi-
ans are also sometimes exempted from certain
requirements related to state licensure and state
(but not federal) income and property taxation.
8
. . .
“IF HE GETS A NOSEBLEED,
HE’LL TURN INTO A WHITE
MAN”
North American Indians who successfully negotiate
the rigors of legal defi nitions of identity at the fed-
eral level can achieve what some consider the dubi-
ous distinction of being a “card-carrying Indian.”
That is, their federal government can issue them a
laminated document (in the United States, a CDIB;
in Canada an Indian status card) that certifi es them
as possessing a certain “degree of Indian blood.”
. . . Canadian-born country music singer Shania
Twain has what it takes to be a card-carrying Indian:
she is formally recognized as an Anishnabe (Ojibwe)
Indian with band membership in the Temagami
Bear Island First Nation (Ontario, Canada). More
specifi cally, she is legally on record as possessing
one-half degree Indian blood. Given this informa-
tion, one might conclude that Twain’s identity as an
Indian person is more or less unassailable. It’s not.
One’s ability to satisfy legal defi nitions of identifi –
cation may also determine one’s right to share in
certain tribal revenues (such as income generated
by tribally controlled businesses). Perhaps most
signifi cantly, it may determine the right to live on a
reservation or to inherit land interests there.
The tribes’ power to determine citizenship al-
lows them to delimit the distribution of certain im-
portant resources, such as reservation land, tribal
monies, and political privileges. But this is hardly
the end of the story of legal defi nitions of identity.
The federal government has many purposes for
which it, too, must distinguish Indians from non-
Indians, and it uses its own, separate legal defi ni-
tion for doing so. More precisely, it uses a whole
array of legal defi nitions. Since the U.S. Constitu-
tion uses the word “Indian” in two places but de-
fi nes it nowhere, Congress has made its own
defi nitions on an ad hoc basis.
2
A 1978 congressio-
nal survey discovered no less than thirty-three sep-
arate defi nitions of Indians in use in different pieces
of federal legislation.
3
These may or may not cor-
respond with those any given tribe uses to deter-
mine its citizenship.
Most federal legal defi nitions of Indian identity
specify a minimum blood quantum—frequently
one-quarter but sometimes one-half—but others do
not. Some require or accept tribal citizenship as a
criterion of federal identifi cation, and others do not.
Some require reservation residency, or ownership
of land held in trust by the government, and others
do not. Other laws affecting Indians specify no def-
inition of identity, such that the courts must deter-
mine to whom the laws apply.
4
Because of these
wide variations in legal identity defi nitions and
their frequent departure from the various tribal
ones, many individuals who are recognized by their
tribes as citizens are nevertheless considered non-
Indian for some or all federal purposes. The con-
verse can be true as well.
5

There are a variety of contexts in which one or
more federal legal defi nitions of identity become
important. The matter of economic resource
distribution—access to various social services,
monetary awards, and opportunities—probably
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Twain’s case shows with uncommon clarity that
legal and biological defi nitions are conceptually
distinct. . . .
In their modern American construction, at least,
biological defi nitions of identity assume the cen-
trality of an individual’s genetic relationship to
other tribal members. Not just any degree of rela-
tionship will do, however. Typically, the degree of
closeness is also important. And this is the starting
point for much of the controversy that swirls around
issues of biological Indianness. . . .
Sociologist Eugeen Roosens summarizes such
common conceptions about the importance of
blood quantum for determining Indian identity:
There is . . . [a] principle about which the whites and
the Indians are in agreement. . . . People with more
Indian blood . . . also have more rights to inherit what
their ancestors, the former Indians, have left behind.
In addition, full blood Indians are more authentic than
half-breeds. By being pure, they have more right to
respect. They are, in all aspects of their being, more
integral . 12
Biological ancestry can take on such tremendous
signifi cance in tribal contexts that it overwhelms
all other considerations of identity, especially when
it is constructed as “pure.” As Cherokee legal
scholar G. William Rice points out, “Most [people]
would recognize the full-blood Indian who was en-
rolled in a federally recognized tribe as an Indian,
even if the individual was adopted at birth by a
non-Indian family and had never set foot in Indian
country nor met another Indian.”
13
Mixed-race in-
dividuals, by contrast, fi nd their identity claims
considerably complicated. Even if such an individ-
ual can demonstrate conclusively that he has some
Native ancestry, the question will still be raised: Is
the amount of ancestry he possesses “enough”? Is
his “Indian blood” suffi cient to distinguish him
from the mixed-blood individual spotlighted by an
old quip: “If he got a nosebleed, he’d turn into a
white man”?
Members of various tribes complain of factio-
nalism between these two major groups—full
bloods and mixed bloods—and they suggest that the
Controversy has engulfed this celebrity because
of an anonymous phone call to a Canadian newspa-
per a few years ago that led to the disclosure of an-
other name by which Shania was once known:
Eileen Regina Edwards. Eileen/Shania was adopted
by a stepfather in early childhood and took the sur-
name of Twain at that time. So far well and good—
except for one thing. Both sides of her biological
family describe themselves not as Indian but as
white. It is only Jerry Twain, her late stepfather,
who was Indian.
As the adopted child of an Anishnabe man,
Shania Twain occupies an unusual status. Though
the U.S. government allows for the assignment of
blood quantum only to biological descendants of
Indian people, Canada allows for the naturalization
of non-Native children through adoption.
9
Although
Twain has stated that her white mother (now de-
ceased) had told her, in childhood, that her biologi-
cal father (also deceased) had some Indian heritage,
his family denies the suggestion entirely. They say
they are French and Irish. Ms. Twain explains: “I
don’t know how much Indian blood I actually have
in me, but as the adopted daughter of my father
Jerry, I became legally registered as 50-percent
North American Indian. Being raised by a full-
blooded Indian and being part of his family and
their culture from such a young age is all I’ve ever
known. That heritage is in my heart and my soul,
and I’m proud of it.”
10

Twain has been sharply criticized, in both the
United States and Canada, for not making the full
details of her racial background clearer, especially
to awards-granting agencies such as the First Amer-
icans in the Arts (FAITA), which honored her in
February 1996 as a Native performer. FAITA itself
has made no such complaint. The group states that
it is satisfi ed that “Ms. Twain has not intentionally
misrepresented herself.” And more importantly, her
adopted family defends her. An aunt observes: “She
was raised by us. She was accepted by our band. If
my brother were alive, he’d be very upset. He raised
her as his own daughter. My parents, her grandpar-
ents, took her into the bush and taught her the
[ Native] traditions.”
11

READING 4: Real Indians 73
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74 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
Given this standard of identifi cation, full bloods
tend to be seen as the “really real,” the quintessen-
tial Indians, while others are viewed as Indians in
diminishing degrees. The original, stated intention
of blood quantum distinctions was to determine the
point at which the various responsibilities of the
dominant society to Indian peoples ended. The ulti-
mate and explicit federal intention was to use the
blood quantum standard as a means to liquidate
tribal lands and to eliminate government trust re-
sponsibility to tribes, along with entitlement pro-
grams, treaty rights, and reservations. Through
intermarriage and application of a biological defi ni-
tion of identity Indians would eventually become
citizens indistinguishable from all other citizens.
17

Degree of blood is calculated, with reference to
biological defi nitions, on the basis of the immedi-
acy of one’s genetic relationship to those whose
bloodlines are (supposedly) unmixed. As in the
case with legal defi nitions, the initial calculation
for most tribes’ biological defi nitions begins with a
base roll, a listing of tribal membership and blood
quanta in some particular year. These base rolls
make possible very elaborate defi nitions of identity.
For instance, they allow one to reckon that the off-
spring of, say, a full-blood Navajo mother and a
white father is one-half Navajo. If that half-Navajo
child, in turn, produces children with a Hopi person
of one-quarter blood degree, those progeny will be
judged one-quarter Navajo and one-eighth Hopi.
Alternatively, they can be said to have three-eighths
general Indian blood.
As even this rather simple example shows, over
time such calculations can become infi nitesimally
precise, with people’s ancestry being parsed into so
many thirty-seconds, sixty-fourths, one-hundred-
twenty-eighths, and so on. . . .
For those of us who have grown up and lived
with the peculiar precision of calculating blood
quantum, it sometimes requires a perspective less
infl uenced by the vagaries of American history to
remind us just how far from common sense the con-
cepts underlying biological defi nitions of identity
are. I recall responding to an inquiry from a South-
east Asian friend about what blood quantum was
division arose historically because of mixed bloods’
greater access to the social resources of the domi-
nant society and their enhanced ability to impose
values and ideas upon others.
14
As Julie M., a citi-
zen of the United Keetowah Band of Cherokee Indi-
ans, says: “For the Cherokee people, there’s been
this mixed blood/full blood kind of dynamic going
from before the removal [in 1838, also known as the
Trail of Tears]. . . . It’s kind of like us-and-them. . . .
It’s almost been like a war in some cases. . . . It’s a
‘who’s-really-going-to-be-in-control-of-the-tribe?’
kind of thing.” Many historians have similarly found
it logical that political allegiances would tend to
shift for those Indian people who formed alliances,
through intermarriage, with members of the domi-
nant society, and that this has made the division bet-
ween full bloods and mixed bloods politically
important.
15

Modern biological defi nitions of identity, how-
ever, are much more complicated than this historical
explanation can account for. This complexity did not
originate in the ideas and experiences of Indian
tribes. Instead, they closely refl ect nineteenth- and
early-twentieth-century theories of race introduced
by Euro-Americans. These theories (of which there
were a great many) viewed biology as defi nitive, but
they did not distinguish it from culture. Thus, blood
became quite literally the vehicle for the transmis-
sion of cultural characteristics. “‘Half-breeds’ by
this logic could be expected to behave in ‘half-
civilized,’ i.e., partially assimilated, ways while
retaining one half of their traditional culture, accoun-
ting for their marginal status in both societies.”
16

These turn-of-the-century theories of race found
a very precise way to talk about amount of ancestry
in the idea of blood quantum, or degree of blood.
The notion of blood quantum as a standard of Indi-
anness emerged with force in the nineteenth cen-
tury. Its most signifi cant early usage as a standard
of identifi cation was in the General Allotment
(Dawes) Act of 1887, which led to the creation of
the Dawes Rolls [the “base roll” or written record
of tribal membership in a specifi c year]. It has been
part of the popular—and legal and academic—lore
about Indians ever since.
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his or her own fi nancial affairs.
20
Blood quantum is
one of the criteria that determines eligibility for
citizenship in many tribes; it therefore indirectly
infl uences the claimant’s relationship to the same
kinds of rights, privileges, and responsibilities that
legal defi nitions allow.
21

But biological defi nitions of identity affect per-
sonal interactions as well as governmental deci-
sions. Indian people with high blood quanta
frequently have recognizable physical characteris-
tics. As Cherokee Nation principal tribal chief Chad
Smith observes, some people are easily recogniz-
able as Indians because they pass “a brown paper
bag test,” meaning that their skin is “darker than a
#10 paper sack.” It is these individuals who are
often most closely associated with negative racial
stereotypes in the larger society. Native American
Studies professor Devon Mihesuah makes a point
about Indian women that is really applicable to ei-
ther gender: “Appearance is the most visible aspect
of one’s race; it determines how Indian women de-
fi ne themselves and how others defi ne and treat
them. Their appearance, whether Caucasian, Indian,
African, or mixed, either limits or broadens Indian
women’s choices of ethnic identity and ability to
interact with non-Indians and other Indians.”
22

Every day, identifi ably Indian people are turned
away from restaurants, refused the use of public rest
rooms, ranked as unintelligent by the education sys-
tem, and categorized by the personnel of medical,
social service, and other vital public agencies as
“problems”—all strictly on the basis of their
appearance. As Keetoowah Band Cherokee full-
blood Donald G. notes, a recognizably Indian
appearance can be a serious detriment to one’s pro-
fessional and personal aspirations: “It seems the
darker you are, the less important you are, in some
ways, to the employer. . . . To some, it would be
discouraging. But I am four-fourths [i.e., full-blood]
Cherokee, and it doesn’t matter what someone says
about me. . . . I feel for the person who doesn’t like
my skin color, you know?”
There are circumstances, however, in which it is
diffi cult for the victims of negative racial stereotyp-
ing to maintain an attitude as philosophical as this.
and how it was calculated. In mid-explanation, I
noticed his expression of complete amazement.
“That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard,” he burst
out. “Who ever thought of that ?”
The logic that underlies the biological defi nition
of racial identity becomes even more curious and
complicated when one considers the striking differ-
ence in the way that American defi nitions assign
individuals to the racial category of “Indian,” as op-
posed to the racial category “black.” As a variety of
researchers have observed, social attributions of
black identity have focused (at least since the end
of the Civil War) on the “one-drop rule,” or rule of
hypodescent.
18
. . .
Far from being held to a one-drop rule, Indians
are generally required—both by law and by popular
opinion—to establish rather high blood quanta in
order for their claims to racial identity to be ac-
cepted as meaningful, the individual’s own opinion
notwithstanding. Although people must have only
the slightest trace of “black blood” to be forced into
the category “African American,” modern American
Indians must (1) formally produce (2) strong evi-
dence of (3) often rather substantial amounts of
“Indian blood” to be allowed entry into the corre-
sponding racial category. The regnant biological
defi nitions applied to Indians are simply quite dif-
ferent than those that have applied (and continue to
apply) to blacks. Modern Americans, as Native
American Studies professor Jack Forbes ( Powhatan/
Lenape/Saponi) puts the matter, “are always fi nd-
ing ‘blacks’ (even if they look rather un- African),
and . . . are always losing ‘Indians.’ ” 19
BIOLOGICAL DEFINITIONS:
CONTEXTS AND CONSEQUENCES
Biological defi nitions of Indian identity operate, in
short, in some curious and inconsistent ways. They
are nevertheless signifi cant in a variety of contexts.
And they have clear relationships, both direct and
indirect, to legal defi nitions. The federal govern-
ment has historically used a minimum blood quan-
tum standard to determine who was eligible to
receive treaty rights, or to sell property and manage
READING 4: Real Indians 75
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76 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
want them to know this is an Indian person doing
this. Because I come from a background where if
you looked Indian, you were put in special education
because the schools said you couldn’t learn. And it
wasn’t true. We need Indian people today who look
Indian to show everyone the things we can do.”
A physical appearance that is judged insuffi –
ciently “Indian” can also act as a barrier to partici-
pation in certain cultural activities. Bill T., a Wichita
and Seneca minister in his mid-fi fties, recalls that,
in his youth, he witnessed light-skinned individuals
who attempted to participate in powwow dances
being evicted from the arena. “That kind of thing is
still happening today,” he added sadly, and other
respondents readily confi rmed this observation. A
more unusual instance of the relevance of physical
appearance to cultural participation was volun-
teered by Frank D., a Hopi respondent. His tribe’s
ceremonial dances feature the appearance of pow-
erful spirit beings called kachinas, which are em-
bodied by masked Hopi men. Ideally, the everyday,
human identity of the dancers remains unknown to
observers. Frank commented on the subject of
tribal members whose skin tone is noticeably either
lighter or darker than the norm:
Frank D .: Say, for instance, if a Hopi marries a
black person . . . [and] you get a male child . . . it’s
gonna be darker skinned. It might even be black. A
black kachina just wouldn’t fi t out here [at Hopi].
You see, everybody’d know who it is. He’d be very
visible [in the ceremonial dances]. . . . It’d be very
hard on that individual. Kids don’t work the other
way, too—if they’re real light. . . . Kachinas gotta be
brown.
Author: So there are certain ceremonial roles that
people could not fi ll because of their appearance?
Frank D.: Well, they could, but it would be
awful tough. A lot of these [ceremonial] things are
done with secrecy. No one knows who the kachinas
are. Or at least, the kids don’t. And then, say you
get somebody who really stands out, then every-
body knows who that [dancer] is, and it’s not good.
For the ceremony—because everybody knows who
that person is. And so the kids will start asking
In one interview, a Mohawk friend, June L., illus-
trated the potential consequences of public judg-
ments based on skin color. She reminded me of a
terrifying episode that had once unfolded while I was
visiting at her house. Our conversation was inter-
rupted by a phone call informing this mother of fi ve
that her college-student son, who had spent the sum-
mer day working on a roof, had suddenly become ill
while driving home. Feeling faint, he had pulled up
to a local convenience store and made his way inside,
asking for a drink of water. The clerk refused. Dan-
gerously dehydrated, the young man collapsed on the
fl oor from sunstroke. “The worst thing about it,” June
recalled, “was that I have to keep wondering: What
was the reason for that? Did that clerk refuse to help
my son because she was just a mean person? Or was
it because she saw him stumble into the store and
thought, ‘Well, it’s just some drunken Indian’?” Anx-
iety about social judgments of this kind are a fact of
daily life for parents of children whose physical ap-
pearance makes their Indian ancestry clearly evident.
At the same time, June’s remarks showed the
opposite side to the coin of physical appearance. In
some contexts, not conforming to the usual notions
of “what Indians look like” can also be a liability:
My aunt was assistant dean at a large Ivy League uni-
versity. One day she called me on the phone. She had
one scholarship to give out to an Indian student. One
of the students being considered was blonde-haired
and blue-eyed. The other one was black-haired and
dark-skinned, and she looked Indian. The blonde
girl’s grades were a little better. My aunt didn’t know
what to do. She said to me, “Both these girls are tribal
members. Both of them are qualifi ed [for the scholar-
ship]. They’re sitting outside my offi ce. What would
you do?” I told her that, as an Indian person, there was
only one thing I could say. Which was to give the
money to the one with the dark skin. As Indian peo-
ple, we do want to have Indian people that look like
they’re Indian to represent us.
Readers may be surprised by such a candid state-
ment. But June’s pragmatic reasoning takes account
of certain historical realities. As she explained
further, “We like people to know who’s doing those
accomplishments, like getting scholarships. We
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matter how frequently I was blamed by strangers
for not resembling their image of some Hollywood
Sitting Bull, I was still defensive and vulnerable.
‘I’m part Indian,’ I explained.”
23

Even his tragic death has not safeguarded Dorris
from insinuations about inadequate blood quan-
tum. Shortly after his 1997 suicide, a story on his
life and death in New York magazine reported that
the author’s fair complexion had always caused
some observers to wonder about his racial identity
and archly repeated a rumor: “It is said he . . .
[eventually] discovered tanning booths.”
24

In short, many Indian people, both individually
and collectively, continue to embrace the assump-
tion that close biological connections to other
Indian people—and the distinctive physical appear-
ance that may accompany those connections—
imply a stronger claim on identity than do more
distant ones. As Potawatomi scholar of Native
American Studies Terry Wilson summarizes, “Few,
if any, Native Americans, regardless of upbringing
in rural, reservation, or urban setting, ignore their
own and other Indians’ blood quantum in everyday
life. Those whose physical appearances render their
Indian identities suspect are subject to suspicious
scrutiny until precise cultural explanations, espe-
cially blood quantum, are offered or discovered.”
25

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. As Garroutte describes them, what are the vari-
ous ways that one might be defi ned as a “real”
Indian? When might these different defi nitions
of “Indianness” confl ict?
2. Thinking about June’s description of her son
being refused a drink of water and her advice
about who should receive the Indian scholar-
ship, do you see any consistencies or inconsis-
tencies in her approach?
NOTES
1. Thornton surveyed 302 of the 317 tribes in the lower
forty-eight states that enjoyed federal acknowledgment
in 1997. He found that 204 tribes had some minimum
blood quantum requirement, while the remaining 98 had
questions—“How come that kachina’s so dark, so
black?” or “How come that kachina’s white?” They
start asking questions and it’s really hard. So I
think, if you’re thinking about kids, it’s really better
if kachinas are brown.
Finally, the physical appearance borne by mixed
bloods may not only create barriers to tribal cul-
tural participation; it may also offer an occasion for
outrightly shaming them. Cornelia S. remembers
her days at the Eufala Indian School:
You had to be Indian to be [allowed admission]
there. . . . But . . . if [certain students] . . . didn’t look
as Indian as we did, or if they looked like they were
white, they were kind of looked down upon, like
treated differently because [people would say] “oh,
that’s just a white person.” . . . They just [would] tease
’em and stuff. Say “oh, whatcha doin’ white boy” or
“white girl”—just stuff like that.
Nor is the social disapproval of light-skinned mixed
bloods strictly the stuff of schoolyard teasing. The
same respondent added that even adults confront
questions of blood quantum with dead seriousness:
Us Indians, whenever we see someone else who is
saying that they’re Indian . . . or trying to be around
us Indians, and act like us, and they don’t look like
they’re Indian and we know that they’re not as much
Indian as we are, yeah, we look at them like they’re
not Indian and, ya know, don’t really like why
they’re acting like that. . . . But you know, I’m not
that far off . . . into judging other people and what
color [they are].
The late author Michael Dorris, a member of the
Modoc tribe (California), has written that humilia-
tions related to his appearance were part of his daily
experience. He describes (in his account of his
family’s struggle with his son’s fetal alcohol syn-
drome, The Broken Cord ) an encounter with a hos-
pital admissions staff, to whom he had just identifi ed
himself and his son as Indians. “They surveyed my
appearance with curiosity. It was an expression I
recognized, a reaction, familiar to most people of
mixed-blood ancestry, that said, ‘You don’t look
like an Indian.’ No matter how often it happened, no
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78 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
details on the special, political-economic relationship of
Indians to the federal government in relation to taxation
and licensure, see Gary D. Sandefur, “Economic Devel-
opment and Employment Opportunities for American
Indians,” in American Indians: Social Justice and Public
Policy, ed. Donald E. Green and Thomas V. Tonneson,
Ethnicity and Public Policy Series, vol. 9 (Milwaukee:
University of Wisconsin System Institute on Race and
Ethnicity, 1991), 208–22.
9. Aside from the issue of adopted children, the legal re-
quirements for establishing legal status as Indian in
Canada have been even more complicated and peculiar
than the U.S. ones, and the tensions related to them even
more severe. Until 1985, a Canadian Indian woman who
married a legally non-Indian man lost her legal status as
an Indian, and her children (who might have a blood
quantum of one-half) could never be recognized as
Indian under Canadian law. A non-Indian woman who
married an Indian man, however, gained Indian status
for herself and her children. Men could neither gain nor
lose Indian status through marriage. When a 1985 bill
amended the Indian Act, which governed such matters,
the issue of “real Indianness” came to a head. Many
Canadian Indian women and children sought and re-
ceived Indian legal status, but when they attempted to
return to the reservations, they often got a chilly wel-
come from Indian communities already overburdened
with fi nancial obligations to their existing population.
Like their American counterparts, Canadian Indian
bands continue to struggle with the issue of how to con-
ceive the boundaries of their membership. For a good
discussion of Canadian Indian identifi cation policies,
see Eugeen Roosens, Creating Ethnicity: The Process of
Ethnogenesis ( Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1989).
10. Shania Twain quoted in Jackie Bissley, “Country Star
Shania Twain’s Candor Is Challenged,” Indian Country
Today, 9–16 April 1996.
11. Quoted in Jackie Bissley, “Country Singer Says Stories
Robbing Her of Her Native Roots,” Indian Country
Today, 16–23 April 1996. Even Twain’s unusual
situation does not exhaust the intricate aspects of the
Canadian legal system as it struggles with matters of
Indian identity. Roosens describes other fi ne points of
Indian identity in force north of the border over a period
of several decades:
Since 1951, to be registered as an Indian one has to be
the legitimate child of an Indian father. The ethnic ori-
gin of the mother is irrelevant. . . . Furthermore, if the
grandmother on the Indian side of a mixed marriage
(the father’s mother) is a non-Indian by descent, then
the grandchild loses his or her status at the age of 21.
Thus, one can be offi cially born an Indian and lose
this  status at the age of maturity. (Roosens, Creating
Ethnicity, 24)
none. Russell Thornton, “Tribal Membership Require-
ments and the Demography of ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Native
Americans,” Population Research and Policy Review 16
(1997): 37.
2. The two mentions of “Indians” in the Constitution ap-
pear in passages regarding the regulation of commerce
and the taking of a federal census. The word “tribe” also
appears once in the Constitution, in the Commerce
Clause.
3. Sharon O’Brien, “Tribes and Indians: With Whom Does
the United States Maintain a Relationship?” Notre Dame
Law Review 66 (1991): 1481.
4. One particularly important law that provides no defi ni-
tion of “Indian” is the Major Crimes Act of 1885 (23
Stat. 385, U.S.C. Sec. 1153). It subjects reservation Indi-
ans to federal prosecution for certain offenses for which
non-Indians would face only state prosecution.
5. For a detailed discussion of legal cases bearing on the
defi nition of “Indian,” see Felix S. Cohen, Handbook of
Federal Indian Law (Charlottesville, Va.: Michie/
Bobbs-Merrill, 1982).
6. Wilcomb E. Washburn, Red Man’s Land/White Man’s
Law: A Study of the Past and Present States of the Amer-
ican Indian (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971).
7. These agencies administer resources and programs in
areas such as education, health, social services, tribal
governance and administration, law enforcement, nutri-
tion, resource management, tribal economic develop-
ment, employment, and the like. The most recently
published source describing various programs and the
requirements for participation is Roger Walk, Federal
Assistance to Native Americans: A Report Prepared for
the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs of the US
Senate (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Offi ce,
1991). In fi scal year 2001, recognized tribes and their
members had access to approximately four billion dol-
lars of federal funding for various social programs. U.S.
Government Accounting Offi ce, Indian Issues: Improve-
ments Needed in Tribal Recognition Process, Report to
Congressional Requesters, Washington D.C.: Govern-
ment Printing Offi ce, November 2001.
8. Non-Indian students in my classes sometimes tell me
that Indians also regularly receive such windfalls as free
cars and monthly checks from the government strictly
because of their race. It is my sad duty to puncture this
fantasy; there is no truth in it. The common belief that
Indians receive “free money” from the government
probably stems from the fact that the government holds
land in trust for certain tribes. As part of its trust respon-
sibility, it may then lease that land, collect the revenue,
and distribute it to the tribal members. Thus, some Indi-
ans do receive government checks, but these do not rep-
resent some kind of manna from heaven; they are simply
the profi ts derived from lands which they own. For
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classifi cations, but at differing rates. Popular conven-
tions of racial classifi cation in America tend to prevent
individuals with any discernible black ancestry from
identifying themselves as Indians. As an interview re-
spondent quoted by anthropologist Circe Sturm ob-
serves, “This is America, where being to any degree
Black is the same thing as being to any degree preg-
nant.” Sturm, Blood Politics, 188.
By contrast, individuals with discernible white an-
cestry are sometimes allowed by others to identify as
Indian. In their case the legitimacy of their assertion is
likely to be evaluated with reference to the amount of
white ancestry, and with beliefs about whether that
amount is enough to merely dilute or to entirely compro-
mise Indian identity. Other factors, such as culture and
upbringing, may also be taken into account. People of
partial white ancestry, in other words, are typically
somewhat more free (although not entirely free) to nego-
tiate a legitimate identity as Indian than are people of
partial black ancestry.
20. For further details on the historical impact of blood
quantum on individuals’ legal rights, see Felix S. Cohen,
Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law (Charlottes-
ville, Va.: Michie/Bobbs-Merrill, 1982).
21. For a listing of the blood quantum requirements that dif-
ferent tribes require for tribal citizenship, see Edgar
Lister, “Tribal Membership Rates and Requirements,”
unpublished table (Washington, D.C.: Indian Health
Service, 1987). An edited version of the table appears
in  C. Matthew Snipp, American Indians: The First of
This Land (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1989),
appendix.
22. Devon A. Mihesuah, “Commonality of Difference:
American Indian Women and History,” in Natives and
Academics: Researching and Writing about American
Indians, ed. Devon A. Mihesuah (Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 1998), 42. For a fascinating and de-
tailed discussion of the signifi cance of appearance
among contemporary Cherokees in Oklahoma, see
Sturm, Blood Politics, 108–15.
23. Michael Dorris, The Broken Cord (New York: Harper
Perennial, 1990), 22.
24. Eric Konigsberg, “Michael Dorris’s Troubled Sleep,”
New York Magazine, 16 June 1997, 33. For a related ar-
ticle, see Jerry Reynolds, “Indian Writers: The Good, the
Bad, and the Could Be, Part 2: Indian Writers: Real or
Imagined,” Indian Country Today, 15 September 1993.
25. Terry P. Wilson, “Blood Quantum: Native American
Mixed Bloods,” in Racially Mixed People in America,
ed. Maria P. P. Root (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage,
1992), 109.
12. Roosens, Creating Ethnicity, 41–42. Roosens is discuss-
ing the situation of Canadian Indians, but the same
remarks apply to American Indians.
13. G. William Rice, “There and Back Again—An Indian
Hobbit’s Holiday: Indians Teaching Indian Law,” New
Mexico Law Review 26, no. 2 (1996): 176.
14. Melissa L. Meyer, “American Indian Blood Quantum
Requirements: Blood Is Thicker than Family,” in Over
the Edge: Remapping the American West, ed. Valerie J.
Matsumoto and Blake Allmendiger (Berkeley: Univer-
sity of California Press, 1999).
15. Historians such as Grace Steele Woodward and Marion
Starkey have made this argument. But see also Julia
Coates, “None of Us Is Supposed to Be Here” (Ph.D.
diss., University of New Mexico, 2002) for a revisionist
understanding of Cherokee history.
16. C. Matthew Snipp, “Who Are American Indians? Some
Observations about the Perils and Pitfalls of Data for
Race and Ethnicity,” Population Research and Policy
Review 5 (1986): 249. For excellent and intriguing dis-
cussions of the evolution of ideas about blood relation-
ships among European and Euro-American peoples over
several centuries, and transference of these ideas into
American Indian tribal populations, see Meyer, “Blood
Quantum Requirements,” and Circe Sturm, Blood Poli-
tics: Race, Culture, and Identity in the Cherokee Nation
of Oklahoma (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2002). See further Peggy Pascoe, “Miscegenation Law,
Court Cases, and Ideologies of ‘race’ in Twentieth Cen-
tury America,” Journal of American History 83, no. 1
(June 1996): 44–69. For the processes by which some of
these theories were rejected by scientists, see Elazar
Barkan, Retreat of Scientifi c Racism: Changing Con-
cepts of Race in Britain and the United States between
the World Wars (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1992).
17. Thomas Biolsi, “The Birth of the Reservation: Making
the Modern Individual among the Lakota,” American
Ethnologist 22, no. 1 (February 1995): 28–49; Patrick
Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past
of the American West (New York: W. W. Norton, 1988).
18. Naomi Zack, “Mixed Black and White Race and Public
Policy,” Hypatia 10, 1 (1995): 120–32; Ariela J. Gross,
“Litigating Whiteness: Trials of Racial Determination in
the Nineteenth-Century South,” Yale Law Journal 108
(1998): 109–88.
19. Jack D. Forbes, “The Manipulation of Race, Caste, and
Identity: Classifying AfroAmericans, Native Americans
and Red-Black People,” Journal of Ethnic Studies 17,
no. 4 (1990): 24; original emphasis. Indians are “lost,”
in Forbes’ sense, both to black and to white racial
READING 4: Real Indians 79
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80 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
Punjabi; Japanese Americans shouting in Chinese;
Korean Americans shouting in Vietnamese.
As a panethnic mobilization, the API contingent
and its linguistically diverse chant run counter to
sociological understandings where panethnicity is
conceptualized as largely subsuming and replacing
single-ethnic identifi cations and orientations de-
pending on context (Espiritu 1992; Itzigsohn and
Dore-Cabral 2000; Vo 2004; Waters 1999). To the
contrary, the multiple languages within this chant
exemplify a broader and persistent ethnic diversity
exercised within panethnic spaces. As such, the
rally’s API contingent raises questions about the re-
lationship between single-ethnic and panethnic
identities and the coexistence of solidarity and di-
versity within a cohesive social movement. . . .
Espiritu (1992:14), in her seminal study, defi nes
Asian American panethnicity as “the development
of bridging organizations and solidarities among
several ethnic and immigrant groups of Asian an-
cestry.” While Asian American panethnicity origi-
nated through the racial lumping of all Asian
ethnicities by outsiders, panethnicity has become a
political resource for insiders (Espiritu 1992).
Scholarship on identity work within panethnic
Asian American contexts describes the outcomes of
such negotiations in two ways: (1) panethnic iden-
tity subsuming single-ethnic identifi cation, and
(2) panethnic and single-ethnic identities coexist
but are situationally exercised depending on con-
text. The fi rst potential outcome places multiple
identities within a salience hierarchy. One identity
is privileged above all others. This rank ordering of
identity is applicable to many of the descriptions of
the earliest incarnations of Asian American paneth-
nic identity. In the late 1960s, activists sought to
construct a monolithic, politicized Asian American
collective consciousness that required a relinquish-
ing of single-ethnic orientations, as well as feminist
and class identities (Liu, Geron, and Lai 2008;
Louie and Omatsu 2006; Maeda 2009; Umemoto
1989; Wei 1993). From this perspective, single-
ethnic and panethnic identities are reconciled by
muting single-ethnic consciousness in favor of a
panethnic Asian American orientation.
R E A D I N G 5
An Interlocking Panethnicity:
The Negotiation of Multiple
Identities among Asian American
Social Movement Leaders
Dana Y. Nakano
Compromise bills—Down down!
Immigrant rights—Ho yea! (Chinese)
[or] Immigrant rights—Phai day! (Vietnamese)
[or] Immigrant rights—Zindabhad! (Punjabi)
Employer sanctions—Down down!
Workers rights—Mabuhay! (Tagalog)
Guest worker slavery—Down down!
Immigrant rights—Mansei! (Korean)
In the early afternoon of an April Sunday in 2006,
the Asian Pacifi c Islander (API) contingent marched
down San Francisco’s Market Street proudly chant-
ing their rallying call.
1
These API activists ad-
vanced in solidarity within a multicolor sea of
signs and people stretching multiple city blocks in
support of immigrant rights. Numbering in the hun-
dreds, the Asian American protestors came together
from a diverse array of ethnic backgrounds advanc-
ing to the beat of Korean drums. The opening chant
is a tactic leaders of the API contingent utilized to
highlight both the collective investment of Asian
Americans in immigration reform debates contem-
poraneously occurring on the fl oor of the United
States Senate and the diversity within the Asian
American population. The inclusion of multiple
ethnic voices is evidence of panethnic solidarity
among discrete Asian American communities. This
solidarity is further underscored by how the chant
is recited. The whole contingent shouts the same
cry in unison, not just in an individual’s own ethnic
language. There are Filipino Americans shouting in
Dana Y. Nakano is a graduate student in sociology at the
University of California, Irvine.
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READING 5: An Interlocking Panethnicity 81
Crenshaw 1991). Anthias (1998) describes intersec-
tionality in identity as a series of different layers of
self and imposed defi nitions that can be worn in
different orders at different times. Rather than only
the top layer as a situational understanding of iden-
tity would predict, the sum of all layers positions
each individual, or group, in the social order
( Anthias 1998). In this way, an individual or group
may be at once Asian American, Chinese American,
female, and working class. Similar to the idea of
situational identity, an individual may differentially
exercise and emphasize one identity under different
circumstances. However, this ability to shift identi-
ties does not detract from the fact that this individ-
ual or group is still defi ned by and draws from all
facets of identity across all situations.
Glenn (2002) pushes the concept of intersec-
tionality further and introduces the concept of in-
terlocking systems of oppression to describe the
experiences of women of color that are starkly dif-
ferent than both white women and men of color
(also see Collins 2005; Crenshaw 1991). Glenn
(2002:7) focuses on the notion of interlockedness
in her assertion that race and gender are not expe-
rienced as “separate or additive” but, rather, are
“simultaneous and linked.” Women of color expe-
rience both race and gender simultaneously. Race
and gender are viewed as relational categories:
“they are positioned and therefore gain meaning in
relation to each other” (Glenn 2002:13). Gender
affects the way racial identity is conceptualized
and vice versa: “gender is racialized and race is
gendered” (Glenn 2002:7). Understanding single-
ethnic and panethnic identities as relational and
interlocking acknowledges the dynamic and shift-
ing understandings of both identities vis-à-vis one
another. As will be demonstrated in this study, un-
derstandings of what it means to be Filipino Amer-
ican, Indian American, or Chinese American are
informed by a panethnic Asian American identity
and how each distinct single-ethnic identity fi ts
under this broad umbrella category. Panethnic
Asian American identity is fundamentally shaped
by the varied single-ethnic groups and identities
that it claims to represent. . . .
In contrast to the fi ndings supporting a salience
hierarchy, studies of contemporary panethnic Asian
American organizing have largely found a situa-
tional exercise of panethnic versus single-ethnic
identity (Espiritu 1992; Kibria 2002; Vo 2004).
These scholars assert panethnic and single-ethnic
identities are utilized singularly, strategically, and
instrumentally according to specifi c contexts. For
example, Espiritu (1992) demonstrates how de-
pending on social, economic, or political situations,
individuals may mobilize themselves along single-
ethnic or panethnic lines. Vo (2004:225) posits “in-
dividuals may have multiple ethnic identities, but
these identities are salient according to constantly
shifting circumstances.” In Vo’s study, respondents
were often involved in both panethnic- and single-
ethnic–focused organizations. Within single-ethnic
contexts such as single-ethnically focused organi-
zations or personal ethnic networks, respondents
chose to deploy their single-ethnicity as their pri-
mary identifi cation. However, when working in pa-
nethnic organizations, Vo’s respondents spoke of
more freely exercising a panethnic Asian American
identity over single-ethnic identifi cation.
For Espiritu and Vo, both single-ethnic and pan-
ethnic identities exist as discrete identities and are
separately exercised at different times and in differ-
ent situations. While this interpretation speaks to
the continued presence of single-ethnic orientations
within the API contingent at the April 2006 march,
the framework is less apt to explain the simultane-
ous display of panethnic solidarity and single- ethnic
diversity within the chant and mobilization. Rather
than viewing single-ethnicity and panethnicity as
situational and separate, I look toward the possibil-
ity of continuous interplay between single-ethnic
and panethnic identities. . . . [This] study explores
the inner workings of single-ethnic and panethnic
coexistence, examining the ways individual leaders
negotiate an interlocking relationship between
single-ethnic and panethnic identities within their
respective organizations. . . .
The concept of interlocking identities, struc-
tures, or categories is strongly related to the concept
of intersectionality (Anthias 1998; Collins 2005;
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82 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
and Nationality Act of 1965, the legitimate reopen-
ing of immigration from Asia, began to impact the
population, the number of ethnic categories began
to show growth. The count of enumerated Asian ra-
cial subgroup categories grew slowly at fi rst to
seven in 1980, then rapidly to eighteen in 1990, and
reached twenty-two by the 2010 Census (Ruggles
et al. 2008; U.S. Census Bureau n.d.c).
Over the same time period, the Asian American
population in the San Francisco Bay Area and
across the nation also increased its diversity in
terms of income, place of residence, political orien-
tation, educational attainment, as well as nativity.
In 1960, the majority of Asian Americans were
native-born. Beginning with the 1970 Census, the
predominant nativity began to shift, with Filipino
Americans becoming a majority foreign-born pop-
ulation. By 1980, Asian Americans as a whole be-
came a majority foreign-born racial group and all
single-ethnic groups, with the exception of Japanese
Americans, were also predominantly foreign-born.
This pattern continues into the present day ( Ruggles
et al. 2008).
The number of ethnic groups and the size of each
group grew tremendously over the second half of
the twentieth century. Leaders of contemporary pa-
nethnic organizations mobilize an Asian American
community that must negotiate more differences
than their predecessors in creating and maintaining
a cohesive panethnic collective identity. If distinct
single-ethnic Asian American communities have
such disparate needs and issues and their individual
populations have grown, one must ask why paneth-
nic organizations continue to exist. As communities
reach critical mass, why not advocate for them-
selves and organize around single-ethnic identities?
The answer to this question is two-fold: First, while
the Asian American population has seen increases,
they remain a numerical minority in the 2010 U.S.
Census. The Asian American population accounted
for less than 6 percent of the total U.S. population
and 15 percent of California. In the San Francisco
Bay Area, Asian Americans constitute a much
higher percentage, 32, but remain a minority popu-
lation. Furthermore, no single-ethnic community
I locate my study in the greater San Francisco
Bay Area, a particularly apt site. The Bay Area
boasts the three continental United States metro-
politan areas with the highest percentage of Asian
American residents: Fremont, 39.8 percent; San
Francisco, 32.6 percent; and San Jose, 28.8 percent
(U.S. Census Bureau n.d.a). The Bay Area is also
home to a long Asian American political history
including the Third World Liberation Front and the
creation of a radical and progressive Asian Ameri-
can politics in the late 1960s (Maeda 2009). The
specifi cities of the Bay Area region speak to the
need to analyze racial identity formations in local
or regional terms (Pulido 2006; Rumbaut 2009;
Vo 2004).
2

As this project is particularly interested in the
identity work conducted by organizational leaders
and how identity affects organizational processes
and practices, I draw on data from in-depth, semis-
tructured interviews [conducted in 2006] with con-
temporary leaders of Asian American social
movement organizations.
My interview respondents pointed to the syn-
ergy of two social and historical factors in creating
the need for an interlocking panethnicity: (1) the
shifting demographics of an increasingly diverse
Asian American population and (2) the institution-
alization of panethnicity within organizations stem-
ming from the Asian American Movement of the
1960s and 1970s.
DEMOGRAPHY AND ASIAN
AMERICAN DIVERSITY
The story of Asian America is one of increasing di-
versity. When Yuji Ichioka coined the term “Asian
American” during the 1960s, the U.S. Census only
recorded three distinct Asian American ethnic
groups: Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino. By the
1970 Census, only four ethnic groups were enumer-
ated. While the Census may not accurately portray
the existence of smaller, and hence uncounted, pop-
ulations of other ethnic groups, it provides a sense
of visibility for various ethnic groups during each
Census period. As the effects of the Immigration
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in terms of ethnicity, nativity, and class, serves as a
causal factor for increased awareness of specifi c
issues of single-ethnic communities. This increased
demographic diversity impacts organizations di-
rectly through a diversifi cation of organizational
clients, members, staff, and leadership, forcing or-
ganizations to reconcile single-ethnic differences
under a reimagined panethnic collectivity. The
maintenance of panethnic identity within these
organizations is bolstered by the continued minor-
ity status, even in the San Francisco Bay Area, and
common racialized experiences of Asian Americans.
Panethnic orientations also continue within Asian
American activism due to the legacy of panethnic
organizing reaching back to the 1960s Asian Amer-
ican Movement. The preexisting panethnic organi-
zational forms serve as a model for contemporary
Asian American activism, dictating coalitional ef-
forts among single-ethnic communities, but not the
form those efforts take. As such, panethnicity is still
seen as an effective mobilizing strategy and organi-
zational form, but only if it takes into account the
diverse perspectives and issues facing distinct
single-ethnic communities. . . .
RECONCEPTUALIZING
PANETHNICITY AS
INTERLOCKING
The Asian American Movement, largely taking
place in the early 1970s, sought to expose the com-
mon racialized experience of American peoples of
Asian ancestry and create greater solidarity among
Asian ethnic groups. Wei (1993:272) claims the
identity emerging from the Asian American Move-
ment “transcended the communal and cultural lim-
its of particular Asian ethnic groups to identity with
the past experiences, present circumstances, and
future aspirations” of an Asian American collectiv-
ity. Panethnic Asian American identity is described
as “overcoming the separate ethnic nationalism
that  originally divided them” (Wei 1993:272). In
present-day San Francisco, I observe a contrasting
panethnicity that does not act independently or in
place of single-ethnic identity and mobilization.
accounted for more than 12 percent of the total Bay
Area population (U.S. Census Bureau n.d.c). Pan-
ethnicity continues to provide a competitive advan-
tage in the modern democratic state where there is
power in numbers (Espiritu 1992). Second, even if
certain single-ethnic groups reached critical mass
in the Bay Area, there remains a need to maintain a
panethnic orientation when building coalitions with
organizations in other regions that continue to rely
on panethnic formations due to smaller Asian
American populations. In addition, the panethnic
label continues to provide political recognition via
an institutionally recognized racial category: Asian
American (Espiritu 1992).
PANETHNICITY AS
ORGANIZATIONAL
INSTITUTION
Looking at historical trajectories, Espiritu (1992)
argues that among the early reasons Asian
Americans across diverse ethnic groups came
together in panethnic groupings was to secure gov-
ernment funding that favors multiethnic programs
and impacts the highest number of people possible.
Many of these organizations have been in existence
for more than 20 years and have maintained paneth-
nic orientations due to their organizational legacy
and funding realities. Speaking more specifi cally to
the institutionalization and reproduction of paneth-
nicity, some organizations in this study began as
single-ethnic organizations but have shifted toward
panethnic missions in large part due to the need to
attract public and private funds. In favoring multi-
ethnic programs, government agencies have helped
to institutionalize panethnic organizing and identity
among Asian Americans. As organizations have
structured themselves and their missions in accor-
dance with continuing panethnically oriented fund-
ing and service guidelines, they continue to promote
panethnic Asian American identity (Espiritu 1992).
Such panethnic institutionalization is evident in the
organizations represented in this study.
The increased diversity of the Asian American
population from 1960 to the present day, particularly
READING 5: An Interlocking Panethnicity 83
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84 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
Despite their diverse backgrounds, participating
leaders hold strikingly similar views on the contem-
porary state of Asian American panethnicity. Lead-
ers felt that signifi cant progress had been made in
recognizing the importance of single- ethnic identi-
ties within the broader panethnic movement. Calvin,
for instance, shared:
I think it’s evolved to the point where an Asian
American identity can encompass people who identify
more as their own ethnic group. Whereas, maybe
20 years ago . . . there was more of this tension “Hey,
give up being Chinese , you should say you’re Asian
so we can have more people power as Asians. ” I think
the movement has gotten to this point where people
can identify primarily as a Vietnamese refugee but
also consider themselves part of the movement.
( emphasis added) . . .
MECHANISMS AND PRACTICES
OF INTERLOCKING
PANETHNICITY
. . . Understanding the reconceptualizations of an
interlocking panethnicity, I now turn to the mecha-
nisms and practices of this new panethnic
orientation within the organizations in this study.
Leaders demonstrate the interlocking nature of
single-ethnicity and panethnicity in the philosophy
and practices within their respective organizations.
In discussing how panethnicity is constructed as a
cohesive collective identity in the presence of dis-
tinct single-ethnic identifi cations, leaders spoke of
the mechanism of an interlocking panethnicity in
fi ve ways: (1) encouraging maintenance of single-
ethnic identities, (2) accounting for linguistic and
cultural diversity, (3) coming to terms with ethnic
and class privilege, (4) leveraging resources for the
panethnic good, and (5) building collaborative and
deliberative organizational frameworks and pro-
cesses. These practices demonstrate the diffi cult
identity work undertaken by leaders and the organi-
zational effect of a reconceptualized panethnic
identity.
Rather, panethnic orientations intersect and take
into consideration the diverse single-ethnic experi-
ences that exist within the population. Borrowing
from Glenn’s framework, panethnicity and single-
ethnicity are interlocking structures—simultaneous
and mutually affecting (Glenn 2002).
All leaders [I interviewed] shared a strong com-
mitment to panethnic coalitions and noted their ne-
cessity and effectiveness. As stated by Eleanor, a
Chinese American leader:
I think it’s necessary that we band together. I think we
always have to, bottom line, we have to unite in order
to disunite. . . . We have to unite as Asian Americans
in order to distinguish ourselves from one another.
Similar to the intentions and strategies leveraged
by Asian American activists in the 1960s and
1970s, Eleanor and other contemporary leaders
see panethnic organizing as an important way to
garner political power and visibility with greater
numbers. However, Eleanor’s statement also
demonstrates that panethnicity is not viewed as an
end, but rather as a means for increased recogni-
tion and social justice. The expanded notoriety
gained through panethnic organizing can serve as
a platform for single-ethnic concerns. If paneth-
nic organizing is important for single-ethnic com-
munities to have their claims heard and acted
upon in an overcrowded political fi eld, joining
panethnic coalitions and organizations cannot
erase or override single-ethnic identity. Rather,
leaders in this study note that single-ethnic identi-
ties must be voiced and present in panethnic
spaces.
Respondents lament and actively work to de-
construct the monolithic perception of, what
Wendy named, an “Asian American mainstream.”
Wendy, a 36-year-old Asian American leader of
mixed heritage, continued by posing a question that
seemed to weigh heavy on the minds of leaders
within this study’s sample: “How do we maintain
our specifi c heritages and identities at the same
time that we stand together as an Asian American
community?”
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equipped to fully and accurately represent the needs
and concerns of other single-ethnic communities.
Representation is understood as fundamentally tied
to a lived experience. Single-ethnic identities can
only be truly represented by individuals who come
from particular communities. In order to build pan-
ethnic organizations that are truly representative of
diverse Asian American populations, leaders often
spoke of the intentional invitations to and recruit-
ment of potential leaders from underrepresented
single-ethnic communities.
Accounting for Linguistic
and Cultural Diversity
Maintenance of interlocking single-ethnic identi-
ties and orientations in panethnic organizing are
also important in instrumental terms. . . .
Cultural and language capacities are particularly
important for Asian American community mobili-
zations, as over 37 percent of the Asian American
population in the four-county San Francisco Bay
Area is classifi ed as limited English profi cient
(LEP).
3
Furthermore, Asian Americans remain a
predominantly foreign-born population, approxi-
mately 70 percent in the four-county region (U.S.
Census Bureau n.d.a). Language and cultural com-
petencies provided by single-ethnically oriented
individuals, then, are instrumentally important and
must be maintained within panethnic organizations
to effectively outreach to and mobilize the large
LEP and foreign-born segments of the Asian
American population. Tristan, a Hapa American,
offers a more concrete description of a mechanism
used to address the linguistic and cultural diversity
of the Asian American population:
A Filipino TV station came and covered the press
conference, which was great, and we actually did
have somebody who spoke Tagalog, but we don’t
always and there are certainly other languages that we
just don’t have represented. And we really try to invite
the API press to these events and many of them cover
it in English and the article they produce may be in
another language. But many of them want to interview
Modeling Single-Ethnic Identity
Narration
. . . Leaders in this study speak of a panethnic identity
that encourages the maintenance of single- ethnicity
as integral to the ultimate success of the movement.
They see a need for diverse representation of single-
ethnic organizations within the Asian American or-
ganizational fi eld and within panethnic organizations
themselves. Maintained single-ethnic identity is
demonstrated within organizations as leaders dis-
cussed the strategic importance of “self” representa-
tion of single-ethnic community interests in
leadership and decision-making processes of paneth-
nic organizations. Leaders lead by example by
maintaining their own single-ethnic identity and en-
courage members to speak from the experience of
their particular ethnic communities. The mainte-
nance of single-ethnic identity among leaders is par-
ticularly salient as they discussed whom they feel
they represent within their leadership capacity. While
all study participants hold leadership positions that
engage in panethnic mobilization in some form, they
conceptualize their ability to truly represent in very
narrow terms. “A more progressive Vietnamese com-
munity,” “Chinatown woman activists,” “a hapa, bi-
racial experience,” “Filipino privileged people;” and
“an East Oakland, working class, immigrant, woman
experience” are some examples of this specifi city.
[Two respondents], Briana and Edwin, further ex-
plain the reason for such specifi city:
I don’t know that I feel I am representing any one
mass community because it is extremely diverse and
has a lot of different complexities and complications
to it. . . . I feel like I am representing part of the divi-
sions. (Briana, Indian American)
I hope I represent Asian Americans generally, but
I think I represent other East Asian people better than
other Asian Americans. Particularly, like South
Asians, because I just don’t know that  much about
their culture. (Edwin, Chinese American)
Leaders feel they are only able to represent their
own personal ethnic experience as they feel ill
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86 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
structure and privilege within the panethnic com-
munity is left intact. In their quest for racial equal-
ity, Asian American organizations may replicate
the system of oppression they seek to dismantle;
marginalized Asian American ethnic groups may
remain powerless to assert their own issues into
panethnic agendas. . . .
Leveraging Human and Social Capital
for the Panethnic Good
Leaders who hold privileged social positions due
to their ethnic or class background can also lever-
age their elevated human and social capital for
the benefi t of less privileged segments of the
Asian American population and Asian Americans
as a whole. [One respondent] spoke of an organi-
zational process of open dialogue, whereby indi-
viduals learn from those of other ethnic back
grounds and incorporate an understanding of the
issues that affect less visible and less privileged
Asian Americans. Importantly, individuals from
marginalized Asian American communities are
the ones who speak, teach, and lead on these less
familiar struggles. East Asian Americans are con-
fronted with the realities of other Asian American
ethnic groups within the panethnic formation,
which forces them to recognize their own privi-
leged position and alters their engagement with
the organization.
In the process of deconstructing divisive hierar-
chies of privilege, leaders leverage organizational
resources from across the panethnic spectrum to
uplift other less privileged segments of the Asian
American community. Ryan, for example, leads a
sizable and longstanding organization with roots in
the Japanese American community. Across its his-
tory, Ryan’s organization has been able to accrue
many resources, capacities, and connections that
are unavailable to more recently arrived ethnic
communities and recently formed organizations.
Rather than hoard such resources, Ryan expresses a
philosophy of sharing and empowerment:
Over time the organization has grown, its capacity has
increased and the bottom line is [we work with other
somebody in the language they are ultimately going
to write in. That is a big thing on our to-do list.
For Tristan, having linguistic and cultural diversity
represented within his organization and at organiza-
tional events is important for the dissemination of
information to a broader Asian American public.
Aside from communicative importance, a cul-
turally and linguistically competent staff is also
central to a panethnic organization’s ability to pro-
vide direct services to diverse Asian American
communities that continue to speak ethnic-specifi c
languages and practice ethnic-specifi c cultures. As
discussed earlier, demographic shifts in the Asian
American population have had a direct impact on
organizations by increasing the diversity of clients
served by various organizations as well as the
members and leaders who make up the organiza-
tion itself. As organizational clients have increased
in ethnic diversity, organizational leadership has
been forced to grapple with how to provide services
to largely immigrant communities with distinct lan-
guages and cultures. . . .
Coming to Terms with Privilege
. . . The experiences of a perceived homogenous
Asian American population are generally catego-
rized within the model minority paradigm and
therefore lay outside the boundary to “legitimate”
oppression. Asian American organizations may
champion the issues of less privileged segments of
the Asian American population in order to increase
political relevance.
4
When promoting panethnic
Asian American agendas externally, the issues of
these marginalized Asian Americans take center
stage. This agenda shift, however, is not always
accompanied by an equal shift in ethnic make-up
of decision-makers and visible leadership. While
placing marginalized Asian American concerns at
the forefront of a public panethnic agenda is
empowering and may achieve gains for a
marginalized segment of the population, it also
serves to obscure the ethnic privileges and power
positions held by Japanese and Chinese Americans
within  many panethnic mobilizations. The power
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of hierarchies that is explicitly racialized. Accord-
ing to leaders in this study, fostering collaboration,
open dialogue, and participation among distinct
single-ethnic communities are fundamental to the
success of panethnic Asian American collective ac-
tion. Leaders frequently discussed the need to create
an open atmosphere within their organizations in
order to foster collaboration among members. . . .
CONCLUSION
Taken together, the evidence drawn from my
interviews with organizational leaders shows that
single-ethnicities persist in panethnic mobilizations
and that this continued presence has mutual effects
on both single-ethnic and panethnic identities.
Building upon the works of panethnicity scholars
Espiritu and Vo, this study demonstrates that exer-
cise of single-ethnic and panethnic identities are
not simply driven by situations and contexts that
favor one identity over the other. Rather, single-
ethnic and panethnic identities are “both simultane-
ous and linked,” informing and altering one another
(Glenn 2002:7). It follows that panethnic identity,
in its contemporary form, may be better understood
as interlocking with single-ethnic identity, rather
than within a salience hierarchy or being situation-
ally determined. The identity negotiations that take
place lead to the coexistence and mutual effect of
multiple identities within a single movement. . . .
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What are ways to measure panethnic solidarity?
2. What are some of the problems of maintaining
single-ethnic identity when the larger goal is
panethnicity?
3. What are some of the mechanisms for creating
an interlocking panethnicity?
NOTES
1. For the majority of this article, I speak specifi cally about
the panethnic Asian American community, rather than
API. This is a conscious effort not to tokenize the Pacifi c
Islander experience in my analysis. This is not to say
that Pacifi c Islanders should not be included in panethnic
communities] because we can . . . and, in actuality, we
want to. We have been fortunate as an organization to
be able to evolve to do many things. I take a lot of pride
in the fact that there is a Japanese American youth or-
ganization in this country that can serve everybody.
. . . The skills and resources brought to organizations
by different leaders vary widely from accounting
skills and public speaking to network connections
and fundraising. The demographics of the leaders
participating in this study show that all inhabit a priv-
ileged social class position, which is often accompa-
nied by greater social and cultural capital. Leaders in
this study, regardless of ethnicity, are highly conscious
of their privileged positions within their organiza-
tions, within the community, and oftentimes within
society at large. A frequent assertion by study partici-
pants was an earnest interest in using their privileged,
educated positions, and the access to information and
networks that comes with it, for the betterment of the
panethnic community as a whole. In particular, lead-
ers wished to be a conduit of information and access
point for segments of the community that largely do
not have a voice. Privilege is not used as a tool
of  domination over the lower rungs of the class
hierarchy, but rather a means to uplift, educate, and
empower the broadest segment of the community
possible.
Collaborative Frameworks and
Privileging Marginalized Voices
In addition to acknowledging privilege and leverag-
ing the resources of privilege for a broader paneth-
nic community, leaders also foster collaborative
processes within their respective organizations to
give voice to the diversity within the Asian American
population. Such practices also stem from the non-
profi t orientation of the Asian American social
movement organizations in this study. Nonprofi t or-
ganizations often utilize nonhierarchical structures
and decision-making processes due to their service
and advocacy- oriented missions (DiMaggio and
Anheier 1990). However, Asian American social
movement organization leaders espouse an ap-
proach to the recognition of privilege and fl attening
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88 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
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Asian American formations. Rather, I nod at the limita-
tions of my sample, which only includes one Pacifi c
Islander–identifi ed respondent. She is ethnically mixed
(Filipino, Chamorro, and Samoan) and is treated as a
person of mixed race. References to API are maintained
only in reference to the April 2006 rally and the nomen-
clature explicitly used by interview respondents.
2. While the San Francisco metropolitan area is an apt site
for a study of progressive race-based movement identi-
ties, it also produces some biases. A potentially skewed
conception of panethnic identity may arise as leaders
attempt to mobilize in the generally progressive political
environment of San Francisco. Additionally, the deep
history of panethnic organizing associated with the Bay
Area may create a more easily mobilized base and
heightened consciousness in the community. Lastly, the
high percentages of Asian Americans in the greater San
Francisco Bay Area may also infl uence panethnic iden-
tity formations and mobilization efforts.
3. LEP is defi ned as individuals who speak a language
other than English and have self-rated their profi ciency
in English as less than “very well.” All LEP and nativity
data are derived from the American Community Survey
2010 fi ve-year Aggregate dataset accessed through
American Factfi nder.
4. This is not to say that Chinese or Japanese Americans do
not have legitimate grievances deserving of attention.
Rather, the social position of Southeast Asian Americans
is more justifi able within the normative discourse of
racial inequalities.
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ing Institutions and Identities. Philadelphia: Temple Uni-
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Glenn, Evelyn Nakano. 2002. Unequal Freedom: How Race
and Gender Shaped American Citizenship and Labor.
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READING 6: Latino Racial Choices 89
INTRODUCTION
On 19 June 2003, an article in USA Today pro-
claimed that ‘Hispanics outnumber[ed] blacks as the
largest minority group in the USA’.
1
A few months
later, the US Census undertook a project to predict
what the US’s racial make-up would be in 2050.
The authors of this project, funded by the Minority
Business Development Agency of the US Depart-
ment of Commerce, predicted that non- Hispanic
whites will constitute only 53 per cent of the US
population in 2050, while Hispanic whites will make
up 22 per cent of the total population, Hispanic
blacks 2 per cent and non-Hispanic blacks 13 per cent.
2

These predictions are based on the problematic
assumption that current patterns of racial and ethnic
R E A D I N G 6
Latino Racial Choices: The Effects
of Skin Colour and Discrimination
on Latinos’ and Latinas’ Racial
Self-Identifi cations
Tanya Golash-Boza and William Darity , Jr
If you had a choice of colors, which one would you
choose, my brother? (Curtis Mayfi eld)
Tanya Golash-Boza is a professor of sociology at the University
of California, Merced. William Darity, Jr is a professor of public
policy, African and African American Studies, and economics at
Duke University.
P E R S O N A L A C C O U N T
I Thought My Race Was Invisible
In a conversation with a close friend, I noticed that I am,
to her, a representative of my entire racial category. To
put things in perspective, my friend Janet and I have
been friends for eight years. During this period, it has
come up that I am a third-generation Japanese- American
who has no ties to being Japanese other than a couple
of sushi dishes I learned how to make from my grand-
mother. Nonetheless, whenever a question regarding
“Asians” comes up, she comes to me as if I can provide
the definitive answer to every Asian mystery.
Yesterday Janet asked me if there is a cultural reason
why Asians “always drive so slow.” Not having noticed
that Asians drive slowly (in fact, I have noticed a number
of Asians who actually exceed the speed limit), I com-
mented that perhaps they are law-abiding citizens. She
said that must explain it: “They are used to following the
law.” I thought, “Am I one of ‘they’?” but didn’t comment
further. Before we switched subjects, she noted that she
“knew there had to be a cultural reason” for their driving.
Janet then told me about a Vietnamese woman at the
Hair Cuttery who cut her husband’s hair. As is normal, her
husband talked to the woman as she worked on his hair;
he asked her what she did before working at the Hair Cut-
tery. She said that she used to work in the fields in Califor-
nia (i.e., she was a field hand). Janet told me of the healthy
respect that she and her husband had for a woman who
worked in the fields, put herself through cosmetology
school, moved East, and became a professional hairstyl-
ist. She commented that “Blacks” should follow her exam-
ple and work instead of complaining of their lot in life.
This conversation was interesting and a bit startling.
Janet is a good friend who shares many interests with
me. What I realized from this conversation, and in re-
membering others that were similar, is that she feels that
I am a representative of the whole Asian race. Not only is
this unrealistic, but it is surprising that she would imagine
I could answer for my race given my lack of real cultural
exposure. In relaying the story of the Vietnamese woman,
I had a sense that she was complimenting me, and my
race, for the industriousness “we” demonstrate. It seems
to me that she approved of the “typically” Asian way of
working (quietly, so as not to insult or offend), even
though this woman was probably underpaid and over-
worked in her field hand job. While she approved of her
reticence, Janet did not approve of “Black” complaints.
I realize that to Janet, I will always be Asian. I had not
really thought about it before, but I never think of Janet as
White; her race is invisible to me. I had thought that my
race was invisible too; however, I realize now that I will
always be the “marked” friend. This saddens me a bit, but
I accept it with the knowledge that she is a close friend.
Nonetheless, it is unfortunate to think that even between
friends, race is an issue.
Sherri H. Pereira
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90 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
to answer both the race and ethnicity questions. For
this reason, data from the Census allow social sci-
entists to talk about white Hispanics versus black
Hispanics or to speculate on what it means for a
Hispanic to choose ‘other’ for his or her race.
Although the US Census considers ‘Hispanic’
to be an ethnic identifi er, this category differs in
important ways from other ethnic identifi ers such
as Italian-American or Irish-American. If Hispanic
were ‘merely’ an ethnic identifi er, we would not
expect for it to persist at the individual level for the
next two generations, or at least would expect that
it would dissipate to some extent. Thus, despite
evidence that ethnic identifi ers have generally be-
come less salient over the course of generations, the
current predictions about the future demographics
of the US expect the children of Hispanics also to
be Hispanics.
Most social scientists expect the category ‘His-
panic’ to persist because it is a racialized ethnic
label. (Notably, those who expect it to disappear,
such as Yancey (2003), treat Hispanic as an ethnic
label.) However, we take the position that Hispanic
is a racialized ethnic label because it is used and
applied in a very similar way to other racial labels
in the US – on the basis of physical appearance. In
daily interactions, people in the US do not label
people as Hispanic based on their ancestry, as it
would be diffi cult to conduct genealogical analyses
of people whom we encounter on a daily basis. We
do, however, react to symbolic markers of ancestry,
such as phenotype, accent and other cultural codes,
thereby racializing the category ‘Hispanic’. To the
extent that we, in the United States, associate Latin
American ancestry with a particular somatic image,
we give racial meaning to Latin American ancestry,
and treat people who fi t that somatic norm, not as
whites or blacks, but as Hispanics.
The US Census uses a defi nition of Hispanic
that includes all people whose origin can be traced
to Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba or Central or South
America. Given the great diversity of people from
this area, combined with the social practice of as-
sociating a particular somatic norm image with
Hispanicity in the US, we can expect some Latin
identifi cation can be used to predict future identifi –
cation patterns without taking into account the
possibility that Hispanics’ racial and ethnic identi-
fi cations can and do change. Notably, the authors of
the Census project seem to expect the ethnic and
racial identifi cation patterns of Hispanics to remain
unchanged for the next fi fty years. This mode of
thinking runs contrary to the assimilation canon –
most theorists who study assimilation agree that
ethnic identifi cations can be expected to change
(see Alba and Nee (1997) for a discussion of the
assimilation canon and its merits). In addition, re-
cent works by Harris and Sim (2002) and Brown,
Hitlin and Elder (2006) suggest that racial self-
identifi cations can also be expected to change. This
paper takes on the question of what the future face
of the US will look like by developing a theoretical
framework that takes into account the viability of
racial and ethnic identifi ers for Latinos and Latinas
in the US.
. . . In this article, we address the changing struc-
ture of the US racial hierarchy, but also argue that it
is important to consider the factors that infl uence
how individual Latinos/as self-identify in order
better to predict how Latinos/as will identify in
the future.
Before continuing, we should clarify the distinc-
tion between Hispanic as a racial category and His-
panic as an ethnic category. On the 2000 US
Census, there were separate questions for race and
ancestry. The race question was not open-ended.
Respondents had to choose one or more of the fol-
lowing categories as their race: American Indian or
Alaska Native; Asian; Black or African American;
Native Hawaiian or Other Pacifi c Islander; and
White. In addition, there was the option of selecting
‘other’. Ethnicity was a separate question, in which
there were two minimum categories: ‘Hispanic or
Latino’ and ‘Not Hispanic or Latino’. Respondents
were asked to choose between: ‘NO, I am not
Hispanic/Latino/Spanish’; ‘YES, Mexican’; ‘YES,
Cuban’; ‘YES, Puerto Rican’; and ‘YES, other’.
People who ethnically self-identifi ed as Hispanic or
Latino also could self-identify with any of the racial
categories, and respondents were asked explicitly
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Studies by Eschbach and Gomez (1998) and Brown,
Hitlin and Elder (2006) demonstrate that Hispanics
are quite likely to change their racial and ethnic
self-identifi cations from one survey to the next.
Predictions about the future racial make-up of the
US are based on self-reports of race and ethnicity,
yet often do not take into account the fl uid nature of
these identifi ers. In addition, it is not only impor-
tant to describe racial fl uidity as these studies have
done, but to develop a theoretical framework that
explains and potentially predicts Latinos’ racial
choices in order to predict what the future face of
America will look like. . . .
. . . We fi nd convincing the arguments that the
racial structure is changing in the United States,
and that Hispanic is emerging as a racial category
but, in this paper, ask the question: what factors in-
fl uence how people currently defi ned as Hispanic
racially self-identify on surveys? Knowing what
factors currently infl uence racial self-identifi cations
will provide us with tools to better predict how peo-
ple will self-identify in the future.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:
RACIAL IDENTIFICATIONS IN
LATIN AMERICA AND THE U.S.
Before we can answer this question, it will be useful
briefl y to review the evidence that indicates that ra-
cial self-identifi cations are subject to change, spe-
cifi cally among Latin Americans. One reason for
this is that processes of racial categorization and
identifi cation in Latin America do not parallel those
of the United States (Rodríguez 1994; Duany 2005).
Scholars are not in full agreement on exactly how
these systems differ, yet it is worthwhile to set forth
some claims. First of all, ‘Latino’ and ‘Hispanic’
are not common racial or ethnic descriptors in Latin
America. (This claim is perhaps the most widely
accepted.) Second, people of African or indigenous
descent in Latin America are more likely to self-
identify as white than similar people in the US
(Wade 1997: 14, 38). Third, the use of terminology
for mixed categories such as mulatto (white/black)
or mestizo (white/Indian) or zambo (black/Indian)
Americans and their descendants not to self- identify
as Hispanic. Specifi cally, we can expect those
Census-defi ned Hispanics who do not fi t this so-
matic norm image to be less likely to self-identify
as Hispanic. We can further speculate that the chil-
dren of this group of people who do not fi t this
somatic norm image will be even less likely to self-
identify as Hispanic, as their relative lack of ethnic
and racial identifi ers render them even less likely to
be identifi ed as Hispanic in daily interactions. As
such, some persons of Hispanic descent could po-
tentially opt out of the Latino category and become
non-Hispanic blacks or whites, while others could
disassociate themselves from both labels, black and
white, and adopt ‘Hispanic’ or ‘Latino’ as their ra-
cial identifi cation. The possibility of such a change
in racial and ethnic identifi cation patterns renders
predictions based on projected immigration pat-
terns and birth rates less useful. It means further
that social scientists need to consider how Latinos/
as racially self-identify and what factors affect
those choices.
Social scientists who have considered Latinos’
and Latinas’ racial self-identifi cation do not agree
as to how Latinos/as’ racial identifi cations work
presently or will work in the future. Clara Rodríguez
(2000) tells us that Latinos/as’ racial identifi cations
are fl uid and contextual; Yancey (2003) predicts
that the majority of Latinos/as will become white;
Bonilla-Silva (2004) predicts that the majority will
join the ‘collective black’ and Haney López (2005)
argues that some identify racially as white, others
as black and others as Latino or Latina. Without
understanding the processes that underlie racial
identifi cation for Hispanics, our predictions and
calculations about the future racial make-up of the
United States hold very little water.
Despite the numerous implications of Hispanics
actually becoming the ‘nation’s largest minority’,
social scientists have done remarkably little re-
search on patterns of racial identifi cation among
Latinos/as in the United States. Current research
indicates that racial and ethnic self-identifi ers are
fl uid, and can vary over the course of one’s life, or
even the course of one’s day (Rodríguez 2000).
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92 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
Bean posit that ‘changes in ethnic and racial
boundaries are a fundamental part of the immigra-
tion incorporation experience’ (2004, p. 226). One
way this could play out is that a person who consid-
ered herself to be ‘white’ in Peru may initially
identify as ‘white’ in the US. However, if she is not
seen as white in the US but as Latina, she may
begin to self-identify as a Latina. Alternatively, she
may resist these categorizations and insist on her
whiteness. It is also reasonable to suggest that this
hypothetical Peruvian immigrant would be able to
pass for white if she had the fi nancial and educa-
tional resources to downplay her ethnic origins.
She also may be able to marry a white American
and pass their collective whiteness on to their chil-
dren. In another scenario, she may not be able to be
classifi ed as white, but her US-born children may
be. At the other end of the spectrum, Bailey (2001)
found that second-generation Dominicans use their
knowledge of the Spanish language to ward off cat-
egorization as black. Given the rapid loss of
Spanish language use and ability across generations,
it is unlikely that their children will have the option
of using Spanish to avoid being categorized as
black. Will these third- (and later-) generation
Dominican-Americans continue to identify as
Hispanics, as black Hispanics, or will they consider
themselves to be simply African-Americans? How
likely are the descendants of immigrants from Peru
to self-identify as Hispanic after they have been in
the US for several generations?
It is important to point out that not only immi-
grants from Latin America might change their ra-
cial classifi cations, but also Latinos/as who are
born in the US. The racial self-identifi cations of
second- and third-generation immigrants from
Latin America may also change over the course of
their lives. As families move out of or into ethnic
enclaves, as students attend university, and as peo-
ple join political movements, it is reasonable to
suggest that their racial or ethnic self- identifi cations
may change. We currently consider Hispanics to be
those people who identify as such on the US Cen-
sus and other national surveys. In addition, social
scientists make predictions about the future ethnic
is more prevalent in Latin America than in the US,
although the use of an array of mixed categories
was also common in the US until the 1920s (Skid-
more 1993; Duany 2005). Fourth, people of African
descent are less likely to self-identify as black in
Latin America than in the US (Cruz-Jansen 2001;
Darity, Dietrich, and Hamilton 2005; Wade 1993).
Finally, many studies have shown that in Latin
America one’s racial status is determined, in part,
by one’s social status. This means that people of
higher economic or class status tend to classify
themselves as whiter than their counterparts in
lower strata, regardless of actual physical character-
istics. In Brazil, for example, non-whites may
change their racial identifi cation to a whiter classi-
fi cation as they move up the class hierarchy (Lovell
and Wood 1998). Notably, Telles (2004) and Wade
(1993) point out that this ability to whiten is limited
to people who hold a racially ambiguous status.
The reality of a distinct racialized social struc-
ture in Latin America has consequences for the ra-
cial self-identifi cations of immigrants from Latin
America who reside in the US. Since these immi-
grants encounter a different system of racial classi-
fi cations in the US, their racial self-identifi cations
may change as they adapt to the US. For example,
this distinct system of racial classifi cation means
that, in Latin America, there are people who self-
identify as white who may not be seen as white in
the United States. In addition, there are people who
could begin to self-identify as black in the US that
may not have considered themselves to be black in
Latin America. Thus, some Latin American immi-
grants to the United States are likely to self-identify
racially as something other than how they identifi ed
in their country of origin. For Dominicans in par-
ticular, Itzigshon, Giorguli and Vasquez (2005,
p. 51) found that Dominican immigrants ‘confront
a racial classifi cation system that classifi es many of
them as black’ despite the fact that many of these
Dominicans do not perceive themselves to be black.
As Latin American immigrants acculturate to
the United States, it is conceivable that they would
be infl uenced by the US system of racial classifi ca-
tion and may even begin to adapt to it. Lee and
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Puerto Rican women, found that about 30 per cent
of their Puerto Rican female respondents on the US
mainland racially identifi ed as Hispanic or Latina,
as compared to only about 10 per cent of their
Puerto Rican female respondents on the island. Sur-
prisingly, the island women were more likely to
choose ‘white’ or ‘black’ as a racial identifi er than
the mainland women. Their results indicate that
some Puerto Ricans may be adopting ‘Latino’ or
‘Hispanic’ as a racial identifi cation in the US, even
if they racially identifi ed as ‘white’ or ‘black’ on the
island. This is also in line with Duany’s (2005,
p.  182) argument that Puerto Ricans respond that
their race is neither white nor black, but ‘other’, be-
cause ‘other’ seems to be increasingly used as a ra-
cialized synonym for Hispanic. Itzigsohn, Giorguli
and Vasquez (2005) found that 21 per cent of the
fïrst-generation Dominicans in their New York City-
based study self-identifi ed racially as Hispanics and
that 5 per cent self-identifi ed as blacks. However,
they also found that 29 per cent thought that others
would racially identify them as Hispanic and that
35 per cent thought that others would identify them
as black. These studies indicate that many Domini-
cans and Puerto Ricans in the US understand
‘Hispanic’ as a racialized category that fi ts into the
US racial hierarchy somewhere between white and
black. What these studies do not provide us with is
an understanding of what factors affect the deci-
sions of that segment of the population that is
defi ned by the US Census as being ethnically Hispanic
to self-identify racially as white, black or ‘other’.
While Hispanic/Latino is in many ways an eth-
nic category, we cannot ignore Latinas/os’ and non-
Latinas/os’ perception of the category as a racial
identifi er. For example, in the 1989 Latino National
Political Survey (de la Garza et al . 1992), 18 per
cent of the 2807 respondents reported their race to
be Latino, Hispanic or their respective national ori-
gin. In addition, 46 per cent of the respondents to
the 2002 National Latino Survey reported their race
to be Hispanic or Latino, and not white or black.
This large increase over the course of twelve years
is in part indicative of the different survey mea-
sures, but is also in part due to the changing racial
and racial make-up of the US on the basis of these
self-reported data. However, we have very little in-
formation on the viability of the category ‘ Hispanic’
and on what factors affect Hispanics’ decision to
self-identify as such on surveys.
This paper is grounded in the theoretical work
on assimilation in the US. Whereas assimilation
traditionally meant that immigrants would become
part  of the Anglo-Saxon core in the US, thereby
abandoning their ethnic affi liations, recent work on
assimilation has contested this idea, and put forth
the notion that there is more than one path of as-
similation. Rumbaut and Portes (2001) and Zhou
(1997), for example, argue that, while some immi-
grants will embark on the traditional path of as-
similation towards the Anglo-Saxon core, others
will retain some of their traditional values and prac-
tices through selective acculturation, and still oth-
ers will experience downward assimilation and
identify with the experiences of non-whites in the
US. This paper builds on this work by highlighting
the importance of racialization for the process of
assimilation. We question the extent to which indi-
viduals who are non-white, even if they have the
necessary accoutrements of middle-class status, can
and will assimilate to the Anglo-Saxon core. . . .
WHAT ARE LATINOS’ AND
LATINAS’ RACIAL CHOICES?
Our current understandings of Latinos/as’ racial
identifi cations are largely based on two sources of
data – ethnographic and interview-based studies,
and small-scale statistical analyses of Puerto Rican
and Dominican racial identifi cations. Clara Rodrí-
guez (2000) found, in her interview-based study of
Latinos/as in New York, that some of her interview-
ees found themselves subject to external pressure to
self-identify as ‘white’ or ‘black’, and that many of
them recognized their whiteness or blackness in this
context but insisted that they were also Latino. Her
case studies demonstrate that many Latinos/as ra-
cially identify as white, black or other, but culturally
identify as Latinos/as or with their national origin.
Landale and Oropesa (2002), in their study of
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94 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
higher educational levels and higher incomes are
more likely to identify as white, especially those
who do not have very dark skin. This would also
serve as an indication of Latinos/as’ resistance to
US racial categorizations, which are not based on
social characteristics such as income or education.
Hypothesis 2 – identifi cational assimilation hypothe-
sis : Hispanics who are more assimilated are more
likely to self-identify as ‘white’.
The second hypothesis invokes assimilation as a
central theme. Early theorists of assimilation such as
Gordon (1964) and Park (1950) argued that, over the
course of generations, immigrants eventually would
lose their ethnic ties and fold into the American
melting pot. An outcome of this process, identifi ca-
tional assimilation, means that the immigrant no
longer considers himself to be an Italian-American,
an Irish-American or a Mexican-American, but an
American. This unmarked identity as ‘American’
could be interpreted as becoming ‘white’, since the
unmarked requisite precludes the entry of African-
Americans or Asian-Americans into this category.
For example, Feagin (2000) argues that the unhy-
phenated ‘American’ label refers to those people in
the US who have the luxury of acting as if they do
not have a racial or ethnic status. This category of
people thus includes only white Americans.
According to the traditional model, assimilation
involves upward socioeconomic mobility, residen-
tial integration and intermarriage (Hirschman
2001). In order to determine whether or not the
identifi cational assimilation hypothesis works in the
case of Latino-Americans, it will be necessary to
determine whether Latinos/as who have been in the
US longer, have intermarried with whites and speak
English are more likely to self-identify as white
than Latinos/as who are less acculturated. This anal-
ysis also will allow us to examine the argument
made by Yancey (2003) that nearly all Latino
Americans will eventually adopt a white racial iden-
tity. On the basis of his fi nding that Latinos/as are
likely to have opinions on racialized matters that are
more similar to European Americans than to African
Americans and previous evidence that some
structure in the US, where ‘Latino’ is emerging as a
racialized category. For example, in February 2006,
when there were riots inside a prison near Los
Angeles, the African-American and Latino prison-
ers formulated a written request to separate the in-
mates by ‘race’ to avoid more mayhem. In this
case, the Latinos/as and blacks involved in those
riots saw ‘Latino’ as a racial category that does not
include African-Americans. . . .
In this paper, we will consider three hypotheses
that could explain Latinos’ racial choices and that
could be useful for predicting future demographic
trends. Subsequently, we will test each of these hy-
potheses using two national datasets – the 1989 Latino
National Political Survey and the Pew Hispanic
Center/Kaiser Family Foundation 2002 National Sur-
vey of Latinos. Finally, we will make a case for incor-
porating ideas of racialization into understanding
Latinos’ and Latinas’ current and future racial choices.
Hypothesis 1 – the social whitening hypothesis : His-
panics with higher incomes and higher levels of edu-
cation are more likely to choose ‘white’ for their race,
and less likely to choose ‘black’.
The fi rst hypothesis is that Latinos/as of higher
class statuses are more likely to self-identify as
white. This hypothesis derives from social whiten-
ing arguments made by some scholars who study
Latin America. (For a full discussion of social whit-
ening in Latin America, see Nutini 1997; Wade
1997; Wright 1990; Whitten and Torres 1998; Telles
2004; Twine 1998.) According to these scholars, so-
cial class plays an important role in racial identifi ca-
tion in Latin America. Some of these scholars argue
that social class trumps skin colour insofar as a
dark-skinned person can self-identify as white if he
or she is of high class standing. Others, such as
Telles (2004) and Wade (1993), argue that only peo-
ple who are racially ambiguous are able to experi-
ence social whitening, while people who are clearly
black, such as the Brazilian soccer player Pele, will
be identifi ed as black, no matter their class standing.
It will be useful to understand whether or not this
process carries over to the United States. In the US
context, this would mean that Latinos/as who have
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in the US, while others will not, and that those that
belong to the former group are more likely to self-
identify as Latinos/as and, in this fashion, to
assimilate into the Latino category. This hypothesis
draws on Nagel’s (1994) argument that categoriza-
tions are dialectically related to identifi cations,
meaning that they are both subject to change, and
that they affect one another. In light of this and
other research, it is reasonable to suggest that
Latinos/as’ racial self-identifi cations will be af-
fected by external categorizations.
How do we know how Latinos/as are racially
classifi ed by people in the US? We suggest that
Latinos/as are categorized in the same way as non-
Latinos/as, on the basis of their skin colour. Brown,
Dane and Durham conducted a series of interviews
to fi nd out what features people use to determine
race. They found that ‘[s]kin color was rated the
most important feature, followed by hair, eyes,
nose, mouth, cheeks, eyebrows, forehead, and ears’
(1998, p. 298). In one of the datasets we will be
using, we fortunately have a measure of skin co-
lour, which is the feature that people in the US are
most likely to use to determine another person’s
race. Thus, to test this hypothesis, we will consider
the relationship between skin colour and racial self-
identifi cation among Latinos/as. While we cannot
use skin colour alone to predict how Latinos/as are
categorized racially in the US, it is reasonable to
suggest that skin colour is one of many indicators
that affects racial categorization in the US.
We can predict that skin colour will affect racial
categorization and thus identifi cation. However, we
can also use experiences of discrimination in our
analyses because categorization is a necessary con-
dition for discrimination. In order to discriminate
against a person based on one’s pre-conceived no-
tions about their group, it is fi rst necessary to cate-
gorize them as a member of that group. As such, if
a respondent reports experiences of racial discrimi-
nation, we can conclude that he or she has been
categorized as a member of a racial group. We as-
sume that this discrimination would be based on
the respondent being non-white, since whites are
much less likely to experience racial discrimination
Latinos/as are assimilating residentially and mari-
tally, Yancey contends that Hispanic Americans will
eventually adopt a white racial identity. Neverthe-
less, Yancey’s analyses do not take generational sta-
tus into account, thereby weakening his ability to
predict future trends. The analyses presented in this
paper allow us to test this prediction more directly.
Hypothesis 3 – racialized assimilation hypothesis :
Hispanics who have lighter skin and who have
not experienced discrimination are more likely to
self-identify as white, while Hispanics with darker
skin and who have experienced discrimination are
more likely to self-identify as black or Hispanic.
The third hypothesis draws on recent studies
that have highlighted the dynamic relationship be-
tween external racial categorization and racial self-
identifi cation, as well as on studies of assimilation.
Henry and Bankston (2001) argue that ethnic self-
identifi cation is affected by outsiders’ ethnic
designations. Specifi cally for Latinos/as, Clara
Rodríguez (2000: 140–1) found that dark-skinned
Dominicans in New York recognize a racial
categorization as black, while Ginetta Candelario
(2001) reported that the majority of Dominicans in
the predominantly black city of Washington, DC,
racially identified themselves as black. Steven
Ropp (2000, p. 24) tells us that Asian Latinos/as are
categorized as Asian in daily interactions. These
fi ndings indicate that Latinos/as experience a di-
verse array of experiences of racial categorization
in the US. Some people who fi t the Census’s defi ni-
tion of Hispanic/Latino are racially categorized in
everyday interactions as black, others as white,
others as Asian and still others as Hispanic.
Scholars of race in Latin America and the US are
not in full agreement about the extent to which ra-
cial categories differ in the US and in Latin America.
However, we can say with certainty that, at the very
least, there is one fundamental difference between
Latin America and the US, and that is that the cate-
gories ‘Latino’ and ‘Hispanic’ are not commonly
used in Latin America, while they are in the US.
The racialized assimilation hypothesis entails that
that some Latinos/as will be racialized as Latinos/as
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96 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
the LNPS, we were also interested in the unique
data on interviewer-coded skin colour.
The LNPS was conducted in forty standard met-
ropolitan statistical areas, and was representative
of 91 per cent of the Mexican, Puerto Rican and
Cuban populations in the United States. All respon-
dents were at least 18 years of age, and had at least
one parent solely of Mexican, Cuban or Puerto
Rican ancestry, or at least any two grandparents of
solely Mexican, Cuban or Puerto Rican ancestry.
The response rate was 74 per cent. . . .
Respondents to the LNPS survey were asked if
they consider themselves to be white, black or
something else, and were asked to specify if they
considered themselves neither white nor black. . . .
A substantial majority of respondents chose to
self-identify racially as white. About 2 per cent –
only fi fty-two respondents – chose to classify
themselves as black. The remainder typically
chose colour-oriented labels intermediate between
black and white or national group labels, either
collective labels like ‘Latino’ or country-specifi c
labels (e.g. ‘ Mi raza es Puertorriqueña ’). In what
follows, we will collapse the latter responses into
a single category, ‘other’, separate from white or
black. Using these three categories, 62 per cent of
respondents in the LNPS said they are racially
white, 2 per cent said they are black and 36 per
cent chose another category, neither black nor
white. The numbers do suggest that Latinos/as in
this sample were not following the dictates of a
‘one-drop rule’ or notions of hypodescent with re-
spect to black self- identifi cation, since it is clearly
the case that more than 2 per cent of the Cubans,
Puerto Ricans and Mexicans in the US have some
African ancestry. According to the conservative
estimates included in the 1992 NACLA Report on
the Americas , in Mexico, the African-descended
population is between 1 and 10 per cent; in Puerto
Rico, it is between 23 and 70 per cent; and in Cuba
it is between 34 and 62 per cent (Oveido 1992).
We do not have these sorts of data for the Latin
American population that resides in the United
States, but we are comfortable in assuming that it
than non-whites. As such, Latinos/as who are per-
ceived by others to be white are less likely to be
victims of racial discrimination than those who are
perceived by others to be non-whites. In this sense,
racial discrimination can be used as a proxy for
non- whiteness. Of course, Latinos/as who are per-
ceived to be white may have more access to white
spaces and thus may witness more subtle forms of
discrimination against other Latinos/as. Neverthe-
less, they would be less likely to experience racial
discrimination themselves.
DATA AND METHODS
For the analyses, we use two datasets—the 1989
Latino National Political Survey (LNPS) and the
Pew Hispanic Center/Kaiser Family Foundation
2002 National Survey of Latinos (NSL). We
chose the LNPS (1989) because of its inclusion of
measures of skin colour and NSL (2002) because
of its recency and its extensive questions pertain-
ing to discrimination. The similarities in these
two datasets strengthen our claims, while the dif-
ferences allow us to put some of our claims into
perspective. Both of these datasets are unique in-
sofar as they are nationally representative sam-
plings of the English- and Spanish-speaking
Latino populations, in contrast with studies such
as the General Social Survey which include only
English-speaking adults.
1989 LATINO NATIONAL
POLITICAL SURVEY
The LNPS is a representative national sample of the
three largest Latino groups in the USA – Mexicans,
Cubans and Puerto Ricans. The LNPS includes
2,807 respondents, and the interviews were con-
ducted between 1989 and 1990. This dataset is par-
ticularly well suited to addressing the questions
posed in this paper because of the broad sample of
Latinos/as from all over the country and because of
the different generational statuses included. In ad-
dition to the representative sample population of
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historically in national data in Latin American
countries (Andrews 2004). The second and third
generations shift more and more towards self-
classifi cations separate from white or black. In
particular, they demonstrate a growing preference
for the collective national labels as ethnic classifi –
ers, Latino or Hispanic . . .
2002 NATIONAL SURVEY
OF LATINOS
The 2002 National Survey of Latinos/as is a repre-
sentative sample of the Hispanic population in
2002. This survey was conducted by telephone be-
tween 4 April 2002 and 11 June 2002 among a na-
tionally representative sample of 4,213 adults 18
years and older, including 2,929 Latinos/as and
1,284 non-Latinos. We chose this sample because
of its relative recency and its similarity to the 1989
LNPS survey. . . .
Respondents to the National Survey of Latinos
were asked: ‘What race do you consider yourself to
be? White, Black or African-American, Asian, or
some other race?’ and were given the opportunity
to specify their race if they did not consider them-
selves to be white, black or Asian. In response to
this question, more respondents identifi ed as
Hispanic (1,175) than as white (1,022). Only 157
identifi ed as black, 20 as Asian and 527 as some-
thing else. It is important to note that Latinos/as’
racial self-identifi cation as ‘Hispanic’ as opposed
to white indicates that the respondents see Hispanic
as a racial categorization, similar to white or black.
In contrast to the 1989 LNPS study, the 2002 NLS
survey reveals a moderately declining preference
for the black and Hispanic labels across genera-
tions. It is particularly noteworthy that the prefer-
ence for the ‘other’ label increases from the fi rst to
the second generation, as one would expect fi rst-
generation respondents to be the least accepting of
US racial classifi cations. The second generation
turns out to be the least likely to self-identify
as  ‘white’ and the most likely to self-identify as
‘Hispanic’. . . .
is much more than 2 per cent. In any case, the fact
that we do not have these data points to the need
for better measures of the racial composition of
the Hispanic population in the US.
[Next] we examine how the interviewers’ grad-
ing of individual skin shade corresponded to the
individual’s self-reported race. A slight majority
of participants in the survey were graded as hav-
ing a medium skin shade out of the fi ve categories
used by the interviewers (‘very dark’, ‘dark’, ‘me-
dium’, ‘light’, ‘very light’) closely followed by
those graded as having a light skin shade. Compa-
rable numbers were placed in the dark and very
light categories. The smallest number of respon-
dents (fi fty-nine) was rated as having a very dark
skin tone.
[Individuals self-reported race, however, dem-
onstrates a] general Latino preference in 1989 to be
identifi ed as white. (See Darity, Hamilton and
Dietrich (2002) for a related discussion in the con-
text of labour market discrimination.) While most
of the very dark and dark respondents chose a racial
category other than black or white, more than one-
third [of those] chose to self-identify as white. The
majority of respondents identifi ed as having a me-
dium skin shade by the interviewers self-reported
their race as white. In the two lightest categories,
about 80 per cent of the respondents said they were
white, largely eschewing the ‘other’ categories,
never mind the black category. As skin shade light-
ens, more and more respondents chose white as
their race, but signifi cant proportions of darker-
skinned respondents did so as well.
. . . The preference for racial self-identifi cation
as white among Latinos/as attenuates somewhat the
longer a person is in the USA. The proportion of
Latinos/as self-identifying as white falls with each
generation more distant from immigration. This
contrasts with Yancey’s (2003) prediction that most
Latinos/as will become white. Note, however, in
this survey, there is no evidence of an increasing
preference for a black racial identity. If anything,
black Latinos/as continue to disappear based upon
self-reported race, just as they have disappeared
READING 6: Latino Racial Choices 97
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98 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
self-identify as ‘black’ or ‘other’ than as ‘white’ net
of all other variables. Notably, when comparing
relatively dark-skinned Latinos/as to lighter-
skinned Latinos/as, very dark-skinned Latinos/as
were 256 times more likely to self-identify as
‘black’, dark-skinned respondents were 48 times
more likely to self-identify as ‘black’ and medium-
skinned respondents were 5.4 times more likely to
self identify as ‘black’ than as ‘white’. . . . [R]es-
pondents who have experienced discrimination are
signifi cantly more likely to self-identify as ‘black’,
‘other’ or ‘Hispanic’ and less likely to self-identify
as ‘white’. Both sets of [data] confi rm the hypoth-
esis that Hispanics who experience discrimination *
are less likely to self-identify as white than those
who do not. We also can confi rm the hypothesis
that, net of all other factors, Hispanics with darker
skin shades are less likely to self-identify as white
than Hispanics of lighter hues. The fi nding that
self- identifi cation as Hispanic is related to experi-
ences of discrimination in the US points to the
politicization of this term and the growing under-
standing of the term as a racialized label. . . .
CONCLUSION
Skin shade clearly infl uences choice of racial cate-
gory among Latinos/as, but this is complicated by
the fact that so few respondents to the LNPS 1989
survey chose the black category and a signifi cant
share of darker respondents chose the white cate-
gory. Lighter complexioned Latinos/as simply would
not choose black as their racial category, but darker
complexioned Latinos/as often would choose white
as their racial category. This is refl ective of a general
Latino preference for whiteness. Nevertheless, the
results from both survey analyses do show that
darker skin, experiences of discrimination, lower in-
comes and limited Spanish ability all increase the
likelihood that Latinos/as will self- identify as ‘black’
when given a choice to do so. Latinos/as who report
DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS
[Our analysis provides] mixed evidence for the so-
cial whitening hypothesis. Respondents to the NLS
who had a family income over $50,000 are less
likely to self-identify as black or Hispanic, and
more likely to identify as white, and Hispanics with
some college or who have graduated from college
are more likely to self-identify as white than as His-
panic. This seems to support the social whitening
argument, the idea that Hispanics with more money
and education are more likely to self-identify as
white. However, these same coeffi cients are not
signifi cant in the analyses using the LNPS data.
And, when we control for skin colour in the com-
parison model, we see that Hispanics whose house-
hold incomes were between $20,000 and $34,999
were more likely to self-identify racially as ‘other’
than as white in the LNPS survey.
One way to understand the differences in the
fi ndings between these two datasets is that the 2002
National Latino Survey does not include a variable
for skin colour. As such, it is possible that Hispan-
ics who earn more money are in fact lighter skinned
in the US. This is a possibility given the strong re-
lationship between social class and skin colour in
Latin America (Rodríguez 2000). . . .
There is also mixed evidence for the identifi –
cational assimilation hypothesis. . . . [Our data]
indicate that Hispanics who have been in the US
for longer prefer to  adopt a Hispanic identity.
Nevertheless, English-dominant Hispanics and
those who have an ‘other’ (perhaps black) spouse
prefer to self- identify as ‘black’. Additionally,
English-speaking respondents are more likely to
self- identify as other than as white. These fi nd-
ings do not support the hypothesis that assimila-
tion leads to self- identifi cation as white. Overall,
these data do not demonstrate a trend towards
whiteness among Hispanics who have structur-
ally or linguistically assimilated into the United
States. . . .
There is the most consistent evidence in
favour of the racialization hypothesis. . . . [D]arker-
skinned Hispanics are consistently more likely to
* Respondents in both surveys were asked about experiences of
discrimination.
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NOTES
1. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2003-06-
18-Census_x.htm (accessed April 2005).
2. http://www.mbda.gov/documents/mbdacolor (accessed
13 April 2005).
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1. What impact does discrimination have on
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2. What problems might develop if each genera-
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3. Do you think that money will ever be more im-
portant than skin color in the United States?
Why or why not?
READING 6: Latino Racial Choices 99
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READING 7: Whiteness as an “Unmarked” Cultural Category 101
be  self-conscious about white power and racial
inequality. In part because of their sense of the
links and parallels between white racial dominance
in the  United States and U.S. domination on a
global scale, there was a complex interweaving of
questions about race and nation—whiteness and
Americanness—in these women’s thoughts about
white culture. Similarly, conceptions of racial,
national, and cultural belonging frequently leaked
into one another.
On the one hand, then, these women’s views of
white culture seemed to be distinctively modern.
But at the same time, their words drew on much
earlier historical moments and participated in long-
established modes of cultural description. In the
broadest sense, Western colonial discourses on the
white self, the nonwhite Other, and the white Other
too, were very much in evidence. These discourses
produced dualistic conceptualizations of whiteness
versus other cultural forms. The women thus often
spoke about culture in ways that reworked, and yet
remained tied to, “older” forms of racism.
For a signifi cant number of young white women,
being white felt like being cultureless. Cathy
Thomas, in the following description of whiteness,
raised many of the themes alluded to by other femi-
nist and race-cognizant women. She described
what she saw as a lack of form and substance:
. . . the formlessness of being white. Now if I was a
middle western girl, or a New Yorker, if I had a fi xed
regional identity that was something palpable, then
I’d be a white New Yorker, no doubt, but I’d still be a
New Yorker. . . . Being a Californian, I’m sure it has
its hallmarks, but to me they were invisible. . . . If I
had an ethnic base to identify from, if I was even Irish
American, that would have been something formed, if
I was a working-class woman, that would have been
something formed. But to be a Heinz 57 American, a
white, class-confused American, land of the Kleenex
type American, is so formless in and of itself. It only
takes shape in relation to other people.
Whiteness as a cultural space is represented here
as amorphous and indescribable, in contrast with a
range of other identities marked by race, ethnicity,
region, and class. Further, white culture is viewed
R E A D I N G 7
Whiteness as an “Unmarked”
Cultural Category
Ruth Frankenberg
America’s supposed to be the melting pot. I know that
I’ve got a huge number of nationalities in my blood, but
how do I—what do I call myself? And hating this coun-
try as I do, I don’t like to say I’m an American. Even
though it is what I am. I hate identifying myself as only
an American, because I have so much objections to
Americans’ place in the world. I don’t know how I felt
about that when I was growing up, but I never—I didn’t
like to pledge allegiance to the fl ag. . . . Still, at this point
in my life, I wonder what it is that somebody with all
this melting pot blood can call their own. . . .
Especially growing up in the sixties, when people
did say “I’m proud to be Black,” “I’m proud to be
Hispanic,” you know, and it became very popular to
be proud of your ethnicity. And even feminists, you
know, you could say, “I’m a woman,” and be proud of
it. But there’s still a majority of the country that can’t
say they are proud of anything!
Suzie Roberts’s words powerfully illustrate the
key themes . . . that stirred the women I inter-
viewed * as they examined their own identities:
what had formed them, what they counted as (their
own or others’) cultural practice(s), and what con-
stituted identities of which they could be proud.
This [discussion] explores perceptions of whiteness
as a location of culture and identity, focusing
mainly on white feminist . . . women’s views and
contrasting their voices with those of more politi-
cally conservative women. . . .
[M]any of the women I interviewed, including
even some of the conservative ones, appeared to
Ruth Frankenberg (1957–2007) was a professor of American
studies at the University of California, Davis. Her work helped
defi ne the fi eld of whiteness studies.
* Between 1984 and 1986 Ruth Frankenberg interviewed 30
white women, diverse in age, class, region of origin, sexuality,
family situation and political orientation, all living in California
at the time of the interviews.  
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102 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
whites stood for sameness. Hence, Margaret Phil-
lips said of her Jamaican daughter-in-law that: “She
really comes with diversity.” In spite of its brevity,
and because of its curious structure, this short state-
ment says a great deal. It implicitly designates
whiteness as norm, and Jamaicans as having or
bearing with them “differentness.” At the risk of
being crass, one might say that in this view, diver-
sity is to the daughter-in-law as “the works” is to a
hamburger—added on, adding color and fl avor, but
not exactly essential. Whiteness, seen by many of
these women as boring, but nonetheless defi nitive,
could also follow this analogy. This mode of
thinking about “difference” expresses clearly the
double-edged sword of a color- and power-evasive
repertoire, apparently valorizing cultural difference
but doing so in a way that leaves racial and cultural
hierarchies intact.
For a seemingly formless entity, then, white
culture had a great deal of power, diffi cult to dis-
lodge from its place in white consciousness as a
point of reference for the measuring of others.
Whiteness served simultaneously to eclipse and
marginalize others (two modes of making the other
inessential). Helen Standish’s description of her
growing-up years in a small New England town
captured these processes well. Since the commu-
nity was all white, the differences at issue were
differences between whites. (This also enables an
assessment of the links between white and non-
white “marked” cultures.) Asked about her own
cultural identity, Helen explained that “it didn’t
seem like a culture because everyone else was the
same.” She had, however, previously mentioned
Italian Americans in the town, so I asked about
their status. She responded as follows, adopting at
fi rst the voice of childhood:
They are different, but I’m the same as everybody
else. They speak Italian, but everybody else in the
U.S. speaks English. They eat strange, different food,
but I eat the same kind of food as everybody else
in  the U.S. . . . The way I was brought up was to
think that everybody who was the same as me were
“Americans,” and the other people were of “such and
such descent.”
here as “bad” culture. In fact, the extent to which
identities can be named seems to show an inverse
relationship to power in the U.S. social structure.
The elisions, parallels, and differences between
characterizations of white people, Americans, peo-
ple of color, and so-called white ethnic groups will
be explored [here].
Cathy’s own cultural positioning seemed to her
impossible to grasp, shapeless and unnameable. It
was easier to know others and to know, with cer-
tainty, what one was not . Providing a clue to one of
the mechanisms operating here is the fact that,
while Cathy viewed New Yorkers and midwestern-
ers as having a cultural shape or identity, women
from the East Coast and the Midwest also described
or mourned their own seeming lack of culture. The
self, where it is part of a dominant cultural group,
does not have to name itself. In this regard, Chris
Patterson hit the nail on the head, linking the power
of white culture with the privilege not to be named:
I’m probably at the stage where I’m beginning to see
that you can come up with a defi nition of white. Be-
fore, I didn’t know that you could turn it around and
say, “Well what does white mean?” One thing is, it’s
taken for granted. . . . [To be white means to] have
some sort of advantage or privilege, even if it’s some-
thing as simple as not having a defi nition.
The notion of “turning it around” indicates
Chris’s realization that, most often, whites are the
nondefi ned defi ners of other people. Or, to put it
another way, whiteness comes to be an unmarked
or neutral category, whereas other cultures are spe-
cifi cally marked “cultural.”
Many of the women shared the habit of turning
to elements of white culture as the unspoken norm.
This assumption of a white norm was so prevalent
that even Sandy Alvarez and Louise Glebocki, who
were acutely aware of racial inequality as well as
being members of racially mixed families, referred
to “Mexican” music versus “regular” music, and
regular meant “white.”
Similarly, discussions of race difference and cul-
tural diversity at times revealed a view in which
people of color actually embodied difference and
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READING 7: Whiteness as an “Unmarked” Cultural Category 103
The claim that whiteness lacks form and content
says more about the defi nitions of culture being used
than it does about the content of whiteness. How-
ever, I would suggest that in describing themselves
as cultureless these women are in fact identifying
specifi c kinds of unwanted absences or presences in
their own culture(s) as a generalized lack or nonexis-
tence. It thus becomes important to look at what they
did say about the cultural content of whiteness.
Descriptions of the content of white culture were
thin, to say the least. But despite the paucity of signi-
fi ers, there was a great deal of consistency across the
narratives. First, there was naming based on color, the
linking of white culture with white objects—the cli-
chéd white bread and mayonnaise, for example.
Freida Kazen’s identifi cation of whiteness as “bland,”
together with Helen Standish’s “blah,” also signifi ed
paleness or neutrality. The images connote several
things—color itself (although exaggerated, and be-
sides, bagels are usually white inside, too), lack of
vitality (Wonder bread is highly processed), and ho-
mogeneity. However, these images are perched on a
slippery slope, at once suggesting “white” identifi ed
as a color (though an unappealing one) and as an ab-
sence of color, that is, white as the unmarked marker.
Whiteness was often signifi ed in these narratives
by commodities and brands: Wonder bread,
Kleenex, Heinz 57. In this identifi cation whiteness
came to be seen as spoiled by capitalism, and as
being linked with capitalism in a way that other
cultures supposedly are not. Another set of signifi –
ers that constructed whiteness as uniquely tainted
by capitalism had to do with the “modern condi-
tion”: Dot Humphrey described white neighbor-
hoods as “more privatized,” and Cathy Thomas
used “alienated” to describe her cultural condition.
Clare Traverso added to this theme, mourning her
own feeling of lack of identity, in contrast with im-
ages of her husband’s Italian American background
(and here, Clare is again talking about perceived
differences between whites):
Food, old country, mama. Stories about a grand-
mother who can’t speak English. . . . Candles, adobe
houses, arts, music. [It] has emotion, feeling, belong-
ingness that to me is unique.
Viewing the Italian Americans as different and
oneself as “same” serves, fi rst, to marginalize, to
push from the center, the former group. At the same
time, claiming to be the same as everyone else
makes other cultural groups invisible or eclipses
them. Finally, there is a marginalizing of all those
who are not like Helen’s own family, leaving a re-
sidual, core or normative group who are the true
Americans. The category of “American” represents
simultaneously the normative and the residual, the
dominant culture and a nonculture.
Although Helen talked here about whites, it is safe
to guess that people of color would not have counted
among the “same” group but among the communities
of “such and such descent” (Mexican American, for
example). Whites, within this discursive repertoire,
became conceptually the real Americans, and only
certain kinds of whites actually qualifi ed. Whiteness
and Americanness both stood as normative and ex-
clusive categories in relation to which other cultures
were identifi ed and marginalized. And this clarifi es
that there are two kinds of whites, just as there are
two kinds of Americans: those who are truly or only
white, and those who are white but also something
more—or is it something less?
In sum, whiteness often stood as an unmarked
marker of others’ differentness—whiteness not so
much void or formlessness as norm. I associate
this construction with colonialism and with the
more recent assymetrical dualisms of liberal hu-
manist views of culture, race, and identity. For the
most part, this construction views nonwhite cul-
tures as lesser, deviant, or pathological. However,
another trajectory has been the inverse: conceptu-
alizations of the cultures of peoples of color as
somehow better than the dominant culture, per-
haps more natural or more spiritual. These are
positive evaluations of a sort, but they are equally
dualistic. Many of the women I interviewed saw
white culture as less appealing and found the cul-
tures of the “different” people more interesting. As
Helen Standish put it:
[We had] Wonder bread, white bread. I’m more inter-
ested in, you know, “What’s a bagel?” in other peo-
ple’s cultures rather than my own.
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104 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
“closer to the truth,” more “down to earth.” And
Marjorie Hoffman spoke of the “earthy humor” of
Black people, which she interpreted as, in the words
of Langston Hughes, a means of “laughing to keep
from crying.” On the one hand, as has been pointed
out especially by Black scholars and activists, the
positions of people of color at the bottom of a social
and economic hierarchy create the potential for a
critique of the system as a whole and consciousness
of the need to resist.
2
From the standpoint of race
privilege, the system of racism is thus made struc-
turally invisible. On the other hand, descriptions of
this kind leave in place a troubling dichotomy that
can be appropriated as easily by the right as by the
left. For example, there is an inadvertent affi nity
between the image of Black people as “earthy” and
the conservative racist view that African American
culture leaves African American people ill equipped
for advancement in the modern age. Here, echoing
essentialist racism, both Chicanos and African
Americans are placed on the borders of “nature”
and “culture.”
By the same token, often what was criticized as
“white” was as much the product of middle-class
status as of whiteness as such. Louise Glebocki’s
image of her fate had she married a white man was
an image of a white-collar, nuclear family:
Him saying, “I’m home, dear,” and me with an apron
on—ugh!
The intersections of class, race, and culture were
obscured in other ways. Patricia Bowen was angry
with some of her white feminist friends who, she
felt, embraced as “cultural” certain aspects of
African American, Chicano, and Native American
cultures (including, for example, artwork or dance
performances) but would reject as “tacky” (her
term) those aspects of daily life that communities
of color shared with working-class whites, such as
the stores and supermarkets of poor neighborhoods.
This, she felt, was tantamount to a selective expan-
sion of middle-class aesthetic horizons, but not to
true antiracism or to comprehension of the cultures
of people of color. Having herself grown up in
a  white working-class family, Pat also felt that
In linking whiteness to capitalism and viewing
nonwhite cultures as untainted by it, these women
were again drawing on a colonial discourse in
which progress and industrialization were seen as
synonymous with Westernization, while the rest of
the world is seen as caught up in tradition and “cul-
ture.” In addition, one can identify, in white wom-
en’s mourning over whiteness, elements of what
Raymond Williams has called “pastoralism,” or
nostalgia for a golden era now gone by (but in fact,
says Williams, one that never existed).
1

The image of whiteness as corrupted and impov-
erished by capitalism is but one of a series of ways
in which white culture was seen as impure or
tainted. White culture was also seen as tainted by
its relationship to power. For example, Clare Tra-
verso clearly counterposed white culture and white
power, fi nding it diffi cult to value the former be-
cause of the overwhelming weight of the latter:
The good things about whites are to do with folk arts,
music. Because other things have power associated
with them.
For many race-cognizant white women, white
culture was also made impure by its very efforts to
maintain race purity. Dot Humphrey, for example,
characterized white neighborhoods as places in
which people were segregated by choice. For her,
this was a good reason to avoid living in them.
The link between whiteness and domination,
however, was frequently made in ways that both
artifi cially isolated culture from other factors and
obscured economics. For at times, the traits the
women envied in Other cultures were in fact at least
in part the product of poverty or other dimensions
of oppression. Lack of money, for example, often
means lack of privacy or space, and it can be valo-
rized as “more street life, less alienation.” Cathy
Thomas’s notion of Chicanas’ relationship to the
kitchen (“the hearth of the home”) as a cultural
“good” might be an idealized one that disregards
the reality of intensive labor.
Another link between class and culture emerged
in Louise Glebocki’s reference to the working-class
Chicanos she met as a child as less pretentious,
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READING 7: Whiteness as an “Unmarked” Cultural Category 105
both whiteness and nonwhiteness are reifi ed, made
into objects rather than processes, and robbed of
historical context and human agency. As long as the
discussion remains couched in these terms, a cri-
tique of whiteness remains a double-edged sword:
for one thing, whiteness remains normative because
there is no way to name the cultural practices as-
sociated with it as cultural. Moreover, as I have
suggested, whether whiteness is viewed as artifi cial
and dominating (and therefore “bad”) or civilized
(and therefore “good”), whiteness and all varieties
of nonwhiteness continue to be viewed as ontologi-
cally different from one another.
A genuine sadness and frustration about the
meaning of whiteness at this moment in history
motivated these women to decry white culture. It
becomes important, then, to recognize the grains of
truth in their views of white culture. It is important
to acknowledge their anger and frustration about
the meaning of whiteness as we reach toward a po-
liticized analysis of culture that is freer of colonial
and pastoral legacies.
The terms “white” and “American” as these
women used them signifi ed domination in inter-
national and domestic terms. This link is both accu-
rate and inaccurate. While it is true that, by and large,
those in power in the United States are white, it is
also true that not all those who are white are in power.
Nor is the axiomatic linkage between Americanness
and power accurate, because not all Americans have
the same access to power. At the same time, the link
between whiteness, Americanness, and power are
accurate because, as we have seen, the terms
“white”  and “American” both function discursively
to exclude people from normativity—including
white people “of such and such descent.” But here
we need to distinguish between the fates of people
of color and those of white people. Notwith-
standing a complicated history, the boundaries of
Americanness and whiteness have been much
more fl uid for “white ethnic” groups than for
people of color.
There have been border skirmishes over the
meaning of whiteness and Americanness since
the  inception of those terms. For white people,
middle-class white feminists were able to use selec-
tive engagement to avoid addressing their class
privilege.
I have already indicated some of the problems
inherent in this kind of conceptualization, suggest-
ing that it tends to keep in place dichotomous con-
structions of “white” versus Other cultures, to
separate “culture” from other dimensions of daily
life, and to reify or strip of history all cultural
forms. There are, then, a range of issues that need to
be disentangled if we are to understand the location
of “whiteness” in the terrain of culture. It is, I be-
lieve, useful to approach this question by means of
a reconceptualization of the concept of culture
itself. A culture, in the sense of the set of rules and
practices by means of which a group organizes it-
self and its values, manners, and worldview—in
other words, culture as “a fi eld articulating the life-
world of subjects . . . and the structures created by
human activity”
3
—is an indispensable precondition
to any individual’s existence in the world. It is non-
sensical in terms of this kind of defi nition to sug-
gest that anyone could actually have “no culture.”
But this is not, as I have suggested, the mode
of  thinking about culture that these women are
employing.
Whiteness emerges here as inextricably tied to
domination partly as an effect of a discursive
“draining process” applied to both whiteness and
Americanness. In this process, any cultural practice
engaged in by a white person that is not identical to
the dominant culture is automatically counted as
either “not really white”—and, for that matter, not
really American, either—(but rather of such and
such descent), or as “not really cultural” (but rather
“economic”). There is a slipperiness to whiteness
here: it shifts from “no culture” to “normal culture”
to “bad culture” and back again. Simultaneously, a
range of marginal or, in Trinh T. Minh-ha’s termi-
nology, “bounded” cultures are generated. These
are viewed as enviable spaces, separate and un-
tainted by relations of dominance or by linkage to
other structures or systems. By contrast, whiteness
is conceived as axiomatically tied to dominance, to
economics, to political structures. In this process,
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106 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
much in the context of relationships to imperialism
and capitalism as has the production of whiteness,
though it has been premised on exclusion and resis-
tance to exclusion more than on assimilation. Al-
though not always or only forged in resistance, the
visibility and recognition of the cultures of U.S.
peoples of color in recent times is the product of
individual and collective struggle. Only a short
time has elapsed since those struggles made possi-
ble the introduction into public discourse of cele-
bration and valorization of their cultural forms. In
short, it is important not to reify any culture by fail-
ing to acknowledge its createdness, and not to view
it as always having been there in unchanging form.
Rather than feeling “cultureless,” white women
need to become conscious of the histories and spec-
ifi cities of our cultural positions, and of the politi-
cal, economic, and creative fusions that form all
cultures. The purpose of such an exercise is not, of
course, to reinvert the dualisms and valorize white-
ness so much as to develop a clearer sense of where
and who we are.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Why is whiteness considered to be lacking
diversity?
2. How would you describe the cultural content of
whiteness?
NOTES
1. Raymond Williams, The Country and the City (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1978).
2. The classic statement of this position is W. E. B.
Du  Bois’s concept of the “double consciousness” of
Americans of African descent. Two recent feminist
statements of similar positions are Patricia Hill Collins,
Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness,
and the Politics of Empowerment (Boston: Unwin
Hyman, 1990); and Aida Hurtado, “Relating to Privilege:
Seduction and Rejection in the Subordination of White
Women and Women of Color,” Signs 14, no. 4:833–55.
3. Paul Gilroy, There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack .
London: Hutchinson, 1987.
4. See, for example, Winthrop Talbot, ed., Americanization
(New York: H. W. Wilson, 1917), esp. Sophonisba P.
Breckinridge, “The Immigrant Family,” 251–52, Olivia
however, those skirmishes have been resolved
through processes of assimilation, not exclusion.
The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in
the United States saw a systematic push toward the
cultural homogenization of whites carried out
through social reform movements and the schools.
This push took place alongside the expansion of
industrial capitalism, giving rise to the sense that
whiteness signifi es the production and consump-
tion of commodities under capitalism.
4
But recog-
nition of this history should not be translated into
an assertion that whites were stripped of culture
(for to do that would be to continue to adhere to a
colonial view of “culture”). Instead one must argue
that certain cultural practices replaced others. Were
one to undertake a history of this “generic” white
culture, it would fragment into a thousand tributary
elements, culturally specifi c religious observances,
and class survival mechanisms as well as mass-
produced commodities and mass media.
There are a number of dangers inherent in con-
tinuing to view white culture as no culture. White-
ness appeared in the narratives to function as both
norm or core, that against which everything else is
measured, and as residue, that which is left after
everything else has been named. A far-reaching
danger of whiteness coded as “no culture” is that it
leaves in place whiteness as defi ning a set of nor-
mative cultural practices against which all are mea-
sured and into which all are expected to fi t. This
normativity has underwritten oppression from the
beginning of colonial expansion and has had im-
pact in multiple ways: from the American pioneers’
assumption of a norm of private property used to
justify appropriation of land that within their world-
view did not have an owner, and the ideological
construction of nations like Britain as white,
5
to
Western feminism’s Eurocentric shaping of its
movements and institutions. It is important for
white feminists not to continue to participate in
these processes.
And if whiteness has a history, so do the cultures
of people of color, which are worked on, crafted,
and created, rather than just “there.” For peoples of
color in the United States, this work has gone on as
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READING 8: Plus ça Change . . . ? Multiraciality and the Dynamics of Race Relations 107
national origin quotas as bases for immigrant ad-
missions (Bean & Bell-Rose, 1999; Reimers,
1992). Many scholars thought the former would
quickly lead to full incorporation of Blacks into
American society (Glazer, 1997), whereas others
generally expected the latter not to generate much
in the way of new immigration, but rather simply to
remove the embarrassment of the country’s dis-
criminatory admissions policies (Reimers, 1998).
What both shared at the time was that each seemed
to offer the prospect of improving racial/ethnic
relations in the United States.
Neither, however, turned out as anticipated.
Blacks did not quickly become economically incor-
porated and millions of new non-White immigrants
unexpectedly came to the country (Bean & Stevens,
2003). But as post–World War II economic prosper-
ity created new job opportunities and its expanding
cities brought persons from different backgrounds
increasingly into contact with one another (Fischer
& Hout, 2006), religious and ethnic group inter-
marriage fl ourished (Pagnini & Morgan, 1990).
The politics of racial identity eventually gained
new, if controversial, traction, leading to height-
ened awareness that tangible benefi ts could accrue
to those with offi cial minority status (Skrentny,
2002). Partly as a result of affi rmative action and
other policies, new movements sprang up at the end
of the century advocating that the offspring of
mixed-race relationships should be allowed to self-
identify as belonging to more than one racial group
in government surveys (Renn, 2009; Rockquemore,
Brunsma, & Delgado, 2009). At fi rst glance, such
changes would seem to portend salutary effects for
race relations in the United States. Not only are
relatively more mixed-marital unions now occur-
ring than previously, but the offspring of such
unions are able to acknowledge their mixed-race
backgrounds if they wish. The old strictures of race
appear to be melting away. . . .
The extent to which the color line has changed
in recent decades, particularly as a consequence of
recent non-White immigration, carries major ana-
lytical signifi cance for research on multiraciality
and multiracial identifi cation. If the color line is
Howard Dunbar, “Teaching the Immigrant Woman,”
252–56, and North American Civic League for Immi-
grants, “Domestic Education among Immigrants,” 256–
58; and Kathie Friedman Kasaba, “‘To Become a
Person’: The Experience of Gender, Ethnicity and Work
in the Lives of Immigrant Women, New York City,
1870–1940,” doctoral dissertation, Department of
Sociology, State University of New York, Binghamton,
1991. I am indebted to Katie Friedman Kasaba for these
references and for her discussions with me about
working-class European immigrants to the United States
at the turn of this century.
5. Gilroy, There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack.
R E A D I N G 8
Plus ça Change . . . ? Multiraciality
and the Dynamics of Race
Relations in the United States
Frank D. Bean and Jennifer Lee
. . . The issue of race has long cast a shadow on the
founding mythology of the United States. Well
after the end of the Civil War, the country coped
with the contradiction between immigration
and  race by compartmentalizing depictions of
immigrant and slavery experiences, at least at an
intellectual level. Historians tended to embed dis-
cussions of immigration in narratives about the
frontier and industrialization, while confi ning slav-
ery to the history of the South (Davis, 1998). If race
was a problem, scholars viewed it as a regional
issue, not one pertaining to the country as a whole.
This convenient (and patronizing) approach ap-
peared to come to an end during the 1960s, when
the geostrategic exigencies of the Cold War, and the
not-easily ignored claims for equal opportunity of
post–World War II Black veterans, culminated in
1965 in two landmark pieces of legislation: the
Civil Rights Act making discrimination against
Blacks illegal; and the Hart-Celler Act abolishing
Frank D. Bean is a professor of sociology at the University of
California, Irvine.
Jennifer Lee is a professor of sociology at the University of
California, Irvine.
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108 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
for which are a White/non-White divide, a new tri-
racial hierarchy, or a Black/non-Black divide. If, as
W. E. Du Bois said, “the problem of the twentieth
century (was) that of the (Black–White) color line,”
the question of the 21st century is: Where is the
color line now drawn? Below we consider the nature
and contemporary relevance of these three alterna-
tive models of today’s color line(s) that scholars
have articulated.
The Hypothesis of
a White/Non-White Divide
Many observers think a White/non-White divide is
emerging. For one thing, such a divide has been le-
gally enforced throughout the history of the United
States, well into the 20th century. In 1924, for ex-
ample, the state of Virginia passed a Racial Integ-
rity Law that created two distinct racial categories:
“pure” White and all others. The statute defi ned a
“White” person as one with “no trace whatsoever of
blood other than Caucasian,” and emerged to le-
gally ban intermarriage between Whites and other
races. While Blacks were clearly non-White under
the legislation, Asians and Latinos also fell on the
non-White side of the strict binary divide. The stat-
ute refl ected the Supreme Court rulings of Takao
Ozawa v. United States (1922) and United States v.
Bhagat Singh Thind (1923), in which persons of
Asian origin were not only classifi ed as non-White
but also considered ineligible for U.S. citizenship.
In the fi rst case, Takao Ozawa (a Japanese citizen of
the United States) fi led for U.S. citizenship under
the Naturalization Act of June 29, 1906, which al-
lowed Whites and persons of African descent or
African nativity to naturalize. Rather than challeng-
ing the constitutionality of the racial restrictions to
U.S. citizenship, Ozawa argued his skin color made
him a “White person” and that Japanese persons
should be classifi ed as “White.” The Supreme Court
ruled that only Caucasians were White, and be-
cause the Japanese were not of the Caucasian race,
could not be deemed White, but rather were mem-
bers of an “unassimilable race,” lacking provisions
standing under the Naturalization Act.
roughly the same for Latinos and Asians as it is for
Blacks, then studies of multiracial contextual and
individual manifestations need worry little about
what kinds of multiracial combinations they exam-
ine. What holds true for Black–White multiracial
pairings and individuals would seem likely to apply
to other multiracials as well. However, if one racial
category were found to carry considerably stronger
salience than another, the dynamics could be differ-
ent. For example, if Black–White marriages and
individuals confront greater stigmatization than
Asian-White or Latino-White ones, then the indi-
vidual and social dynamics of multiraciality would
be likely to vary across groups and combinations.
In some ways, this is an obvious point, but it bears
repeating, not only because it carries theoretical
signifi cance, but also because the Black–White di-
vide has so hauntingly preoccupied the history of
the United States that we often transfer ideas about
Black–White dynamics to the cases of other racial/
ethnic minority groups, often without careful con-
sideration of whether these apply. . . .
HYPOTHETICAL NEW MODELS
OF THE U.S. COLOR LINE
Given that today’s immigrant newcomers from
Latin America and Asia are neither Black nor
White, the traditional Black–White model of race
relations may inaccurately depict the character of
race/ethnic relations for Asians and Latinos as com-
pared to Blacks. Consequently, an important re-
search issue in U.S. race/ethnic relations is: Are the
experiences of America’s newest non-White immi-
grant groups tracking those of their European pre-
decessors, or are these groups becoming racialized
minorities who see their experiences as more akin
to those of African Americans than to earlier im-
migrants? In other words, do Asians and Latinos,
particularly the later-generation members of these
groups, more closely resemble Whites or Blacks in
the United States at this point in time? An answer to
this question can help to reveal whether the Black–
White color line of the past is evolving into some
sort of other pattern—the three major possibilities
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momentum and popularity in the late 1980s
(Hollinger, 2005). Such omnibus terms combine
all non-White groups on the basis of presumed
racialized minority status, thus connoting that the
individuals to which they refer share a similar
subordinate status vis-à-vis Whites. By homoge-
nizing (and thus reifying the experiences of all
non-White groups), the “people of color” rubric
indicates the boundaries among non-White groups
are less distinct and salient than the boundary sep-
arating Whites from non-Whites. Accordingly, a
White/non-White model of racial/ethnic relations
would envision Asians and Latinos falling closer
to Blacks than to Whites in their experiences in
the United States, suggesting that extent of multi-
raciality and multiracial identifi cation should be
similar for Asians, Latinos, and Blacks.
The Hypothesis of
a Triracial Hierarchy
Other social scientists propose still another
possibility—a triracial stratifi cation system similar
to that of many Latin American and Caribbean
countries. In the United States, this has been viewed
as consisting of Whites, honorary Whites, and col-
lective Blacks (Bonilla-Silva, 2004a, b). Included
in the “White” category would be Whites, assimi-
lated White Latinos, some multiracials, assimilated
Native Americans, and a few Asian-origin people.
“Honorary Whites” would include light-skinned
Latinos, Japanese Americans, Korean Americans,
Chinese Americans, Asian Indians, Middle Eastern
Americans, and most multiracials. Finally, the
“collective Black” category would include Blacks,
Filipinos, Vietnamese, Hmong, Laotians, dark-
skinned Latinos, West Indian and African immi-
grants, and reservation-bound Native Americans.
Because many of today’s new immigrants hail
from Latin America and the Caribbean, Bonilla-
Silva argued that a more complex triracial order
will emerge given what he terms the “darkening” of
the United States. In his view, a triracial order
would also serve to help maintain “White suprem-
acy” by creating an intermediate racial group to
Three months later, in United States v. Bhagat
Singh Thind (1923), the Supreme Court handed
down a similar ruling, denying citizenship to a man
of Asian-Indian origin. The court ruled that Bhagat
Singh Thind, a native of India, could not be a natu-
ralized citizen despite the fact that anthropologists
had defi ned members of the Indian subcontinent as
members of the Caucasian race. In his case, while
the court did not dispute that Thind was a Cauca-
sian, they ruled that not all Caucasians were White.
According to the Supreme Court, while Thind may
have been Caucasian, he was not a “White person”
as “used in common speech, to be interpreted in ac-
cordance with the understanding of the common
man.” While Takao Ozawa was denied citizenship
because he was not of the Caucasian race, and there-
fore not White, Bhagat Singh Thind was denied citi-
zenship because he was not White according to the
common understanding of Whiteness, even though
the court conceded he was Caucasian. The rulings
refl ected the idea that persons of Asian origin were
not only a distinct racial or color category from
Whites, but were also considered “unassimilable.”
Administrative policies adopted in the latter
half of the 1960s following the Civil Rights Move-
ment reinforced the idea of a White/non-White de-
marcation. Most prominently, affi rmative action
policies were extended to minority groups who
were perceived as “analogous to Blacks” with re-
spect to physical distinctiveness and to having
“suffered enough” to be similarly categorized
(Skrentny, 2002). According to these criteria, Lati-
nos, Native Americans, and Asians became eligible
for affi rmative action programs while disadvan-
taged White ethnics did not. One potential unin-
tended consequence of such policies was that
Asians and especially Latinos may have become
perceived and labeled as racialized minorities
who were more akin to Blacks than to Whites. In
essence, many affi rmative action policies placed
Asians and Latinos on the non-White side of the
divide, fi rmly establishing a delineation between
Whites and non-Whites.
Further cementing the divide was the introduc-
tion of the label “people of color,” which gained
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110 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
of and experiences with multiraciality identifi cation
should occur among Blacks and Latinos because
both are “racial others,” whereas differences would
exist between these two groups and Asians.
The Hypothesis of
a Black/Non-Black Divide
In the 1990s, a number of other social scientists
began to argue that a new racial structure was
emerging that differed from a Black–White, a
White/non-White or a triracial hierarchy. They sug-
gested a new binary color line—a Black/non-Black
divide—that highlighted the continuing and unique
separation of Blacks, not only from Whites but also
from other non-White racial/ethnic groups (Alba,
1990; Gans, 1999; Gitlin, 1995). The concept of the
Black/non-Black divide surfaced in conjunction
with a scholarship documenting the processes by
which previously “non-White” immigrant ethnic
groups such as the Irish, Italians, and Eastern Euro-
pean Jews became “White” (Alba, 1985, 1990;
Brodkin, 1998; Gerstle, 1999; Ignatiev, 1995;
Jacobson, 1998; Roediger, 1991). For example,
Ignatiev (1995) detailed how Irish immigrants—
once referred to as “White Negroes” by the country’s
Anglo-Saxons—became “White” by shifting their
political alliances, achieving economic mobility,
and adopting deliberate and extreme measures to
distance themselves from African Americans. With
economic mobility also came a decoupling of
the  confl ation of national origin differences and
“racial” differences, further contributing to the
development of the idea that for Irish immigrants
(and other European immigrants) race was an
achieved rather than an ascribed status (Alba, 1990;
Haney-Lopez, 1996; Perlmann & Waldinger, 1997;
Waters, 1990). In other words, as economic and cul-
tural differences diminished and eventually faded
between White and non-White immigrants groups,
the Irish, Italians, and Eastern European Jews
became racially reconstructed as White.
Other scholars noted that European immigrants
were not the only ones to have changed their status
from non-White to White. Asian ethnic immigrant
buffer racial confl ict (Bonilla-Silva, 2004b, p. 5).
While a few new immigrants might fall into the
honorary White strata and may even eventually be-
come White, the majority would incorporate into
the collective Black strata, including most Latino
immigrants who he labels as “racial others” whose
experiences with race are seen as similar to those of
Blacks. In this regard, the triracial model differs
fundamentally from the Black/non-Black divide
because Bonilla-Silva posits that Latinos are racial-
ized in a manner similar to African Americans, and
therefore fall on the Black side of the divide.
While some research evidence seems to support
the Latin Americanization thesis, it has not gone
without criticism. For instance, Murguia and Saenz
(2004) argued that a three-tier system predated sub-
stantial Latin American immigration to the United
States. Other social scientists contest the uniform
characterization of Latinos as a monolithic group
(Forman, Goar, & Lewis, 2004; Murguia & Saenz,
2004). For instance, examining Latinos’ social atti-
tudes toward other racial/ethnic groups, Forman et al.
(2004) found that Latinos fall into different seg-
ments of the triracial hierarchy depending on na-
tional origin. For instance, Puerto Ricans differ
from Mexicans in their expressed feelings toward
Blacks, with the former group demonstrating more
positive attitudes if they show darker skin color.
Mexicans, however, are much more uniform in their
feelings toward Blacks and express attitudes that
are closer to non-Hispanic Whites than to non-
Hispanic Blacks, perhaps as a result of the history
of racial mixing in Mexico, which involved very
few Africans, unlike the history of mixing in Puerto
Rico (Forman et al., 2004). In any case, regardless
of skin color, Latinos overall fall closer to non-
Hispanic Whites in their attitudes toward Blacks
than to non-Hispanic Blacks. Such results suggest
considerable variation in the racialization experi-
ences of Latinos in the United States. Contrary to
the Latin Americanization thesis, many Latinos, es-
pecially Mexicans, do not appear to see themselves
as falling into the collective Black category. How-
ever, if the Latin Americanization hypothesis holds
and a triracial hierarchy is forming, similar patterns
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is open to non-Blacks. Slipping through the opening
is, then, a tactical matter for non-Blacks of conform-
ing to White standards, of distancing themselves from
Blackness, and of reproducing anti-Black ideas and
sentiments.
Others like Guinier and Torres (2002) also sug-
gested that throughout the history of the United
States, Blacks have served a critical role in the con-
struction and expansion of Whiteness by serving as
the defi nition of what White is not. Given the rigid-
ity of the boundary surrounding blacks, some social
scientists argue that a Black/non-Black divide is
emerging, in which Asians and Latinos fall on the
non-Black side of the divide. Consequently, a
Black/non-Black model of racial/ethnic relations
would entail Asians and Latinos falling closer to
Whites than to Blacks in their experiences in the
United States, suggesting that extent of multiracial-
ity and multiracial identifi cation should be similar
for Asians and Latinos, but dissimilar to Blacks.
Research Findings Relevant to
the Models of the Color Line
Recent research evidence suggests that Whiteness
has continued to expand to incorporate new immi-
grant groups with Asians and Latinos now appear-
ing to “blend” more easily with Whites than with
Blacks (Gallagher, 2004; Gerstle, 1999; Warren &
Twine, 1997). Furthermore, Gallagher (2004) ar-
gued that many Whites view Asians and Latinos as
more culturally similar to them than to Blacks, and
posits that the United States is currently undergoing
a process of “racial redistricting,” allowing Asians
and Latinos (especially multiracials) to “glide eas-
ily” into the White category. Twine’s research on
multiracial identifi cation reinforces this point; she
found that the children of Black intermarriages are
usually perceived by others as Black (Twine, 1996).
By contrast, the children of Asian and Latino inter-
marriages are not similarly perceived monoracially
as Asian or Latino. Studies of Asian-White multira-
cial youth show that they are equally likely to select
White or Asian as the single category that best
describes their racial background, pointing to the
groups such as the Chinese and the Japanese also
managed to transform their racial status from
“almost Black” to “almost White.” Loewen (1971),
for example, documents how Chinese immigrants
in the Mississippi Delta consciously strove to mod-
ify their lowly racial status through economic mo-
bility, the emulation of the cultural practices and
institutions of Whites, the intentional distancing of
themselves from Blacks, and the rejection of fellow
ethnics who married Blacks and any Chinese-Black
multiracial children they bore. By adopting the
anti-Black sentiment embraced by Mississippi
Whites and by closely following White moral
codes, the Chinese accepted rather than challenged
the existing racial hierarchy and essentially were
able to cross the Black–White color line. Spickard
(1989) noted a similar process of change among
Japanese Americans who, at the beginning of the
20th century, were consigned with Blacks to the
bottom of the racial hierarchy, but whose status
rose dramatically just three quarters of a century
later. Today, so extreme is the shift in America’s
racial hierarchy that Asians, now donning titles of
“model minority” and “honorary Whites,” have be-
come groups against which other non-White groups
are often judged and compared—a far cry from the
derisive designation “yellow horde” that once de-
scribed Asian immigrants at the turn of the twenti-
eth century (Gans, 2005; Zhou, 2004).
While a number of immigrant groups have
changed their status from non-White to White,
African Americans have not been able to do the
same. Gans (2005, pp. 19–20) referred to this as the
pattern of “African American exceptionalism.” He
elaborates, “The only population whose racial fea-
tures are not automatically perceived differently
with upward mobility are African Americans:
Those who are affl uent and well educated remain as
visibly Black to Whites as before.” Warren and
Twine (1997, p. 208) argued this is because the
construction of “Whiteness” depends on the per-
ceived existence of “Blackness.” They note:
[B]ecause Blacks reprcsent the “other” against which
Whiteness is constructed, the back-door to Whiteness
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112 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
IMPLICATIONS
A pattern involving fading color lines for Asians
and Latinos implies improvements in U.S. race
relations. However, it also forebodes dangers. For
one thing, it invites misinterpretation about prog-
ress in Black–White relations in the United States.
Because boundaries are loosening for some non-
White groups, many observers might erroneously
conclude that race is declining in signifi cance for
all groups, and moreover, that race relations are
improving at the same pace for all racial/ethnic
minorities. However, the results of the research
discussed above suggest that the social construc-
tion of race is more consequential for Blacks than
for Asians and Latinos. Not accounting for this
difference in research and the formulation of pub-
lic policy could easily lead the endorsement of a
fl awed logic claiming that if race does not impede
the process of incorporation for Asians and Lati-
nos, then it must not matter much for Blacks
either. Not only is this line of reasoning incorrect,
it also risks fostering support for so-called “color-
blind” policies that fail to recognize that race and
the color line have different consequences for
different minority groups (Brown et al., 2003;
Loury, 2002). . . .
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What criteria do you use to defi ne black?
2. What criteria do you use to defi ne white?
3. If there is a third category, who can move from
that category to white? Why?
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Bean, F. D., & Beli-Rose, S. (1999). Immigration and
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Bean, F. D., & Stevens, G. (2003). America’s newcomers
and the dynamics of diversity. New York: Russell Sage
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latitude such adolescents have in designating their
own racial/ethnic heritage (Harris & Sim, 2002;
Saenz, Hwang, Aguirre, & Anderson, 1995; Xie &
Goyette, 1997). Similarly, multiethnic Mexican
Americans exercise a great deal of choice in how
they identify (Jiménez, 2004).
Other empirical studies of multiracial identifi –
cation also report results relevant to the question of
the nature of America’s color lines today. Lee and
Bean (2007) found that both census data and qual-
itative subjective interviews indicate that group
boundaries appear to be fading more rapidly for
Latinos and Asians than for Blacks, signaling that
today’s new non-Whites are not strongly assimilat-
ing as racialized minorities who see their experi-
ences with race as akin to those of Blacks, as
would be predicted by the White/non-White
model. Moreover, these researchers argue that a
triracial hierarchy model that would place Latinos
and most new immigrants into the “collective
Black” category and label them as “racial others”
does not appear to characterize accurately the ra-
cialization process of America’s non-White new-
comers. Instead, both multiraciality and multiracial
identifi cation among Latinos and Asians appear
consistent with hypotheses that place them closer
to Whites than to Blacks. Moreover, that racial and
ethnic affi liations and identities are much less mat-
ters of choice for multiracial Blacks indicate that
Black remains a more salient racial category than
others. The lower rate of Black multiracial report-
ing in census data and the racial constraints that
many multiracial Blacks experience suggest that
Blackness continues to constitute a fundamental
racial construction in American society. Hence, it
is not simply that race matters, but more specifi –
cally, that Black race matters, providing support
for the African-American exceptionalism thesis.
Such patterns strongly suggest that a Black/non-
Black divide is taking shape, one in which Asians
and Latinos fall closer to Whites to Blacks (Gans,
1999, 2005; Glazer, 1997; Lee & Bean, 2007;
Quillian & Campbell, 2003; Sears, 2003; Sears,
Fu, Henry, & Bui, 2003; Sears & Savalei, 2006;
Waters, 1999; Yancey, 2003).
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Jiménez, T. (2004). Negotiating ethnic boundaries. Ethnici-
ties, 4, 75–97.
Lee, J., & Bean, F. D. (2007). Reinventing the color line:
Immigration and America’s new racial/ethnic divide.
Social Forces, 86, 561–586.
Loewen, J. (1971). The Mississippi Chinese: Between black
and white. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Loury, G. C. (2002). The anatomy of racial inequality. Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Murguia, E., & Saenz, R. (2004). An analysis of the Latina-
mericanization of race in the United States. Race and
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Pagnini, D. L., & Morgan, S. P. (1990). Intermarriage and
social distance among U.S. immigrants at the turn
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Perlmann, J., & Waldinger, R. (1997). Second generation
decline? Children of immigrants, past and present—a
reconsideration. International Migration Review, 31,
893–922.
Quillian, L., & Campbell, M. (2003). Beyond black and
white. American Sociological Review, 68, 540–566.
Reimers, C. W. (1998). Unskilled immigration and changes
in the wage distributions of black, Mexican American, and
non-Hispanic White male dropouts. In D. S. Hamermesh
& F. D. Bean (Eds.), Help or hindrance? The economic
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(pp. 107–148). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Reimers, D. M. (1992). Still the golden door: The third
world comes to America. New York: Columbia University
Press.
Renn, K. A. (2009). Educational policy, politics, and mixed
heritage students in the United States. Journal of Social
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Rockquemore, K. A., Brunsma, D. L., & Delgado, D. J.
(2009). Racing to theory or re-theorizing race? Under-
standing the struggle to build a multiracial identity theory.
Journal of Social Issues, 65(1), 13–34.
Roediger, D. (1991). The wages of whiteness. New York:
Verso.
Saenz, R., Hwang, S., Aguirre, B. E., & Anderson, R. N.
(1995). Persistence and change in Asian identity among
children of intermarried couples. Sociological Perspec-
tives, 38, 175–194.
Sears, D. O. (2003). Black-White confl ict. In D. Halle (Ed.),
New York & Los Angeles (pp. 367–389). Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press.
Sears, D. O., Fu, M., Henry, P. J., & Bui, K. (2003). The ori-
gins and persistence of ethnic identity among the ‘new
immigrant’ groups. Social Psychology Quarterly, 66,
419–437.
Sears, D. O., & Savalei, V. (2006). The political color line in
America: Many “peoples of color” or Black exceptional-
ism? Political Psychology, 27, 895–924.
Bonilla-Silva, E. (2004a). From bi – racial to tri-racial. Ethnic
and Racial Studies, 27, 931–950.
Bonilla-Silva, E. (2004b). We are all Americans. Race and
Society, 5, 3–16.
Brodkin, K. (1998). How Jews became White folks, and what
that says about race in America. New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press.
Brown, M. K., Carnoy, M., Currie, E., Dusler, T., Oppen-
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W. E. B. (1935). Black reconstruction in America. New
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Fischer, C. S., & Hout, M. (2006). Century of difference:
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Forman, T., Goar, C., & Lewis, A. E. (2004). Neither black
nor white? Race and Society, 5, 65–84.
Gallagher, C. A. (2004). Racial redistricting: Expanding
the boundaries of whiteness. In H. M. Dalmage (Ed.),
The Politics of multiracialism: Challenging racial think-
ing (pp. 59–76). Albany: State University of New York
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Gans, H. J. (1999). The possibility of a new racial hierar-
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and white boundaries (pp. 371–390). Chicago and New
York: University of Chicago Press and Russell Sage
Foundation.
Gans, H. J. (2005). Race as class. Contexts, 4, 17–21.
Gerstle, G. (1999). Liberty, coercion, and the making of
Americans. In C. Hirschman, J. DeWind, & P. Kasinitz
(Eds.), The handbook of international migration
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Gitlin, T. (1995). The twilight of common dreams. New York:
Metropolitan.
Glazer, N. (1997). We are all multiculturalists now.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Guinier, L., & Torres, G. (2002). The miner’s canary. Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Haney-Lopez, I. (1996). White by law: The legal construc-
tion of race. New York: New York University Press.
Harris, D. R., & Sim. J. J. (2002). Who is multiracial?
Assessing the complexity of lived race. American Socio-
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Hollinger, D. A. (2005). The one-drop rule and the one-hate
rule. Daedalus, 134, 18–28.
Ignatiev, N. (1995). How the Irish became White. New York:
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Jacobson, M. F. (1998). Whiteness of a different color: Euro-
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114 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
Skrentny, J. D. (2002). The minority rights revolution. Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Spickard, P. R. (1989). Mixed blood: Intermarriage and
ethnic identity in twentieth-century America. Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press.
Twine, F. W. (1996). Brown-skinned White girls. Gender,
Place, and Culture, 3, 205–224.
Warren, J. W., & Twine, F. W. (1997). White Americans, the
new minority? Journal of Black Studies, 28, 200–218.
Waters, M. C. (1990). Ethnic options: choosing identities in
America. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Waters, M. C. (1999). Black identities: West Indian immi-
grant dreams and American realities. New York and Cam-
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Xie, Y., & Goyette, K. (1997). The racial identifi cation of
biracial children with one Asian parent: Evidence from
the 1990 census. Social Forces, 76, 547–570.
Yancey, G. (2003). Who is White? Boulder, CO: Lynne
Rienner.
Zhou, M. (2004). Are Asian Americans becoming “White”?
Contexts, 3, 29–37.
P E R S O N A L A C C O U N T
The Price of Nonconformity
I moved to the United States from Germany three years
ago, and moved in with my American cousin and her
family, which consists of her husband (who is Iranian)
and two children, a boy and a girl. Things were going fine
in the beginning, but then after three months I met my
boyfriend and everything changed. Tony and I had been
dating for about three weeks when I told my cousin I was
seeing someone. She didn’t seem to mind and just asked
me to bring him over one night so she could meet him. A
couple of days later, Tony stopped by the house to pick
me up for dinner. We waited for my cousin to come home
from her job, so they could be introduced. I will never
forget the look on her face when she walked in the door
and saw that Tony is black. Even though she contained
herself quickly, it was obvious that she did not approve of
this interracial relationship. For the next two months, she
tried to keep me away from him by imposing curfews
(I  was 21 at the time), not allowing me to take the car,
prohibiting him from coming into the house, ignoring him
when he picked me up, and not talking to me when I was
at home. All of this happened without her ever having to
say that she didn’t like him because he is black and I am
white. But when all of her attempts to separate us failed,
she had a talk with me that I will never forget.
She told me that I had no idea what I was getting
myself into, and that a relationship between a black man
and a white woman was unacceptable. Since we were
from two different cultures—black vs. white—it would
never work; our friends, family, and society would not ac-
cept it. Tony would never fit into my “white” life, and
I would never fit into his “black” life. My friends would
eventually turn away from me because I am with him,
and also because the differences between my friends—
who she assumed all to be white—and Tony would be
insurmountable. Moreover, she was outraged that
I would even consider having a black man’s children. She
said that my children would always be stigmatized as
black children. They would suffer from prejudice and dis-
crimination, and I was a terrible person for choosing that
life for them.
So in the end, she gave me the choice of ending the
relationship with Tony, or moving out. She said she could
not allow such behavior in her house, since I was sup-
posed to be a role model for her eleven-year-old daughter.
She did not want her daughter to follow in my footsteps.
Since I don’t respond well to ultimatums, especially when
they are as ridiculous and racist as this one, I packed my
stuff and moved out shortly after this conversation.
Julia Morgenstern
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READING 9: The Olympic Struggle over Sex 115
P E R S O N A L A C C O U N T
Basketball
I frequently watch my boyfriend play basketball at an out-
door court with many other males in pick-up games. One
time when I was there, there was a new face among the
others waiting to play—a female face, and she was not
sitting with the rest of the women who were watching.
She was dressed and ready to play. I had never seen her
in all the time I’d been there before, nor had I ever seen
another woman there try to play.
For several games, she did not play. The guys formed
teams and she was not asked to join. It was almost
like  there was a purposeful avoidance of her, with no
one even acknowledging that she was there. Finally, she
made a noticeable effort, and with some reluctance she
was included in the next team waiting to play the winner
of the current game. There were whispers and snickers
among the guys, and I think it had a lot to do with the
perception that she was challenging their masculinity.
A “girl” was intruding into their area. My guess is that they
were also somewhat nervous about the fact that she
really might be good and embarrass some of them.
Anyway, the first couple of times up and down the
court she was not given the ball despite the fact that she
was wide open. The other guys on the team forced bad
shots and tried super hard in what seemed like an effort
to prove that she was not needed. The guy who was sup-
posed to guard her on defense really didn’t pay her much
attention, and that same guy who she was guarding at
the other end made sure he drove around her and scored
on two occasions.
Finally, one time down the court she called for the ball
and sank a shot from at least 16 feet. A huge feeling of
relief and satisfaction came over me. Being a basketball
player myself, I figured she was probably good or would
not be there in the first place, but being a woman I was
also happy to see her first shot go in. I found out later she
had played basketball for a university and she had a
great outside shot.
Even after she made one more shot off a rebound
that ended up in her hands, she was not given the ball
again. I suppose after some of the loud comments from
some of the guys on the sidelines, that she was beat-
ing  the male players out there, she wasn’t going to get
the  ball again. I was kind of shocked that she wasn’t
more accepted even after she showed she was talented.
I haven’t seen her there since.
Andrea M. Busch
WHAT IS SEX? WHAT IS GENDER?
R E A D I N G 9
The Olympic Struggle over Sex
Alice Dreger
What is sport ultimately for? That fundamental
philosophical question lies behind the debate over
what to do with women athletes who were raised
as  girls but whose bodies seem to be unusually
masculine. And in that debate, two clear philosoph-
ical camps have emerged.
One camp, led by the International Olympic
Committee (IOC), believes the line imposed be-
tween putative male and putative female athletes
must be biological. These folks—let’s call them the
Anatomists—fully admit that sex is really compli-
cated. They acknowledge there’s no one magical
gene, chromosome, hormone, or body part that can
do for us the hard work of sharp division into male
and female leagues. Says the IOC in its latest
declaration on the problem: “Human biology [. . .]
allows for forms of intermediate levels between the
conventional categories of male and female, some-
times referred to as intersex.”
Alice Dreger is a professor of clinical medical humanities and
bioethics in the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern
University.
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116 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
man or woman (only requiring, perhaps, that it be
confi rmed by her or his legal status).
Make no mistake: there are problems with the new
IOC biologically-oriented policy. For one, the policy
doesn’t actually specify what is the permissible level
of functional testosterone for women athletes. As a
result, there is no way for a woman to get herself
tested in private, in advance of the games, to see if she
should avoid the possibility of being plucked out of
play for a sex crime, so to speak. It also seems odd
that apparently the committee isn’t going to decide a
level until they get a case. That’s like writing a crimi-
nal law after you’ve arrested a suspect.
The new policy gives away another problem in its
title: “IOC Regulations on Female Hyperandrogen-
ism.” Why specify “female”? Because the IOC is
allowing male athletes to play with conditions that
cause them to be hyperandrogenized—sometimes
the very same conditions for which women will be
disqualifi ed! The result is that a woman’s supposed
disease is accepted by the IOC as a man’s natural
advantage. This hardly seems like a fair way to treat
a lady, unless your goal is to keep her down.
Third, the policy appears to be out of whack
with another IOC policy known as “the Stockholm
Consensus,” designed for dealing with male-to-
female transsexual athletes. That policy requires
transgender women—women who were raised as
boys—to medically squash their androgen levels
way down, seemingly well below where the policy
on “female hyperandrogenism” would likely allow
intersex women raised as girls to still play.
And whereas the female hyperandrogenism pol-
icy hints that a women with one of the “problem”
intersex conditions might be chucked out if her
medical records indicate she’s benefi tted from a
lifetime of male-typical functional androgens, the
Stockholm Consensus allows transgender women
with those same lifetime androgen histories to play,
so long as they have endocrinologically obeyed the
IOC’s rules for their womanhood for the previous
couple of years.
In spite of these problems with the new IOC pol-
icy, and even though I fully support the right of any
individual to self-identify socially as any gender she
But the Anatomists still think we should base
our sex division in sports on some sort of biological
feature, even if it means we have to just pick one.
They point out that sports require us to create all
sorts of rules that aren’t simply natural and self-
evident, so why not do it here, too?
And so, the IOC . . . decided that, for the London
Olympic Games, the rule of sex [would] be based
on something called “functional androgens” (or
“functional testosterone”). This means that an ath-
lete who was raised a girl and identifi es as a woman
will be allowed to play as a woman so long as the
IOC does not discover that her body makes and re-
sponds to high levels of androgens. Androgens, of
which testosterone is one type, naturally occur in
both male and female bodies, but higher production
usually means more male-typical development.
Notice that the IOC won’t just be looking at how
much androgens a woman’s body makes , but also
how much her cells respond. This is because some
women are born with testes that make a lot of tes-
tosterone, but they lack androgen-sensitive recep-
tors, so the androgens have little-to-no effect on
their cells. This condition is called complete An-
drogen Insensitivity Syndrome. Those who have
it—women like Spanish hurdler Maria Patino—
develop essentially as girls and women.
The new IOC policy isn’t meant to pick out
these women. The athletes who are targeted by
this policy on “female hyperandrogenism” include
women born with conditions that can result in mas-
culinization—conditions including partial Andro-
gen Insensitivity Syndrome and Congenital Adrenal
Hyperplasia.
This hormone-honing approach to sex divisions
in sports appalls the other camp, whom we might
call the Identifi ers. The Identifi ers, led mostly by
outsiders, believe the line between men and women
athletes ought to be based in self-identity. The Iden-
tifi ers take the messiness of sex development as a
reason to give up on biology as the way to distin-
guish athletes by sex. They argue that, since the
borders between sex categories are naturally open,
we should not attempt to police them. Instead, we
ought to go simply with an athlete’s self-identity as
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READING 10: All Together Now: Intersex Infants and IGM 117
about games —games that have, as their necessary
condition, bodies with bodily differences.
So, much as I am drawn, as a good political pro-
gressive, to the position of the Identifi ers who want
to just let athletes self-declare genders, and as frus-
trated as I am that the IOC still doesn’t have an ad-
equately clear policy on intersex—nor one consistent
with its policy on transsexualism—part of me feels
like we have to admit that the Anatomists are acting
more true to the game.
Does that make me a traitor to progressivism—
acknowledging that people have some biological
differences, such that some people have natural
advantages or disadvantages in some realms of life?
I don’t think so. I know the Identifi ers seem to fear
that if we acknowledge any average differences
between males and females, progress in women’s
rights and transgender rights will collapse. But
I think we are actually mature enough, as a species,
to know what is a game, and what is not.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Which side of the Anatomist/Identifi er debate
do you fi nd yourself most sympathetic to?
2. Which side do you think should prevail
in  Olympic competitions or other sports
competitions?
3. Do Olympic Committee determinations about
sex have any bearing beyond the Games?
R E A D I N G 1 0
All Together Now: Intersex
Infants and IGM
Riki Wilchins
“There is nothing abstract about the power that sci-
ences and theories have to act materially and actually
upon our bodies and our minds, even if the discourse
or he wishes, I fi nd myself sympathetic to the Anat-
omists’ philosophy in this case. Here’s why:
Our history of liberal democracy demonstrates a
grand trend with regard to the relationship between
anatomy and identity, and that is the trend away
from using anatomy to draw distinctions in identi-
ties where social and political rights are concerned.
The Founding Fathers started this trend by chal-
lenging the idea that power must derive from blood-
line. The women’s rights movement, the civil rights
movement, the disability rights movement—all
have successfully dismantled the idea that anatomi-
cal difference should mean some people are treated
as more worthy of rights and resources than others.
As Drs. King and Seuss taught us, in a just and ra-
tional world, having a star on your belly doesn’t
make you special.
Sport has been used as one way to push this lib-
eralizing agenda—with Title IX and major league
racial integration standing as two good examples of
the push. The Identifi ers are now trying to do the
same thing in the debate on sex testing, and in
doing so, are making what might be the most
extreme version of the anti-anatomy argument: we
should not bother thinking about sex anatomy
at all, and just let anyone who says she’s a woman
play as a woman.
But maybe here we’ve fi nally hit the limit of
using sport for this kind of social agenda. I mean,
sure, we could do it—we could force sport to keep
being the Joan of Arc of liberal democracy, and so
we could decide common biological sex differ-
ences don’t matter to gender divisions in sports.
But if we do this, in the process we may be neuter-
ing sport itself.
Because at the end of the day, no matter how lit-
tle we think anatomy should matter to one’s social
and political rights, surely we can’t pretend biology
doesn’t matter in sports. Surely there’s a reason we
don’t let adults play in the t-ball leagues, and a rea-
son most women athletes want their own leagues.
And much as the IOC might try to make it sound
like the Olympic Games represent the ultimate
peace-and-justice movement on Earth, we’re not
actually talking about law and justice. We’re talking
Riki Wilchins is the founding executive director of the Gender
Public Advocacy Coalition.
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118 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
According to Brown University medical re-
searcher Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling, one in every
2,000 births is intersex. As intersex activists say,
these are children born with unexpected genitals,
which is to say their genitals are perhaps worse,
maybe better, or at least every bit as good as yours
and mine (well, yours anyway).
Cheryl founded the Intersex Society of North
America (ISNA), a national intersex advocacy
group, and cofounded (with me) Hermaphrodites
With Attitude—an intersex protest group, in itself a
pretty rare thing. I just call her the Head Herm.
CONSTRUCTING CHERYL
“Cheryl” was born as “Charlie,” a fairly happy,
well-adjusted little boy. His doctor, however, was
not as happy or well-adjusted.
For one thing, it must be admitted that Charlie had
a pretty small penis. For another, Charlie had “ova-
ries” that contained both testicular and ovarian tissue.
Language is again a crucial issue here, espe-
cially at the margins, where labeling is the fi rst dis-
cursive act that determines how a thing is seen and
understood. For instance, if a boy has an ovary, is it
still an ovary, especially if it also contains signifi –
cant amounts of testicular tissue, as Cheryl’s did?
Medicine gives us no nonbinary options here,
although the term gonad would do nicely enough.
Charlie was a year and a half old when—after
tests, consultations, and diagnostic conferences—
doctors decided that Charlie was actually a Cheryl.
This meant his small penis was actually an abnor-
mally large clitoris. So they cut it off.
Following the treatment protocols for a diagno-
sis of intersexuality, all evidence of Charlie’s exis-
tence was hidden. Boy’s clothes and toys were
thrown out and replaced with girl’s clothes and
toys. Out blue, in pink.
Cheryl/Charlie’s parents were warned to lie to
her if he ever asked about her history, because the
truth—intersexuality and surgery—would perma-
nently traumatize the child. Doctors feared that
acknowledging a history of intersexuality would
that produces it is abstract. It is one of the forms of
domination, its very expression.”
Monique Wittig , The Straight Mind
BODIES AT THE MARGINS
As Foucault once pointed out, the effects of discur-
sive power are hard to see once a discourse is in
place. Once we see gay, black, female, or transgen-
der people, it’s hard to imagine that they weren’t
always there. We imagine the cultural discourse
about them just popped up in response; rather, it
was the discourse that created such identities in the
fi rst place.
To clearly see discursive power at work, we need
bodies at society’s margins. Margins are margins
because that’s where the discourse begins to fray,
where whatever paradigm we’re in starts to lose its
explanatory power and all those inconvenient ex-
ceptions begin to cause problems.
We can see the marginalization of such bodies
as  evidence of their unimportance. Or we can see
their  marginalization as important evidence of the
model’s imperfection and begin to admit how
the  operations of language, knowledge, and truth
have shaped our consciousness.
Once we might have turned to women, gays,
transgender people, or even racial minorities for
this kind of understanding. But as each of these
groups has won greater or lesser degrees of social
legitimacy, it has become necessary to look a little
further out to fi nd a really marginal, inconvenient
body. We need a body that is still off the grid of
cultural intelligibility, one that hasn’t “set” yet into
a socially recognized identity. What we need, of
course, is a herm .
Cheryl Chase is a “true hermaphrodite.” This is
a very rare thing, since most intersex people are
“only” pseudo-hermaphrodites.
When most people hear the word hermaphro-
dite, they’re apt to think of a person born with “both
sets of genitals,” although this is actually impossi-
ble. Hermaphrodite is actually an archaic medical
term, and the correct term is intersex.
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a sex, which is a social impossibility anyway, at least
right now. They do advocate forgoing permanent gen-
ital alteration of infants for strictly cosmetic reasons
until they have grown old enough to participate in
life-altering decisions about their own bodies and
sexual health, and to offer informed consent.
LANGUAGE AS THE REAL
A pediatric nurse in one of my presentations com-
plained, “But you don’t mention all these tests we
run to fi nd out the infant’s real sex.” The discourse
on intersex infants is concerned with discovering
what binary sex they “really” are, so we can “fi x”
them properly. The possibility that intersex
infants’ sex might not be immediately available to
us, that they might not have the sort of binary sex
the doctors are so anxious to locate and assign,
just doesn’t register. Neither does the possibility
that intersex bodies have nothing to tell us, or that
these infants are whatever sex they are because
that nonbinary outcome appears to the medical
community (and indeed to most of society) as a
logical impossibility.
As Cheryl notes, intersex is the sex that doesn’t
exist. First because it’s always another sex “under-
neath” and, second, because as soon as it appears,
we erase it. Whatever sex we “discover” in intersex
infants’ bodies is highly dependent upon what
markers we choose—hormones, genitals, overall
body structure, chromosomes, and gonads—and
how we prioritize them.
Words are real; bodies are not.
There is no pretext of transparency here: We
don’t fi t the words to the bodies; instead, it is the
bodies that must fi t the words. The only language
we have for herm-bodies is directed toward
pathologizing—and thereby delegitimating—them.
Nor can we raise the usual argument—“It’s
Nature’s way”—when Sex is questioned. Clearly,
Nature has other things in mind, even if we don’t.
In this vein, I once tried to help a network pro-
ducer who was searching for an intersex person to
interview. He was interested only in one who had
undermine the sense of gender identity they had
created in the child through secrecy and surgery.
Charlie had become Cheryl, but at an enormous
price. The operation had removed a lot what the
doctors thought was Charlie, but it also removed
most of his erotic sensation, and along with it baby
Cheryl’s future ability to have an orgasm.
THE ABC’S OF IGM
“Intersexuality is a psychiatric emergency on the part
of the doctors and parents, who treat it by cutting into
the body of the infant, even though the adults—as the
ones in distress—are the real patients.”
Cheryl Chase
“The Academy is deeply concerned about the emo-
tional, cognitive, and body image development of in-
tersexuals, and believes that successful early genital
surgery minimizes these issues.”
Press Release on IGM from the American
Academy of Pediatricians (emphasis added)
“Knowledge is not made for understanding; it is made
for cutting.”
Michel Foucault, Language, Counter-Memory
The surgical procedure Cheryl underwent is
sometimes referred to as intersex genital mutila-
tion. IGM refers to cosmetic genital cutting that is
performed solely to make intersex infants resemble
normal males and females. The defi nition of IGM
does not include the small fraction of surgeries that
are preformed to cure functional abnormalities, uri-
nary obstructions, recurring infection, and so on.
It was not until the 1950s that IGM became a
common pediatric practice. Prior to that, unless in-
fants were born with genital deformities that caused
ongoing pain or endangered their health, they were
left alone. Today, according to Fausto-Sterling,
about 1,000 infants are surgically altered for cos-
metic reasons each year in U.S. hospitals, or about
fi ve every day.
Advocacy organizations like ISNA and Gender-
PAC do not advocate raising intersex children without
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120 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
well-being. IGM is always considered compassion-
ate surgery. Everything was done for his/her “own
good.”
Cheryl’s mutilation did not result from the top-
down power held by big institutions. Unlike that
reliable villain, the State, the power involved was
not that of repression and negation, so common
when sex is involved. In fact, the discourse of Sex
where Cheryl was involved did not restrain her
Sex, but rather interpreted it, compelled it, and
demanded it.
Her transformation from Charlie to Cheryl was
carried out in a micro-politics of power: small,
impersonal judgments and practices that involved
myriad individuals, power that was held by no
one  in particular but exercised by practically
everyone—except, of course, Charlie.
The power involved was productive, using lan-
guage and meaning to interpret her genitals as de-
fective, to produce her body as intersexed, and to
require that she be understood through a lens of
normal male and normal female. Through a series
of silences and erasures, it socially produced a new
person, one with a new name, history, wardrobe,
bedroom decor, and toys.
This is not the familiar “big stick” approach to
power that requires policemen, courts, and legisla-
tures. That is something we are familiar with; at
least it is something we know how to fi ght. The
power that attached itself to Charlie’s body is a dif-
ferent kind of power entirely, one we have little ex-
perience in dealing with, let alone have strategies to
counter.
The Science involved in Charlie’s surgery was
also of a different order than we are accustomed to.
That Science is logical, objective, and impartial. But
the Science that has attached itself to herm-bodies is
not disinterested at all, but rather interested in the
most urgent way with preserving the universality of
Sex and with defending society’s interest in repro-
duction. In fact, one of IGM’s basic rules is that any
infant who might one day be able to become preg-
nant as an adult must be made into a female.
This kind of Science is characterized by a delib-
erate nonknowing, by its refusal to recognize the
been surgically misassigned the “wrong sex.” Our
conversation went like this:
Producer: We’re looking for someone whose sex
was misassigned and who was then raised as
the wrong sex, like John/Joan.
Me: How do we know if it was the wrong sex?
Producer: If they were really male but assigned
female, or really female but assigned male.
Me: Okay. But what if they were really intersex?
Producer: Right. I get your point. But we’re
looking for someone who was misassigned.
Me: But if they’re really intersex, then any
assignment would be a misassignment.
Producer: Right. I get your point. Really.
Me: Why don’t you interview Cheryl Chase?
She/he’s well known and very articulate.
Producer: Cheryl was misassigned?
Me: Yes. She/he was raised as a boy, then they
decided she/he was a girl.
Producer: So she’s really male?
Me: No, she/he’s really Cheryl.
Producer: Right. I get it. I really do. But she’s
really a girl, right?
Me: Well, to me she/he looks like a woman, but
do you mean hair, hormones, chromosomes,
or genitals?
Producer: You know. Her real sex.
Me: Cheryl’s real sex is intersex.
Producer: Uh-huh. I get it, honest. But can you
give me an intersex person who was
misassigned?
DISCOURSE: A PRACTICE
WITH EFFECTS
Cheryl/Charlie had no say in what was done to him/
her, nor had she/he complained that anything was
wrong with him/her. The doctors and nurses
involved were not spiteful or intolerant. On the
contrary, they were dedicated healers, trained in pe-
diatrics and deeply committed to Cheryl/ Charlie’s
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Up until a few years ago, the U.S. government
was funding research into the best treatments for
norm-transcending kids. Tax dollars were appropri-
ated to pay for a new sort of knowledge manipula-
tion: the prevention of “sissy boys.” This has helped
fuel a new counterscience devoted to providing bio-
logical basis for homosexuality. Our power over
such bodies is enabled by the kinds of knowledge
we create about them.
By asserting that the knowledge and language
we create is transparent and objective, we confer
enormous authority to it. We insulate it from criti-
cism and deny its political origins; we justify ex-
cesses that might otherwise be unthinkable. At the
margins, Science no longer asks but tells. Nature no
longer speaks the truth, but is spoken to. Here,
where our narrative of Sex breaks down, Knowl-
edge fi nally bares its teeth.
IS IDENTITY POLITICS
PERMANENTLY TROUBLED?
Cheryl can be understood as a genitally mutilated
female, a genitally mutilated male, a transgender
individual, an intersex individual, a man who sleeps
with women, a woman who sleeps with women, or
even a man with a vagina. This proved to be a real
obstacle when Cheryl dealt with identity-based
groups.
When we approached the board of a national
women’s organization for help, the organization’s
representatives responded that IGM was a terrible
practice, and someone should stop it. But why, they
wanted to know, was IGM a women’s issue?
We pointed out that the overwhelming majority
of infants diagnosed as “intersex” are otherwise un-
remarkable children whose clitorises happen to be
larger than two standard deviations from the mean—
an arbitrary measure equal to about three eighths of
an inch. It turns out birth sex is like a menu. If your
organ is less than three eighths of an inch long, it’s
a clitoris and you’re a baby girl. If it’s longer than an
inch, it’s a penis and you’re a baby boy.
It is a startling example of the power of lan-
guage, knowledge, and science to create bodies to
most obvious facts of the infant bodies before it.
It is remarkable for its sturdy denial of any facts
or  interpretations that might contradict its own
intentions.
THE SCIENCE OF SEX: PARTIAL,
PASSIONATE, POLITICAL
Medical theories of Sex, like so much of theory, are
concerned with the resolution and management of
difference. Intersex infants represent one of soci-
ety’s most anxious fears—the multiplicity of Sex,
the pinging under the binary hood, a noise in the
engine of reproduction that must be located and
silenced.
This kind of Science is not limited to bodies. Its
psychiatric counterpart is called Gender Identity
Disorder, or GID. GID does for insubordinate gen-
ders what IGM does for insubordinate genitals.
In GID, noncomplaining children as young as
3  and as old as 18 are made to undergo treatment
that includes behavioral modifi cation, confi nement
to psychiatric wards, and psychotropic medication,
all because they transcend binary gender norms
and/or cross-gender identify. These treatment mea-
sures are intended to help the child fi t back into a
defi ned gender role.
In many cases the psychiatrists who treat GID
believe that norm-transcending “sissy boys” and
“tomboy girls” are more likely to grow up to be
gay, and GID treatment is designed to prevent
homosexuality in adults. Yet gay activists largely
ignore GID because they represent gay and lesbian
Americans, and a 3-year-old doesn’t have that kind
of identity yet.
Of course the effort to regulate gender in chil-
dren is not limited to those “at the margins.” We
have a host of social practices designed to mascu-
linize boys and feminize girls that start at birth.
For instance, infants who cry are more likely to be
described as angry by adults who think they are
boys, sad if they think they are girls. Caregivers
are more likely to stroke and caress babies if they
think they are girls and to bounce them if they
think they are boys.
READING 10: All Together Now: Intersex Infants and IGM 121
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122 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
issue? I pointed out that many intersex infants are
heterosexualized as infants, surgically altered sim-
ply to ensure their bodies can accommodate a penis
during intercourse.
Even worse, some doctors perform IGM out of
the antique fear that girls with large clits (which no
man likes) will repel potential husbands (which
every woman needs), interfere with penetration
(which every woman enjoys), and increase their
chance of growing up to be masculinized lesbian
women (which practically no woman wants to be).
IGM was no longer an intersex issue or even a
women’s issue; it had become a gay issue.
I decided to cap my success by addressing a
meeting of transgender organizations. Gender-
queerness was their beat. This would be a walk in
the park. And it was. They understood IGM right
away. It was, they all agreed, a terrible practice, that
someone should stop. But why, they wanted to
know, was IGM a transgender issue?
Soft-pedaling Cheryl’s identities as intersex, fe-
male, or lesbian, I focused like a laser on gender
stereotypes. I pointed out that Cheryl had changed
from one sex to another: She was transgender. Even
more, IGM was a tell-tale example of enforcing ex-
actly the kind of rigid, narrow, outdated gender ste-
reotypes that hurt transgender people. In addition, a
signifi cant minority of transsexuals have some sort
of organ development (such as hormonal imbal-
ances and small or partial gonads) that could easily
have gotten them diagnosed as intersex.
After extended discussion, IGM became a trans-
gender issue.
Of course, none of these groups was ill inten-
tioned or predisposed toward excluding intersex
issues and IGM. They were all progressive, com-
mitted, and compassionate. Yet if national feminist
groups even suspected that doctors performed clito-
ridectomies on thousands of baby girls each year,
they would try to shut down hospitals across the
country. If gay rights activists suspected that doc-
tors were using hormones and surgery to erase
thousands of potential lesbians each year, queer
activists would be demonstrating in the halls of
hospitals and lobbying in the halls of Congress.
realize that, if pediatricians agreed to increase this
rule to, say, three standard deviations from the
mean, thousands of intersex infants would be in-
stantly “cured.”
On the other hand, if they decided to decrease it
to one-and-a half standard deviations, one third to
half of the female readers of this book would sud-
denly fi nd themselves intersexed, and therefore
candidates for genital surgery.
But if it’s in between, you’re a baby herm: The
organ is an enlarged clit, and it gets cut off. The
pediatrician will apologetically explain to your par-
ents that you were born genitally “deformed,”
but—through the miracle of modern Science—they
can make you into a “normal little girl.”
Of course, this never happens in reverse. No pe-
diatrician will ever apologetically explain to your
parents that, “I’m afraid your son’s penis is going to
be too big, maybe eight or nine inches long. No one
will ever be attracted to him but homosexuals and
oversexed women. If we operate quickly we can
save him.”
To help board members of the women’s organi-
zation to understand, I showed them how to make a
diagnosis. Holding up a thumb and forefi nger about
a quarter inch apart, I said, “female.” Moving them
about three-eighths of an inch apart, I said “inter-
sex.” I repeated this fi nger movement from “fe-
male” to “intersexed” over and over until heads
began to nod.
Since many intersex infants were “really”
women, this made IGM a women’s issue. The board
members even accepted Cheryl—a true hermaphro-
dite if ever there was one—as a woman.
Unfortunately, several board members insisted
that since they were a women’s group, I had to ar-
ticulate everything in terms of “intersex” girls, a
term with no meaning that contradicted everything
I was trying to tell them.
Flushed with success, I asked a gathering of
national gay organizations for their support on
IGM, too. After what I thought was an impassioned
presentation, they all agreed that IGM was a terri-
ble practice and someone should stop it. But why,
they wanted to know, was IGM a gay and lesbian
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READING 11: Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference 123
this rigidly adhered-to code. And it is a rigid code.
I recently stood in a clothing store, paralyzed with
indecision as I deliberated which sleeper to
choose for a friend’s new baby girl. The cutest
one had little honking cars on it. Yet even though
my friend lives in England, rather than Saudi
Arabia, I just couldn’t choose it. I knew that if my
friend ever did put her baby in that sleeper (rather
than just toss it in the Goodwill pile thinking, The
sooner Cordelia fi nishes that book on gender the
better . . .), she would spend the rest of the day
correcting strangers who congratulated her on her
beautiful baby boy.
And well before dinnertime she would have
learned that you can dress babies in clothing in-
tended for the other sex or you can avoid being
looked at as if you were insane, but you cannot do
both. And yet this dress code for young children,
despite being so strict, is a relatively recent phe-
nomenon. Until the end of the nineteenth century,
even fi ve-year-old children were being dressed in
more-or-less unisex white dresses, according to
sociologist Jo Paoletti. The introduction of colored
fabrics for young children’s clothing marked the
beginning of the move toward our current pink-blue
labeling of gender, but it took nearly half a century
for the rules to settle into place. For a time, pink
was preferred for boys, because it was “a decided
and stronger” color, a close relative to red, symbol-
izing “zeal and courage.” Blue, being “more deli-
cate and dainty” and “symbolic of faith and
constancy” was reserved for girls. Only toward the
middle of the twentieth century did existing prac-
tices become fi xed.
1

Yet so thoroughly have these preferences be-
come ingrained that psychologists and journalists
now speculate on the genetic and evolutionary ori-
gins of gendered color preferences that are little
more than fi fty years old.
2
For example, a few years
ago an article in an Australian newspaper discussed
the origins of the pink princess phenomenon. After
trotting out the ubiquitous anecdote about the
mother who tried and failed to steer her young
daughter away from the pink universe, the journal-
ist writes that the mother’s failure “suggests her
But none of these scenarios have happened, all
because an arbitrary defi nition means that these in-
fants aren’t female or possibly lesbian or even
transgender. They’re this other thing called inter-
sex, which is not an issue for women or gays or
transgender people; it’s a medical issue. Presented
with an enormously damaging and barbaric prac-
tice that harms thousands of kids, no group was
able to embrace IGM as an issue. The rules of iden-
tity meant that intersex infants—the noise in the
system—didn’t fi t. . . .
DISCUSSIONS QUESTIONS
1. What are particular words, phrases, and con-
cepts that especially contribute to the “need”
for genital surgery?
2. Would you agree that the genital surgeries
Wilchins describes are for cosmetic reasons?
R E A D I N G 1 1
Delusions of Gender:
How Our Minds, Society,
and Neurosexism Create
Difference
Cordelia Fine
If you’re ever feeling bored and aimless in a shop-
ping mall, try this experiment. Visit ten children’s
clothing stores, and each time approach a sales-
person saying that you are looking for a present
for a newborn. Count how many times you are
asked, “Is it a boy or a girl?” You are likely to have
a 100 percent hit rate if you try this one spare af-
ternoon. It is so ubiquitous now to dress and ac-
cessorize boys and girls differently, from birth,
that it is easy to forget to wonder why we do this
or to ask what children themselves might make of
Cordelia Fine, professor at the University of Melbourne, is
an academic psychologist and writer.
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124 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
Imagine, for a moment, that we could tell at
birth (or even before) whether a child was left-
handed or right-handed. By convention, the parents
of left-handed babies dress them in pink clothes,
wrap them in pink blankets, and decorate their
rooms with pink hues. The left-handed baby’s bot-
tle, bibs, and pacifi ers—and later, cups, plates, and
utensils, lunch box, and backpack—are often pink
or purple with motifs such as butterfl ies, fl owers,
and fairies. Parents tend to let the hair of left-
handers grow long, and while it is still short in
babyhood a barrette or bow (often pink) serves as a
stand-in. Right-handed babies, by contrast, are
never dressed in pink; nor do they ever have pink
accessories or toys. Although blue is a popular color
for right-handed babies, as they get older any color,
excluding pink or purple, is acceptable. Clothing
and other items for right-handed babies and chil-
dren commonly portray vehicles, sporting equip-
ment, and space rockets; never butterfl ies, fl owers,
or fairies. The hair of right-handers is usually kept
short and is never prettifi ed with accessories.
Nor do parents just segregate left- and right-
handers symbolically, with color and motif, in our
imaginary world. They also distinguish between
them verbally. “Come on, left-handers!” cries out
the mother of two left-handed children in the park.
“Time to go home.” Or they might say, “Well, go
and ask that right-hander if you can have a turn on
the swing now.” At playgroup, children overhear
comments like, “Left-handers love drawing, don’t
they,” and “Are you hoping for a right-hander this
time?” to a pregnant mother. At preschool, the
teacher greets them with a cheery, “Good morning,
left-handers and right-handers.” In the supermar-
ket, a father says proudly in response to a polite
enquiry, “I’ve got three children altogether: one
left-hander and two right-handers.”
And fi nally, although left-handers and right-
handers happily live together in homes and com-
munities, children can’t help but notice that
elsewhere they are often physically segregated. The
people who care for them—primary caregivers,
child care workers, and kindergarten teachers,
for  example—are almost all left-handed, while
daughter was perhaps genetically wired that way”
and asks, “is there a pink princess gene that sud-
denly blossoms when little girls turn two?” Just in
case we mistake for a joke the idea that evolution
might have weeded out toddlers uninterested in ti-
aras and pink tulle, the journalist then turns to
prominent child psychologist Dr. Michael Carr-
Gregg for further insight into the biological basis of
princess mania: “The reason why girls like pink is
that their brains are structured completely differ-
ently to boys,” he sagely informs us. “Part of the
brain that processes emotion and part of the brain
that processes language is one and the same in girls
but is completely different in boys.” (Now where
have we heard that before?) “This explains so
much—you can give a girl a truck and she’ll cuddle
it. You can give a boy a Barbie doll and he’ll rip its
head off.”
3

But what is also overlooked is why , according to
Paoletti, children’s fashions began to change. Dresses
for boys older than two years old began to fall out of
favor toward the end of the nineteenth century. This
was not mere whim, but seemed to be in response to
concerns that masculinity and femininity might not,
after all, inevitably unfurl from deep biological roots.
At the same time that girls were being extended
more parental license to be physically active, child
psychologists were warning that “gender distinc-
tions could be taught and must be.” Some pants,
please, for the boys. After the turn of the century,
psychologists became more aware of just how sensi-
tive even infants are to their environments. As a re-
sult, “[t]he same forces that had altered the clothing
styles of preschoolers—anxiety about shifting gen-
der roles and the emerging belief that gender could
be taught—also transformed infantswear.”
4

In other words, color-coding for boys and girls
once quite openly served the purpose of helping
young children learn gender distinctions. Today,
the original objective behind the convention has
been forgotten. Yet it continues to accomplish ex-
actly that, together with other habits we have that
also draw children’s attention to gender, as a num-
ber of developmental psychologists have insight-
fully argued.
5

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have developed the ability to make mental notes
regarding what goes along with being male or fe-
male: they will look longer, in surprise, at a picture
of a man with an object that was previously only
paired with women, and vice versa.
7
This means
that children are well-placed, early on, to start
learning the gender ropes. As they approach their
second birthday, children are already starting to
pick up the rudiments of gender stereotyping.
There’s some tentative evidence that they know for
whom fi re hats, dolls, makeup, and so on are in-
tended before their second birthday.
8
And at around
this time, children start to use gender labels them-
selves and are able to say to which sex they them-
selves belong.
9

It’s at this critical point in their toddler years that
children lose their status as objective observers. It
is hard to merely dispassionately note what is for
boys and what is for girls once you realize that you
are a boy (or a girl) yourself. Once children have
personally relevant boxes in which to fi le what they
learn (labeled “Me” versus “Not Me”), this adds an
extra oomph to the drive to solve the mysteries
of  gender.
10
Developmental psychologists Carol
Martin and Diane Ruble suggest that children
become “gender detectives,” in search of clues as to
the implications of belonging to the male or female
tribe.
11
Nor do they wait for formal instruction. The
academic literature is scattered with anecdotal re-
ports of preschoolers’ amusingly fl awed scientifi c
accounts of gender difference:
[O]ne child believed that men drank tea and women
drank coffee, because that was the way it was in his
house. He was thus perplexed when a male visitor
requested coffee. Another child, dangling his legs
with his father in a very cold lake, announced “only
boys like cold water, right Dad?” Such examples sug-
gest that children are actively seeking and “chewing”
on information about gender, rather than passively
absorbing it from the environment.
12

In fact, young children are so eager to carve up
the world into what is female and what is male that
Martin and Ruble have reported fi nding it diffi cult
to create stimuli for their studies that children see
as gender neutral, “because children appear to seize
building sites and garbage trucks are peopled
by  right-handers. Public restrooms, sports teams,
many adult friendships, and even some schools,
are segregated by handedness.
You get the idea.
It’s not hard to imagine that, in such a society,
even very young children would soon learn that
there are two categories of people—right-handers
and left-handers—and would quickly become pro-
fi cient in using markers like clothing and hairstyle
to distinguish between the two kinds of children
and adults. But also, it seems more than likely that
children would also come to think that there must
be something fundamentally important about
whether one is a right-hander or a left-hander, since
so much fuss and emphasis is put on the distinction.
Children will, one would imagine, want to know
what it means to be someone of a particular hand-
edness and to learn what sets apart a child of one
handedness from those with a preference for the
other hand.
We tag gender in exactly these ways, all of the
time. Anyone who spends time around children will
know how rare it is to come across a baby or child
whose sex is not labeled by clothing, hairstyle, or
accessories. Anyone with ears can hear how adults
constantly label gender with words: he, she, man,
woman, boy, girl, and so on. And we do this even
when we don’t have to. Mothers reading picture
books, for instance, choose to refer to storybook
characters by gender labels (like woman ) twice as
often as they choose nongendered alternatives (like
teacher or person ). 6 Just as if adults were always
referring to people as left-handers or right-handers
(or Anglos and Latinos, or Jews and Catholics), this
also helps to draw attention to gender as an impor-
tant way of dividing up the social world into
categories.
This tagging of gender—especially different
conventions for male and female dress, hairstyle,
accessories, and use of makeup—may well help
children to learn how to divvy up the people around
them by sex. We’ve seen that babies as young as
three to four months old can discriminate between
males and females. At just ten months old, babies
READING 11: Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference 125
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126 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
5. The salience of gender in the social world, and the active
role played by the child in gender development that the
salience and importance of gender motivates, has been
highlighted by a number of researchers, for example
(Arthur et al., 2008; Bem, 1983; Bigler & Liben, 2007;
Martin & Halverson, 1981). The material that follows all
draws on the insights of Gender Schema Theory and
especially Developmental Intergroup Theory.
6. (Gelman, Taylor, & Naguyen, 2004).
7. (Levy & Haaf, 1994).
8. For example (Serbin, Poulin-Dubois, & Eichstedt,
2002), also (Poulin-Dubois et al., 2002), who found that
knowledge was seen earlier in girls than in boys.
9. (Zosuls et al., 2009).
10. (Martin, Ruble, & Szkrybalo, 2002; Martin & Halverson,
1981).
11. (Martin & Ruble, 2004), p. 67.
12. (Ruble, Lurye, & Zosuls, 2008), p. 2.
13. (Martin & Ruble, 2004), p. 68.
14. Carol Martin, personal communication, September 9,
2009.
15. (Martin, Eisenbud, & Rose, 1995).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Arthur, A. E., Bigler, R. S., Liben, L. S., Gelman, S. A., &
Ruble, D. N. (2008). Gender stereotyping and prejudice in
young children: A developmental intergroup perspective.
In S. R. Levy & M. Killen (eds.), Intergroup attitudes and
relations in childhood through adulthood (pp. 66–86).
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bem, S. L. (1983). Gender schema theory and its implica-
tions for child development: Raising gender-aschematic
children in a gender-schematic society. SIGNS: Journal of
Women in Culture & Society , 8(4), 598–616.
Bigler, R. S., & Liben, L. S. (2007). Developmental inter-
group theory: Explaining and reducing children’s social
stereotyping and prejudice. Current Directions in Psycho-
logical Science , 16(3), 162–166.
Fine, Cordelia (2011-08-08). Delusions of Gender: How
Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference .
Norton. Kindle Edition.
Gelman, S. A., Taylor, M. G., & Naguyen, S. P. (2004).
III.  How children and mothers express gender essential-
ism. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child
Development , 69(1), 33–63.
Hurlbert, A. C., & Ling, Y. (2007). Biological components of
sex differences in color preference. Current Biology ,
17(16), R623–R625.
Lawson, A. (2007, May 23). The princess gene. The Age , 18.
Levy, G. D., & Haaf, R. A. (1994). Detection of gender-
related categories by 10-month-old infants. Infant
Behavior & Development , 17(4), 457–459.
on any element that may implicate a gender norm
so that they may categorize it as male or female.”
13

For instance, when creating characters from outer
space for children, it proved diffi cult to fi nd colors
and shapes that didn’t signify gender. Even some-
thing as subtle as the shape of the head could indi-
cate gender in the eyes of the children: aliens with
triangular heads, for example, were seen as male.
14

(Later, we’ll see why.) And experimental studies
bear out children’s propensity to jump to Men Are
from Mars, Women Are from Venus-style conclu-
sions on rather fl imsy evidence. Asked to rate the
appeal of a gender-neutral toy (which girls and
boys on average like the same amount), boys as-
sume that only other boys will like what they them-
selves like; ditto for girls.
15

It’s hardly surprising that children take on the un-
offi cial occupation of gender detective. They are
born into a world in which gender is continually em-
phasized through conventions of dress, appearance,
language, color, segregation, and symbols. Every-
thing around the child indicates that whether one is
male or female is a matter of great importance. At the
same time . . . the information we provide to chil-
dren, through our social structure and media, about
what gender means—what goes with being male or
female—still follows fairly old-fashioned guidelines.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Fine describes the historical change in fashion
that followed anxiety about shifting gender
roles. Are there contemporary equivalents?
2. Do you think the emphasis on gender differ-
ence in clothing for children is diminishing?
3. How do you assess Fine’s comparison of gen-
der with being left- or right-handed?
NOTES
1. “What color for your baby?” Parents ’ 14, no. 3 (March
1939), p. 98. Quoted in (Paoletti, 1997), p. 32.
2. (Hurlbert & Ling, 2007; Alexander, 2003).
3. (Lawson, 2007). Quotations from paras. 4, 5, 8, 8, and
10, respectively.
4. (Paoletti, 1997), pp. 30 and 31.
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READING 12: What’s Class Got to Do with It? 127
Poulin-Dubois, D., Serbin, L. A., Eichstedt, J. A.,
Sen, M. G., & Beissel, C. F. (2002). Men don’t put on make-
up: Toddlers’ knowledge of the gender stereotyping of
household activities. Social Development , 11(2), 166–181.
Ruble, D., Lurye, L., & Zosuls, K. (2008). Pink frilly dresses
(PFD) and early gender identity [Electronic Version].
Princeton Report on Knowledge . http://www.princeton
.edu/prok/issues/2-2/pink_frilly.xml. Accessed on
April 23, 2008.
Serbin, L. A., Poulin-Dubois, D., & Eichstedt, J. A. (2002).
Infants’ responses to gender-inconsistent events. Infancy ,
3(4), 531–542.
Zosuls, K. M., Ruble, D. N., Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., Shrout,
P. E., Bornstein, M. H., & Greulich, F. K. (2009). The ac-
quisition of gender labels in infancy: Implications for sex-
typed play. Developmental Psychology , 45(3), 688–701.
Martin, C. L., Eisenbud, L., & Rose, H. (1995). Children’s
gender-based reasoning about toys. Child Development,
66(5), 1453–1471.
Martin, C. L., & Halverson, C. F. (1981). A schematic pro-
cessing model of sex typing and stereotyping in children.
Child Development , 52, 1119–1134.
Martin, C. L., & Ruble, D. (2004). Children’s search for gen-
der cues: Cognitive perspectives on gender development.
Current Directions in Psychological Science , 13(2), 67–70.
Martin, C.L., Ruble, D. N., & Szkrybalo, J. (2002). Cogni-
tive theories of early gender development. Psychological
Bulletin , 128(6), 903–933.
Paoletti, J. B. (1997). The gendering of infants’ and toddlers’
clothing in America. In K. Martinez & K. L. Ames (eds.),
The material culture of gender: The gender of material
culture (pp. 27–35). Hanover, NH, and London: Univer-
sity Press of New England.
WHAT IS SOCIAL CLASS?
R E A D I N G 1 2
What’s Class Got to Do with It?
Michael Zweig
Whether in regard to the economy or issues of war
and peace, class is central to our everyday lives. Yet
class has not been as visible as race or gender, not
nearly as much a part of our conversations and
sense of ourselves as these and other “identities.”
We are of course all individuals, but our individual-
ity and personal life chances are shaped—limited
or enhanced—by the economic and social class in
which we have grown up and in which we exist as
adults.
Even though “class” is an abstract category of
social analysis, class is real. Since social abstrac-
tions can seem far removed from real life, it may
help to consider two other abstractions that have
important consequences for fl esh-and-blood indi-
viduals: race and gender. Suppose you knew there
were men and women because you could see the
difference, but you didn’t know about the socially
constructed concept of “gender.” You would be
missing something vitally important about the peo-
ple you see. You would have only a surface appre-
ciation of their lives. If, based only on direct
observation of skin color, you knew there were
white people and black people, but you didn’t know
about “race” in modern society, you would be igno-
rant of one of the most important determinants of
the experience of those white and black people.
Gender and race are abstractions, yet they are pow-
erful, concrete infl uences in everyone’s lives. They
carry signifi cant meaning despite wide differences
in experience within the populations of men,
women, whites, blacks.
Similarly, suppose that based on your observa-
tion of work sites and labor markets you knew
there  were workers and employers, but you didn’t
recognize the existence of class. You would be
blind to a most important characteristic of the indi-
vidual workers and employers you were observing,
something that has tremendous infl uence in their
lives. Despite the wide variety of experiences and
identities among individual workers, capitalists,
and middle class people, it still makes sense to
Michael Zweig is a professor of economics at the State
University of New York, Stony Brook.
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128 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
fi nance, CEOs, chief fi nancial offi cers, chief oper-
ating offi cers, members of boards of directors,
those whose decisions dominate the workplace
and the economy, and whose economic power
often translates into dominant power in the realms
of politics, culture, the media, and even religion.
Capitalists comprise about 2 percent of the U.S.
labor force.
There are big differences among capitalists in
the degree of power they wield, particularly in the
geographic extent of that power. The CEO of a
business employing one hundred people in a city of
fi fty thousand might well be an important fi gure on
the local scene, but not necessarily in state or re-
gional affairs. On the national scale, power is prin-
cipally in the hands of those who control the largest
corporations, those employing over fi ve hundred
people. Of the over twenty-one million business en-
terprises in the United States, only sixteen thousand
employ that many. They are controlled by around
two hundred thousand people, fewer than two-
tenths of 1 percent of the labor force.
Even among the powerful, power is concen-
trated at the top. It’s one thing to control a single
large corporation, another to sit on multiple corpo-
rate boards and be in a position to coordinate strat-
egies across corporations. In fact, if we count only
those people who sit on multiple boards, so-called
interlocking directors, they could all fi t into Yan-
kee Stadium. They and the top political leaders in
all branches of the federal government constitute a
U.S. “ruling class” at the pinnacle of national
power.
Capitalists are rich, of course. But when vice-
president Dick Cheney invited a select few to help
him formulate the country’s energy policy shortly
after the new Bush administration came into offi ce
in 2001, he didn’t invite “rich people.” He invited
people who were leaders in the energy industry,
capitalists. The fact that they were also rich was
incidental. Capitalists are rich people who control
far more than their personal wealth. They control
the wealth of the nation, concentrated as it is in the
largest few thousand corporations. There is no
acknowledge the existence and importance of class
in modern society. In fact, without a class analysis
we would have only the most superfi cial knowledge
of our own lives and the experiences of others we
observe in economic and political activity. . . .
When people in the United States talk about
class, it is often in ways that hide its most impor-
tant parts. We tend to think about class in terms of
income, or the lifestyles that income can buy. . . .
[But class can be better understood] as mainly a
question of economic and political power. . . .
Power doesn’t exist alone within an individual or a
group. Power exists as a relationship between and
among different people or groups. This means that
we cannot talk about one class of people alone,
without looking at relationships between that class
and others.
The working class is made up of people who,
when they go to work or when they act as citizens,
have comparatively little power or authority. They
are the people who do their jobs under more or
less close supervision, who have little control over
the  pace or the content of their work, who aren’t
the boss of anyone. They are blue-collar people
like construction and factory workers, and white-
collar workers like bank tellers and writers of rou-
tine computer code. They work to produce
and distribute goods, or in service industries or
government agencies. They are skilled and
unskilled, engaged in over fi ve hundred different
occupations tracked by the U.S. Department of
Labor: agricultural laborers, baggage handlers,
cashiers, fl ight attendants, home health care aides,
machinists, secretaries, short order cooks, sound
technicians, truck drivers. In the United States,
working class people are by far the majority of the
population. Over eighty-eight million people were
in working class occupations in 2002, comprising
62 percent of the labor force.
1

On the other side of the basic power relation in
a capitalist society is the capitalist class, those
most senior executives who direct and control the
corporations that employ the private-sector work-
ing class. These are the “captains of industry” and
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READING 12: What’s Class Got to Do with It? 129
able to win for working people. “Middle class
workers” are supposed to be “most people,” those
with stable jobs and solid values based in the work
ethic, as opposed to poor people—those on welfare
or the “underclass”—on one side, and “the rich” on
the other. When people think about classes in terms
of “rich, middle, and poor,” almost everyone ends
up in the middle.
Understanding class in terms of power throws a
different light on the subject. In this view, middle
class people are in the middle of the power grid that
has workers and capitalists at its poles. The middle
class includes professional people like doctors,
lawyers, accountants, and university professors.
Most people in the “professional middle class” are
not self-employed. They work for private compa-
nies or public agencies, receive salaries, and an-
swer to supervisors. In these ways they are like
workers.
But if we compare professional middle class
people with well-paid workers, we see important
differences. A unionized auto assembly worker
doing a lot of overtime makes enough money to live
the lifestyle of a “middle class worker,” even more
money than some professors or lawyers. But a well-
paid unionized machinist or electrician or auto-
worker is still part of the working class. Professors
and lawyers have a degree of autonomy and control
at work that autoworkers don’t have. The difference
is a question of class.
It is also misleading to equate the working class
as a whole with its best-paid unionized members.
Only 9 percent of private sector workers belong to
unions, and millions of them are low-paid service
employees. The relatively well-paid manufacturing
industries are not typical of American business,
and they are shrinking as a proportion of the total
economy.
The middle class also includes supervisors in the
business world, ranging from line foremen to senior
managers below the top decision-making execu-
tives. As with the professional middle class, some
people in the supervisory middle class are close to
working people in income and lifestyle. We see this
lobby in Washington representing “rich people.”
Lobbyists represent various industries or associa-
tions of industries that sometimes coordinate their
efforts on behalf of industry in general. They repre-
sent the interests that capitalists bring to legislative
and regulatory matters.
Something similar operates for the working
class. Over thirteen million people are in unions in
the United States. Most of these unions—like
the  United Auto Workers (UAW); the American
Federation of State, County, and Municipal Em-
ployees (AFSCME); the Carpenters; and the
International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT)—
maintain offi ces in Washington and in major and
even smaller cities where their members work. In
addition to engaging in collective bargaining at
the workplace, these unions lobby for their mem-
bers and occasionally coordinate their efforts to
lobby for broader working class interests. Sixty-
eight unions have joined under the umbrella of the
American Federation of Labor, Congress of In-
dustrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) to pool re-
sources and try to advance the interests of working
people in general. These organizations represent
workers, not “the poor” or “middle-income peo-
ple,” even though some workers are poor and
some have an income equal to that of some in the
middle class.
2

In between the capitalist and the working classes
is the middle class. The “middle class” gets a lot of
attention in the media and political commentary in
the United States, but this term is almost always
used to describe people in the middle of the income
distribution. People sometimes talk about “middle
class workers,” referring to people who work for a
wage but live comfortable if modest lives. Especially
in goods-producing industries, unionized workers
have been able to win wages that allow home owner-
ship, paid vacations, nice cars, home entertainment
centers, and other consumer amenities.
When class is understood in terms of income or
lifestyle, these workers are sometimes called “mid-
dle class.” Even leaders of the workers’ unions use
the term to emphasize the gains unions have been
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130 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
of the labor force in the United States—sizable,
but far from the majority, far from the “typical”
American.
Like the working class and the capitalists, the
middle class is represented in the political process
by professional associations and small business
groups. There is no “middle-income” lobby, but
there are, for example, the Trial Lawyers Association,
the American Medical Association, the American
Association of University Professors, the National
Association of Realtors.
Clearly, classes are not monolithic collections of
socially identical people. We have seen that each class
contains quite a bit of variation. Rather than sharp
dividing lines, the borders between them are porous
and ambiguous—important areas to study and better
understand. Also, beyond the differences in occupa-
tions and relative power within classes, which lead to
differences in incomes, wealth, and lifestyles, each
class contains men and women of every race, na-
tionality, and creed. Yet, despite these rich internal
variations and ambiguous borders, a qualitative dif-
ference remains between the life experience of the
working class compared with that of the profes-
sional and managerial middle class, to say nothing
of differences both of these have with the capitalists.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. How is social class like and also different from
race, sex, gender, and sexual orientation?
2. Would you agree with Zweig that “without a
class analysis, we would have only the most
superfi cial knowledge of our own lives and the
experience of others”?
NOTES
1. For a detailed discussion of the class composition of the
United States, on which these and the following fi ndings
are based, see Michael Zweig, The Working Class Ma-
jority: America’s Best Kept Secret (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 2000), chap. 1.
2. Some middle class people are represented by unions,
such as university professors in the American Federation
of Teachers (AFT) and legal aid attorneys in the UAW.
Most union members are in the working class.
mostly at the lower levels of supervision, as with
line foremen or other fi rst-level supervisors. They
often are promoted from the ranks of workers, con-
tinue to live in working class areas, and socialize
with working class friends. But a foreman is not a
worker when it comes to the power grid. The fore-
man is on the fl oor to represent the owner, to exe-
cute orders in the management chain of command.
The foreman is in the middle—between the work-
ers and the owners. When a worker becomes a su-
pervisor, he or she enters the middle class. But just
as the well-paid “middle class worker” is atypical,
so “working class bosses” make up a small fraction
of supervisory and managerial personnel in the
U.S. economy.
We see something similar with small business
owners, the third component of the middle class.
Some come out of the working class and continue
to have personal and cultural ties to their roots. But
these connections do not change the fact that work-
ers aspire to have their own business to escape the
regimentation of working class jobs, seeking in-
stead the freedom to “be my own boss.” That free-
dom, regardless of how much it might be limited by
competitive pressures in the marketplace and how
many hours the owner must work to make a go of it,
puts the small business owner in a different class
from workers.
At the other end of the business scale, senior
managers and high-level corporate attorneys and
accountants share quite a bit with the capitalists
they serve. They have considerable authority, make
a lot of money, and revolve in the same social cir-
cles. But they are not the fi nal decision makers.
They are at a qualitatively different level in the
power grid from those they serve, who pay them
well for their service but retain ultimate authority.
They, too, are in the middle class.
In all three sections of the middle class—
professionals, supervisors, and small business
owners—there are fuzzy borders with the working
class and with the capitalists. Yet the differences in
power, independence, and life circumstances
among these classes support the idea of a separate
middle class. The middle class is about 36 percent
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READING 13: The Silver Spoon: Inheritance and the Staggered Start 131
our parents. The baton is passed, and for a while,
both parents and children run together. When the
exchange is complete, the children are on their own
as they position themselves for the next exchange
to the next generation. Although each new runner
may gain or lose ground in the competition, each
new runner inherits an initial starting point in
the race.
In this intergenerational relay race, children
born to wealthy parents start at or near the fi nish
line, while children born into poverty start behind
everyone else. Those who are born close to the fi n-
ish line need no merit to get ahead. They already
are ahead. The poorest of the poor, however, need
to traverse the entire distance to get to the fi nish
line on the basis of merit alone. In this sense, meri-
tocracy applies strictly only to the poorest of the
poor; everyone else has at least some advantage of
inheritance that places him or her ahead at the start
of the race.
In comparing the effects of inheritance and
individual merit on life outcomes, the effects of
inheritance come fi rst, followed by the effects of in-
dividual merit—not the other way around. Figure 1
depicts the intergenerational relay race to get ahead.
R E A D I N G 1 3
The Silver Spoon: Inheritance
and the Staggered Start
Stephen J. McNamee and Robert K. Miller Jr.
To heir is human.
—Jeffrey P. Rosenfeld, Legacy of Aging
A common metaphor for the competition to
get  ahead in life is the foot race. The imagery is
that  the fastest runner—presumably the most
meritorious—will be the one to break the tape at
the fi nish line. But in terms of economic competi-
tion, the race is rigged. If we think of money as a
measure of who gets how much of what there is
to get, the race to get ahead does not start anew
with each generation. Instead, it is more like a
relay race in which we inherit a starting point from
Stephen J. McNamee is a professor of sociology at the Univer-
sity of North Carolina, Wilmington. Robert K. Miller, Jr. is
a  professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina,
Wilmington.
Poverty
FinishStart
Wealth
F I G U R E 1
The intergenerational race to get ahead. Note: solid lines are effects of
inheritance; dashed lines are potential effects of merit.
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132 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
The solid lines represent the effects of inheritance
on economic outcomes. The dotted lines represent
the potential effects of merit. The “distance” each
person needs to reach the fi nish line on the basis of
merit depends on how far from the fi nish line each
person starts the race in the fi rst place.
It is important to point out that equivalent
amounts of merit do not lead to equivalent end re-
sults. If each dash represents one “unit” of merit, a
person born poor who advances one unit on the
basis of individual merit over a lifetime ends up at
the end of her life one unit ahead of where she
started but still at or close to poverty. A person who
begins life one unit short of the top can ascend to the
top based on an equivalent one unit of merit. Each
person is equally meritorious, but his or her end po-
sition in the race to get ahead is very different.
Heirs to large fortunes in the world start life
at or  near the finish line. Barring the unlikely
possi bility of parental disinheritance, there is
virtually no realistic scenario in which they end
up destitute— regardless of the extent of their
innate talent or individual motivation. Their future
is fi nancially secure. They will grow up having the
best of everything and having every opportunity
money can buy.
Most parents want the best for their children. As
a result, most parents try to do everything they can
to secure their children’s futures. Indeed, that paren-
tal desire to provide advantages for children may
even have biological origins. Under the “inclusive
fi tness-maximizing” theory of selection, for in-
stance, benefi ciaries are favored in inheritance ac-
cording to their biological relatedness and
reproductive value. Unsurprisingly, research shows
that benefactors are much more likely to bequeath
estates to surviving spouses and children than to un-
related individuals or institutions (Schwartz 1996;
Willenbacher 2003). In a form of what might be
called “reverse inheritance,” parents may invest in
children to secure their own futures in the event that
they become unable to take care of themselves. Par-
ents may also invest in their children’s future to re-
alize vicarious prestige through the successes of
their children, which may, in turn, be seen as a vali-
dation of their own genetic endowments or child-
rearing skills.
Regardless of the source of parental motivation,
most parents clearly wish to secure children’s fu-
tures. To the extent that parents are successful in
passing on advantages to children, meritocracy
does not operate as the basis for who ends up with
what. Despite the ideology of meritocracy, the real-
ity in America, as elsewhere, is inheritance fi rst and
merit second. . . .
THE CUMULATIVE
ADVANTAGES OF WEALTH
INHERITANCE
Inheritance is more than bulk estates bequeathed to
descendants; more broadly defi ned, it refers to the
total impact of initial social-class placement at birth
on future life outcomes. Therefore, it is not just the
superwealthy who are in a position to pass advan-
tages on to children. Advantages are passed on, in
varying degrees, to all of those from relatively priv-
ileged backgrounds. Even minor initial advantages
may accumulate during the life course. In this way,
existing inequalities are reinforced and extended
across generations. As Harvard economist John
Kenneth Galbraith put it in the opening sentence of
his well-known book The Affl uent Society , “Wealth
is not without its advantages and the case to the
contrary, although it has often been made, has never
proved widely persuasive” (1958, 13). Specifi cally,
the cumulative advantages of wealth inheritance
include the following.
Childhood Quality of Life
Children of the privileged enjoy a high standard of
living and quality of life regardless of their indi-
vidual merit or lack of it. For the privileged, this
not only includes high-quality food, clothing, and
shelter but also extends to luxuries such as enter-
tainment, toys, travel, family vacations, enrich-
ment camps, private lessons, and a host of other
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READING 13: The Silver Spoon: Inheritance and the Staggered Start 133
indulgences that wealthy parents and even middle-
class parents bestow on their children (Lareau
2003). Children do not earn a privileged lifestyle;
they inherit and benefi t from it long before their
parents are deceased.
Knowing with Which Fork to Eat
Cultural capital refers to what one needs to know to
function as a member of the various groups to
which one belongs. All groups have norms, values,
beliefs, ways of life, and codes of conduct that
identify the group and defi ne its boundaries. The
culture of the group separates insiders from outsid-
ers. Knowing and binding by these cultural codes
of conduct is required to maintain one’s status as a
member in good standing within the group. By
growing up in privilege, children of the elite are
socialized into elite ways of life. This kind of cul-
tural capital has commonly been referred to as
“breeding,” “refi nement,” “social grace,” “savoir
faire,” or simply “class” (meaning upper class).
Although less pronounced and rigid than in the
past, these distinctions persist into the present. In
addition to cultivated tastes in art and music (“high-
brow” culture), cultural capital includes, but is not
limited to, interpersonal styles and demeanor, man-
ners and etiquette, and vocabulary. Those from
more humble backgrounds who aspire to become
elites must acquire the cultural cachet to be ac-
cepted in elite circle, and this is no easy task. Those
born to it, however, have the advantage of acquiring
it “naturally” through inheritance, a kind of social
osmosis that takes place through childhood social-
ization (Lareau 2003).
Having Friends in High Places
Everybody knows somebody else. Social capital
refers to the “value” of whom you know. For the
most part, privileged people know other privileged
people, and poor people know other poor people.
Another nonmerit advantage inherited by children
of the wealthy is a network of connections to people
of power and infl uence. These are not connections
that children of the rich shrewdly foster or cultivate
on their own. The children of the wealthy travel in
high-powered social circles. These connections
provide access to power, information, and other re-
sources. The difference between rich and poor is
not in knowing people; it is in knowing people in
positions of power and infl uence who can do things
for you.
Early Withdrawals on the
Family Estate
Children of the privileged do not have to wait until
their parents die to inherit assets from them. Inter
vivos transfers of funds and “gifts” from parents to
children can be substantial, and there is strong
evidence suggesting that such transfers account
for a greater proportion of intergenerational trans-
fers than lump-sum estates at death (Gale and
Scholz 1994). Inter vivos gifts to children provide
a means of legally avoiding or reducing estate
taxes. In this way, parents can “spend down” their
estates during their lives to avoid estate and in-
heritance taxes upon their deaths. Furthermore, in
2001 the federal government enacted legislation
that is scheduled to ultimately phase out the fed-
eral estate tax. Many individual states have also
reduced or eliminated inheritance taxes. The im-
pact of these changes in tax law on intergenera-
tional transfers is at this point unclear. If tax
advantages were the only reasons for inter vivos
transfers, we might expect parents to slow down
the pace of inter vivos transfers. But it is unlikely
that the fl ow of such transfers will be abruptly cur-
tailed because they serve other functions. Besides
tax avoidance, parents also provide inter vivos
transfers to children to advance their children’s
current and future economic interests, especially
at critical or milestone stages of the life cycle.
These milestone events include going to college,
getting married, buying a house, and having chil-
dren. At each event, there may be a substantial in-
fusion of parental capital—in essence an early
withdrawal on the parental estate. One of the
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134 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
home only to return later to live with parents. Social
scientists report that 34 percent of young adults are
now moving back in with their parents during their
twenties ( Contexts 2008). The reasons for adult
children returning to live at home are usually fi nan-
cial: adult children may be between jobs, between
marriages, or without other viable means of self-
support. Such living arrangements are likely to in-
crease during periods of high unemployment,
which in early 2009 topped 8 percent of the civilian
labor force.
If America operated as a “true” merit system,
people would advance solely on the basis of merit
and fail when they lacked merit. In many cases
however, family resources prevent, or at least re-
duce, “skidding” among adult children. One of
the authors of this book recalls that when he left
home as an adult, his parents took him aside and
told him that no matter how bad things became
for him out there in the world, if he could get to a
phone, they would wire him money to come
home. This was his insurance against destitution.
Fortunately, he has not yet had to take his parents
up on their offer, but neither has he forgotten it.
Without always being articulated, the point is that
this informal familial insurance against down-
ward mobility is available in varying degrees, to
all except the poorest of the poor, who simply
have resources to provide.
Live Long and Prosper
From womb to tomb, the more affl uent one is, the
less the risk of injury, illness, and death (Budrys
2003; Cockerham 2000; National Center for
Health Statistics 2007; Wermuth 2003). Among
the many nonmerit advantages inherited by those
from privileged backgrounds is higher life expec-
tancy at birth and a greater chance of better health
throughout life. There are several possible rea-
sons for the strong and persistent relationship be-
tween socioeconomic status and health. Beginning
with fetal development and extending through
childhood, increasing evidence points to the
most  common forms of inter vivos gifts is pay-
ment for children’s education. A few generations
ago, children may have inherited the family farm
or the family business. With the rise of the modern
corporation and the decline of family farms and
businesses, inheritance increasingly takes on more
fungible or liquid forms, including cash transfers.
Indeed, for many middle-class Americans, educa-
tion has replaced tangible assets as the primary
form by which advantage is passed on between
generations.
What Goes Up Doesn’t Usually
Come Down
If America were truly a meritocracy, we would ex-
pect fairly equal amounts of both upward and
downward mobility. Mobility studies, however,
consistently show much higher rates of upward
than downward mobility. There are two key reasons
for this. First, most mobility that people have expe-
rienced in American in the past century, particu-
larly occupational mobility, was due to industrial
expansion and the rise of the general standard of
living in society as a whole. Sociologists refer to
this type of mobility as “structural mobility,” which
has more to do with changes in the organization of
society than with the merit of individuals. A second
reason why upward mobility is more prevalent than
downward mobility is that parents and extended
family networks insulate children from downward
mobility. That is, parents frequently “bail out,” or
“rescue,” their adult children in the event of life
crises such as sickness, unemployment, divorce, or
other setbacks that might otherwise propel adult
children into a downward spiral. In addition to
these external circumstances, parents also rescue
children from their own failures and weaknesses,
including self-destructive behaviors. Parental res-
cue as a form of inter vivos transfer is not a gener-
ally acknowledged or well-studied benefi t of
inheritance. Indirect evidence of parental rescue
may be found in the recent increase in the number
of “boomerang” children, adult children who leave
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Another reason for the health-wealth connection
is that the rich have greater access to quality
health care. In America, access to quality health
care is still largely for sale to the highest bidder.
Under these conditions, prevention and interven-
tion are more widely available to the more affl u-
ent. Finally, not only does lack of income lead
to poor health, but poor health leads to reduced
earnings. That is, if someone is sick or injured,
he or she may not be able to work or may have
limited earning power.
effects of “the long reach of early childhood” on
adult health (Smith 1999). Prenatal deprivations,
more common among the poor, for instance, are
associated with later life conditions such as retar-
dation, coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes
and hypertension. Poverty in early childhood is
also associated with increased risk of adult dis-
eases. This may be due in part to higher stress
levels among the poor. There is also evidence that
cumulative wear and tear on the body over time
occurs under conditions of repeated high stress.
P E R S O N A L A C C O U N T
I Am a Pakistani Woman
I am a Pakistani woman, raised in the U.S. and Canada,
and often at odds with the Western standard of beauty.
As a child in Nova Scotia and later growing up in New
York and Indiana, I was proud of my uniqueness. On
traditional Pakistani and Muslim holidays, I got to wear
bright, fun clothes from my country and colorful jewelry.
I had a whole rich tradition of my own to celebrate in ad-
dition to Christmas and Easter. However, as I started
school, I somehow came to realize that being different
wasn’t so great—that in other people’s viewpoint, I looked
strange and acted funny. I learned the importance of fit-
ting in and behaving like the other girls. This involved
dressing well, giggling a lot, and having a superior, but
flirtatious attitude toward boys. I was very outgoing and
had very good grades, so outwardly I was able to “as-
similate” with some success. But my sister, who was
quiet and reticent, often took the brunt of other children’s
cruelty. I realize how proud and ashamed I was of my
heritage when I look at my relationship with my family.
A lesson I learned early on in the U.S. was that being
beautiful took a lot of money. It is painful, as an adult, for
me to consider the inexorable, never-ending pressure
that my father was under to embody the dominant,
middle-class cultural expressions of masculinity, as in
success at one’s job, making a big salary, and owning
status symbols. I resented him so much then for being a
poor, untenured professor and freelance writer. I wanted
designer clothes, dining out at nice restaurants, and a
big allowance. Instead, I had a deeply spiritual thinker,
writer, and theologian for a dad. I love(d) him and am so
very grateful for what he’s taught me, but as a child I
didn’t think of him as a success.
The prettiest girls in school all had a seemingly end-
less array of outfits, lots of makeup and perfume, and
everything by the “right” designers. I hated my mom for
making many of my clothes and buying things on sale
(and my mom was a great seamstress). I felt a sense of
hopelessness that I could never have the resources or
opportunities necessary to compete, to be beautiful.
Instead I found safety in conformity. When I was in
high school, the WASPy, preppy look was hot; it repre-
sented the epitome of success and privilege in America.
I worked hard to purchase a wardrobe of clothes with a
polo-horse insignia, by many hours at an after-school job.
I tried to hide my exotic look behind Khakis, boat shoes,
hair barrettes, and pearl studs. There was comfort in con-
formity. I saw the class “sex symbol” denigrated for wear-
ing tight dresses and having a very well-developed body
for a sixteen-year-old, and the more unique dressers dis-
missed as frivolous, trendy, and more than a little eccen-
tric. You couldn’t be too pretty, too ugly, too different—you
had to just blend in.
Though I did it well, I perpetually felt like an imposter.
This rigidly controlled, well-dressed preppy going
through school with good grades in advanced placement
classes in no way represented what I felt to be my true
essence.
Hoorie I. Siddique
READING 13: The Silver Spoon: Inheritance and the Staggered Start 135
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136 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
wealth and health may be related to the psychologi-
cal stress of relative deprivation, that is, the stress of
being at the bottom end of an unequal social pecking
order, especially when the dominant ideology attri-
butes being at the bottom to individual defi ciencies.
Despite the adage that “money can’t buy happi-
ness,” social science research has consistently
shown  that happiness and subjective well-being
tend to be related to the amount of income and
wealth people possess (Frey and Stutzer 2002;
Frank 2007a; Schnittker 2008). This research
shows that people living in wealthier (and more
democratic) countries tend to be happier and that
rates of happiness are sensitive to overall rates of
unemployment and infl ation. In general, poor peo-
ple are less happy than others, although increments
that exceed average amounts of income only
slightly increase levels of happiness. That is, be-
yond relatively low thresholds, additional incre-
ments of income and wealth are not likely to result
in additional increments of happiness. Although
money may not guarantee a long, happy, and
healthy life, a fair assessment is that it aids and
abets it. . . .
SUMMARY
The United States has high levels of both income
and wealth inequality. In terms of the distribution of
income and wealth, America is clearly not a middle-
class society. Income and especially wealth are not
evenly distributed, with a relatively small number of
well-off families at one end and a small number of
poor families much worse off at the other. Instead,
the overall picture is one in which the bulk of the
available wealth is concentrated in a narrow range at
the very top of the system. In short, the distribution
of economic resources in society is not symmetrical
and certainly not bell-shaped: the poor who have the
least greatly outnumber the rich who have the most.
Moreover, in recent decades, by all measures, the
rich are getting richer, and the gap between the very
rich and everyone else has appreciably increased.
Overall, the less affl uent are at a health disad-
vantage due to higher exposure to a variety of un-
healthy living conditions. As medical sociologist
William Cockerham points out,
Persons living in poverty and reduced socioeconomic
circumstances have greater exposure to physical
(crowding, poor sanitation, extreme temperatures),
chemical and biochemical (diet, pollution, smoking,
alcohol, and drug abuse), biological (bacteria, viruses)
and psychological (stress) risk factors that produce ill
health than more affl uent individuals. (1998, 55).
Part of the exposure to health hazards is occupa-
tional. According to the Department of Labor,
those in the following occupations (listed in order
of risk) have the greatest likelihood of being killed
on the  job: fi shers, timber cutters, airplane pilots,
structural metal workers, taxicab drivers, construc-
tion laborers, roofers, electric power installers,
truck drivers, and farm workers. With the exception
of airline pilot, all the jobs listed are working-class
jobs. Since a person’s occupation is strongly
affected by family background, the prospects for
generally higher occupational health risks are in
this sense at least indirectly inherited. Finally,
although homicides constitute only a small propor-
tion of all causes of death, it is worth noting that the
less affl uent are at higher risk for being victims of
violent crime, including homicide.
Some additional risk factors are related to indi-
vidual behaviors, especially smoking, drinking, and
drug abuse—all of which are more common among
the less affl uent. Evidence suggests that these behav-
iors, while contributing to poorer health among the
less affl uent, are responsible for only one-third of
the “wealth-health gradient” (Smith 1999, 157).
These behaviors are also associated with higher psy-
chological as well as physical stress. Indeed, the less
affl uent are not just at greater risk for physical ail-
ments; research has shown that the less affl uent are
at signifi cantly higher risk for mental illness as
well  (Cockerham 2000; Feagin and McKinney
2003). Intriguing new evidence suggests that, apart
from material deprivations, part of the link between
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READING 14: The Great Divergence: America’s Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do about It 137
Lareau, Annette. 2003. Unequal Childhood: Class, Race,
and Family Life. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
National Center for Health Statistics. 2007. Health, United
States, 2007, with Chart-book on Trends in the Health of
Americans. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health
Statistics, U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services.
Smith, James P. 1999. “Healthy Bodies and Thick Wallets:
The Dual Relation between Health and Economic Status.”
Journal of Economic Perspectives 13: 145–66.
Wermuth, Laurie. 2003. Global Inequality and Human
Needs: Health and Illness in an Increasingly Unequal
World . Boston: Allyn Bacon.
R E A D I N G 1 4
The Great Divergence: America’s
Growing Inequality Crisis and
What We Can Do about It
Timothy Noah
During the past thirty-three years the difference in
America between being rich and being middle class
became much more pronounced. People with high
incomes consumed an ever-larger share of the na-
tion’s total income, while people in the middle saw
their share shrink. For most of this time the phe-
nomenon attracted little attention from the general
public and the press because it occurred in incre-
ments over one third of a century. During the previ-
ous fi ve decades—from the early 1930s through
most of the 1970s—the precise opposite had oc-
curred. The share of the nation’s income that went
to the wealthy had either shrunk or remained stable.
At the fi rst signs, during the early 1980s, that this
was no longer happening, economists fi gured they
were witnessing a fl uke, an inexplicable but tempo-
rary phenomenon, or perhaps an artifact of faulty
statistics. But they weren’t. A democratization of
The greater the amount of economic inequality in
society, the more diffi cult it is to move up within the
system on the basis of individual merit alone. In-
deed, the most important factor in terms of where
people will end up in the economic pecking order of
society is where they started in the fi rst place.
Economic inequality has tremendous inertial force
across generations. Instead of a race to get ahead
that begins anew with each generation, the race is in
reality a relay race in which children inherit differ-
ent starting points from parents. Inheritance, broadly
defi ned as one’s initial starting point in life based on
parental position, includes a set of cumulative non-
merit advantages for all except the poorest of the
poor. These include enhanced childhood standard
of  living, differential access to cultural capital,
differential access to social networks of power and
infl uence, infusion of parental capital while parents
are still alive, greater health and life expectancy, and
the inheritance of bulk estates when parents die. . . .
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. On what grounds do McNamee and Miller con-
clude that America is not a middle-class soci-
ety? Is their conclusion supportable?
2. In what ways does America function as a meri-
tocracy and in what ways does it not?
REFERENCES
Budrys, Grace. 2003. Unequal Health: How Inequality Con-
tributes to Health or Illness . Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefi eld.
Cockerham, William. 1998. Medical Sociology. 7th ed.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Feagin, Joe. R., and Mary D. McKinney. 2003. The Many
Costs of Racism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefi eld.
Frey, Bruno S., and Alois Stutzer. 2002. Happiness and Eco-
nomics: How the Economy and Institutions Affect Well-
being. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Galbraith, John Kenneth. 1958. The Affl uent Society. New
York: Mentor Press.
Gale, William G., and John Karl Scholz. 1994. “Intergenera-
tional Transfers and the Accumulation of Wealth.”
Journal of Economic Perspectives 8: 145–60. Timothy Noah is a journalist and author.
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138 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
more unequal in recent decades. The trend is global.
A 2008 report by the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development, which represents
thirty-four market-oriented democracies, concluded
that since the mid-1980s, income inequality had in-
creased in two thirds of the twenty-four OECD coun-
tries for which data were available, which included
most of the world’s leading industrial democracies.
2

But the level and growth rate of income inequality in
the United States has been particularly extreme.
There are various ways to measure income dis-
tribution, and by all of them the United States ranks
at or near the bottom in terms of equality. The most
common measure, the Gini coeffi cient, is named for
an Italian statistician named Corrado Gini (1884–
1965).
3
It measures distribution—of income or any-
thing else—on a scale that goes from 0 to 1. Let’s
imagine, for instance, that we had fi fty marbles to
distribute among fi fty children. Perfect equality of
distribution would be if each child got one marble.
The Gini coeffi cient would then be 0. Perfect in-
equality of distribution would be if one especially
pushy child ended up with all fi fty marbles. The
Gini coeffi cient would then be 1.
4
As of 2005, the
United States’ Gini coeffi cient was 0.38, which on
the income-equality scale ranked this country
twenty- seventh of the thirty OECD nations for
which data were available. The only countries with
more unequal income distribution were Portugal
(0.42), Turkey (0.43), and Mexico (0.47). . . . When
you calculated the percentage of national income
that went to the top 1 percent, the United States was
the undisputed champion. Its measured income dis-
tribution was more unequal than that of any other
OECD nation.
5
As of 2007 (i.e., right before the
2008 fi nancial crisis), America’s richest 1 percent
possessed nearly 24 percent of the nation’s pretax
income, a statistic that gave new meaning to the
expression “Can you spare a quarter?” (I include
capital gains as part of income, and will do so
whenever possible throughout this book.) In 2008,
the last year for which data are available, the reces-
sion drove the richest 1 percent’s income share
down to 21 percent.
6
To judge from Wall Street’s
record bonuses and corporate America’s surging
incomes that Americans had long taken for granted
as a happy fact of modern life was reversing itself.
Eventually it was the steady growth in income in-
equality that Americans took for granted. The di-
vergent fortunes of the rich and the middle class
became such a fact of everyday life that people sel-
dom noticed it, except perhaps to observe now and
then with a shrug that life was unfair. . . .
. . . As late as 1979, the prevailing view among
economists was that incomes in any advanced in-
dustrial democracy would inevitably become more
equal or remain stable in their distribution. They
certainly wouldn’t become more unequal. That
sorry fate was reserved for societies at an earlier
stage of development or where the dictatorial pow-
ers of the state preserved privilege for the few at the
expense of the many. In civilized, mature, and free
nations, the gaps between rich, middle class, and
poor did not increase.
That seemed the logical lesson to draw from U.S.
history. The country’s transformation from an agrar-
ian society to an industrial one during the late nine-
teenth and early twentieth centuries had created a
period of extreme economic inequality—one whose
ramifi cations can still be glimpsed by, say, pairing a
visit to George Vanderbilt’s 125,000-acre Biltmore
Estate in Ashville, North Carolina, with a trip to the
Tenement Museum on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
But from the early 1930s through the early 1970s,
incomes became more equal, and remained so, while
the industrial economy lost none of its rude vitality.
As the 1970s progressed, that vitality diminished, but
income distribution remained unchanged. “As mea-
sured in the offi cial data,” the Princeton economist
Alan Blinder wrote in 1980, “income inequality was
just about the same in 1977 . . . as it was in 1947.”
1

What Blinder couldn’t know (because he didn’t have
more recent data) was that this was already begin-
ning to change. Starting in 1979, incomes once
again began to grow unequal. When the economy
recovered in 1983, incomes grew even more un-
equal. They have continued growing more unequal
to this day.
The United States is not the only advanced indus-
trialized democracy where incomes have become
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Upward mobility is America’s creed. Circum-
stances at the bottom might be hard, but a plucky
young bootblack with his eye on the main chance
can rise in the world through hard work. Americans
believe this more fervently than do citizens of other
advanced industrial democracies. But the limited
data we have show that we demonstrate it less than
most of those other countries do. The United States
today is no longer, by international standards, a
land notably rich in opportunities to move up the
income ladder.
A survey of twenty-seven nations conducted
from 1998 to 2001 asked participants whether
they agreed with the statement “People are re-
warded for intelligence and skill.” The country
with the highest proportion answering in the af-
fi rmative was the United States (69 percent), com-
pared to a median among all countries of about 40
percent. Similarly, more than 60 percent of Amer-
icans agreed that “people get rewarded for their
effort,” compared to an international median of
less than 40 percent. When participants were
asked whether coming from a wealthy family was
“essential” or “very important” to getting ahead,
the percentage of American affi rmatives was much
lower than the international median: 19 percent
versus 28 percent.
9

The nonprofi t Pew Charitable Trusts sponsored
a U.S. poll on income mobility in March 2009,
when the country was enduring the worst recession
since the Great Depression. Thirty-nine percent of
the respondents agreed with the statement that it
was common for someone in the United States to
start out poor and become rich. A poll taken six
years before by the Gallup organization found that
31 percent of Americans expected to get rich them-
selves before they die, with “rich” defi ned by re-
spondents (according to the median) as an income
of $120,000 per year (roughly in the top 10 per-
cent). Among those age eighteen to twenty-nine,
51 percent expected to get rich.
10

Economic reality does not match these expecta-
tions. Only 6 percent of Americans born at the
bottom of the heap (defi ned as the lowest fi fth
in income distribution, i.e., those whose family
profi tability in the years following the 2008 fi nan-
cial crisis, income share for the top 1 percent will
resume its upward climb momentarily, if it hasn’t
already. We already know from census data that in
2010 income share for the bottom 40 percent fell
and that the poverty rate climbed to its highest point
in nearly two decades.
7

In addition to having an unusually high level of
income inequality, the United States has seen in-
come inequality increase at a much faster rate than
most other countries. Among the twenty-four
OECD countries for which Gini-coeffi cient change
can be measured from the mid-1980s to the mid-
aughts, only Finland, Portugal, and New Zealand
experienced a faster growth rate in income in-
equality. Of these, only Portugal ended up with a
Gini rating worse than the United States’. Another
important point of comparison is that some OECD
countries saw income inequality decline during
this period. France, Greece, Ireland, Spain, and
Turkey all saw their Gini ratings go down (though
the OECD report’s data for Ireland and Spain
didn’t extend beyond 2000). That proves it is not
woven into the laws of economics that an advanced
industrial democracy must, during the present
epoch, see its income-inequality level fall, or even
stay the same. Some of these countries are becom-
ing more economically egalitarian, not less, just as
the United States did for much of the twentieth
century.
8

Many changes in the global economy are making
incomes less equal in many countries outside the
United States, but the income-inequality trend of the
past three decades has been unusually fi erce here in
the world’s richest nation. Americans usually invoke
the term “American exceptionalism” to describe
what it is that makes our country so much more
blessed than all others. But American exceptional-
ism can also describe ingrained aspects of our coun-
try’s economy, or government, or character, that put
us at a disadvantage on the world stage. Income in-
equality is one of the more notable ways that the
United States differs, in ways we can only regret,
even from nations that resemble us more than they
do not. . . .
READING 14: The Great Divergence: America’s Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do about It 139
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140 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
nations of western Europe—what we once called
the Old World.
Short answer: very poorly. A 2007 study by the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Devel-
opment combined a number of previous estimates
and found income heritability to be greater (and
economic mobility therefore lower) in the United
States than in Demark, Australia, Norway, Finland,
Canada, Sweden, Germany, Spain, and France. Italy
was a little bit less mobile than the United States,
and the United Kingdom brought up the rear.
This ranking was based on a somewhat conservative
U.S. estimate of 47 percent income heritability;
13

Mazumder of the Chicago Fed . . . puts it at 50 to
60 percent which would rank the United States
either tied with the United Kingdom for last place or
dead last after the United Kingdom. Almost (argu-
ably every) comparably developed nation for which
we have data offers greater income mobility than the
United States. A common American criticism of the
incomes go up to about $25,000) ever make it in
adulthood to the top (defi ned as the highest fi fth in
income distribution, i.e., those whose family in-
comes are above $100,000).
11
The most striking
fi nding about upward mobility in contemporary
America concerns the relationship between who
your parents are and how much money you can ex-
pect to make. Parentage is a greater determinant of
a man’s future earnings than it is of his height and
weight.
12
Height and weight are infl uenced by the
genes passed from parents to children. Future earn-
ings are not. But you wouldn’t know that from
available data on economic mobility in the United
States. . . .
To summarize the society-wide trend: Upward
mobility in the United States is not as brisk as econ-
omists once believed it was. There’s some evidence
that it has slowed since the 1970s. Certainly it
hasn’t accelerated. Now let’s look at how the United
States stacks up against traditionally class-bound
United Kingdom
Intergenerational Earnings Elasticity
Income Heritability by Country
Italy
United States
France
Spain
Germany
Sweden
Canada
Finland
Norway
Australia
Denmark
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
Source: Anna Cristina D’Addio, “Intergenerational Transmission of
Disadvantage: Mobility or Immobility Across Generations? A Review of
the Evidence for OECD Countries,” Social, Employment, and Migration
Working Paper 52 (Paris: OECD, 2007), 33.
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4. The Gini coeffi cient is derived from the Lorenz curve, a
graphic representation of income distribution named for
an American economist named Max Otto Lorenz (1876–
1959). The Lorenz curve plots cumulative percentage
population share (x-axis) against cumulative percentage
income share (y-axis). Perfect equality is when every
population share matches every income share. This hy-
pothetical distribution is represented by a straight line
extending at a forty-fi ve-degree angle. Actual real-world
distribution, which is always unequal to some degree, is
represented by a line that curves underneath the forty-
fi ve-degree line. Imagine the two lines as representing a
bow that you would use to shoot an arrow (only forget
the arrow and forget pulling the string, which must re-
main a straight line). The lower the real-world distribu-
tion dips—the more curved the bow is—the more
unequal the distribution. The Gini coeffi cient is derived
by calculating the area inside the bow and then dividing
that by the sum of the area inside the bow plus the area
below the bow.
5. Growing Unequal ?, 25, 32, 51– 52.
6. Facundo Alvaredo, Tony Atkinson, Thomas Piketty,
and Emmanuel Saez, “The World Top Incomes
Database,” http://g-mond.parisschoolofeconomics.eu
/topincomes/.
7. Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the
United States: 2010 (Washington: U.S. Census Bureau,
2011), 10, 14.
8. Growing Unequal ?, 27, 51. Finland’s very low Gini rat-
ing (0.27) ranks it the seventh most income-equal nation
in the OECD, while New Zealand’s very high Gini coef-
fi cient (0.34) ranks it a mere four places above the
United States’ dismal twenty-seventh out of thirty. Por-
tugal’s disturbingly high level of income inequality and
high rate of increase in income inequality, which exceed
those in the United States, appear to result largely from
the fact that nearly 78 percent of its households are
headed by people who lack a high school degree. By
European standards, that’s an extraordinarily low high
school graduation rate. But even in poorly educated Por-
tugal, the top 1  percent’s income share is just a little
more than half what it is in the United States. To achieve
American-style income inequality, you need lots of poor
people, which Portugal has, and lots of rich people,
which it lacks.
9. 1999 Social Inequality III survey, International Social
Survey Program. Quoted in Julia B. Isaacs, Isabel V.
Sawhill, and Ron Haskins, Getting Ahead or Losing
Ground: Economic Mobility in America (Washington:
Brookings Institution, 2008), 37. Scott Winship, an eco-
nomic studies fellow at Brookings’s Center on Children
and Families, informs me that the question about
whether coming from a wealthy family was “essential”
“socialist” countries of western and particularly
northern Europe is that by providing guaranteed
health care and a social safety net for the poor and
unemployed that is more comprehensive than the
one in the United States, these nations diminish their
economies’ ability to create economic opportunity.
That argument is refuted by the evidence presented
here that western and northern European countries
provide, in fact, greater opportunity than the United
States to move up the economic ladder. . . .
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. How do you explain the strength and persis-
tence of Americans’ belief in the possibility of
their upward mobility? Do you think this has
changed in recent times?
2. How do you assess your own chances for up-
ward mobility?
NOTES
1. Alan Blinder, “The Level and Distribution of Economic
Well-Being,” Working Paper 488 (Cambridge, MA:
National Bureau of Economic Research, 1980).
2. Growing Unequal? Income Distribution and Poverty
in OECD Countries (Paris: Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development, 2008), 27.
3. I would be remiss if I failed to note here the awkward
debt that the science of income and wealth distribution
owes to Italian fascism. Gini was president of Italy’s
Central Institute of Statistics under Benito Mussolini.
Another pioneer in the fi eld was the French-Italian Vil-
fredo Pareto (1848– 1923), inventor of an alternative
measure called the Pareto distribution. Pareto was a
dedicated Fascist who harbored truly repellant beliefs,
but Gini appears to have been much less interested in
politics than in statistics. Il Duce was an enthusiastic
student of statistical science, presumably in the service
of measuring whether the trains were in fact running on
time (and other less praiseworthy effi ciencies). The fas-
cism connection is a ripe opportunity for right-wing
demagogues to condemn all discussion of income distri-
bution—one that, unaccountably, was never seized in
the journalist Jonah Goldberg’s 2007 tome, Liberal Fas-
cism: The Secret History of the American Left, from
Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. But math is math,
and Pareto’s and, especially, Gini’s statistical work have
withstood the test of time.
READING 14: The Great Divergence: America’s Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do about It 141
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142 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
Lisa Diamond is a professor of psychology at the University of
Utah.
WHAT IS SEXUALITY?
R E A D I N G 1 5
Sexual Fluidity: Understanding
Women’s Love and Desire
Lisa M. Diamond
In 1997, the actress Anne Heche began a widely
publicized romantic relationship with the openly
lesbian comedian Ellen DeGeneres after having
had no prior same-sex attractions or relationships.
The relationship with DeGeneres ended after two
years, and Heche went on to marry a man. The ac-
tress Cynthia Nixon of the HBO series Sex and the
City developed a serious relationship with a woman
in 2004 after ending a fi fteen-year relationship
with a man. Julie Cypher left a heterosexual mar-
riage for the musician Melissa Etheridge in 1988.
After twelve years together, the pair separated and
Cypher—like Heche—has returned to heterosex-
ual relationships. In other cases, longtime lesbians
have unexpectedly initiated relationships with
men, sometimes after decades of exclusively same-
sex ties (examples include the feminist folk singer
Holly Near, the activist and writer Jan Clausen,
and Deborah Sundahl, a founding editor of the les-
bian magazine On Our Backs ). What’s going on?
Are these women confused? Were they just going
through a phase before, or are they in one now?
Consider, too, the growing number of popular
terms that have been coined to describe women
with changing patterns of same-sex and other-sex
behavior, such as “heterofl exibility,” “has-bian,”
and “LUG—lesbian until graduation.”
1
This new
lexicon has been matched by increasing media de-
pictions of women who pursue sexual contact that
runs counter to their avowed sexual orientation,
ranging from the much-ballyhooed kiss between
Madonna and Britney Spears at the MTV Video
Music Awards to fi lms such as Kissing Jessica Stein
and Chasing Amy , which depicts a lesbian becom-
ing involved with a man, contrary to the more wide-
spread depictions of heterosexual women becoming
involved in same-sex relationships. The reason such
cases are so perplexing is that they fl atly contradict
prevailing assumptions about sexual orientation.
These assumptions hold that an individual’s sexual
predisposition for the same sex or the other sex is an
or “very important” to getting ahead was asked once
again in the 2009 Social Inequality IV survey. This time
the international median was an even higher 32 percent.
But the countries polled in 2009 were different from
those polled in 1999, and in 2009 the United States
wasn’t polled on this question at all.
10. Greenberg Quinlan Rosner poll for Pew Charitable
Trusts Economic Mobility Project, Mar. 12, 2009, at http://
www.pewtrusts.org/uploadedFiles/wwwpewtrustsorg
/Reports/Economic_Mobility/EMP%202009%20Survey%
20on%20Economic%20Mobility%20FOR%20PRINT%
203.12.09 ; Gallup poll, “Half of Young People
Expect to Strike It Rich,” Mar. 11, 2003, at http://www
.gallup.com/poll/7981/half-young-people-expect-
strike-rich.aspx; and Thomas A. DiPrete, “Is This a
Great Country? Upward Mobility and the Chance for
Riches in Contemporary America,” Nov. 28, 2005, at
http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/soc/faculty/docs/diprete
/richesl12805 .
11. Isaacs et al., Getting Ahead , 19.
12. Bhashkar Mazumder, “Sibling Similarities, Differences
and Economic Inequality,” Working Paper 2004–13
(Chicago: Federal Reserve Bank, 2004), 23.
13. Anna Cristina d’Addio, “Intergenerational Transmis-
sion of Disadvantage: Mobility or Immobility Across
Generations? A Review of the Evidence for OECD
Countries,” OECD Social, Employment and Migration
Working Papers 52 (Paris: OECD, 2007), 33; and Miles
Corak, “Do Poor Children Become Poor Adults? Les-
sons from a Cross Country Comparison of Generational
Earnings Mobility,” Discussion Paper No. 1993 (Bonn:
Institute for the Study of Labor [IZA], 2006), 53, 63.
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READING 15: Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire 143
and experiences. Instead, women of all orientations
may experience variation in their erotic and affec-
tional feelings as they encounter different situa-
tions, relationships, and life stages. This is why a
woman like Anne Heche can suddenly fi nd herself
falling madly in love with Ellen DeGeneres after an
exclusively heterosexual past, and why a longtime
lesbian can experience her very fi rst other-sex at-
tractions in her late forties.
The notion of sexual fl uidity is not a new one.
Rather, evidence for this phenomenon has circu-
lated in the scientifi c literature for decades, though
it has tended to be “submerged in the data rather
than explicitly theorized.” . . .
4

I am well aware that the notion of sexual fl uidity
is potentially controversial and susceptible to
politically motivated distortions.
5
For that reason,
I would like to address some of the most common
misconceptions at the outset:
Does fl uidity mean that all women are bisexual ?
No. Just as women have different sexual orienta-
tions, they have different degrees of sexual fl uidity.
Some women will experience relatively stable pat-
terns of love and desire throughout their lives, while
others will not. Currently, we simply do not know
how many women fall into each group because a
number of different factors determine whether a
woman’s capacity for sexual fl uidity will actually
manifest itself.
Does fl uidity mean that there is no such thing as
sexual orientation? No. Fluidity can be thought of
as an additional component of a woman’s sexuality
that operates in concert with sexual orientation to
infl uence how her attractions, fantasies, behaviors,
and affections are experienced and expressed over
the life course. Fluidity implies not that women’s
desires are endlessly variable but that some women
are capable of a wider variety of erotic feelings and
experiences than would be predicted on the basis of
their self-described sexual orientation alone.
Does sexual fl uidity mean that sexual orientation
can be changed? No. It simply means that a wom-
an’s sexual orientation is not the only factor deter-
mining her attractions. A predominantly heterosexual
woman might, at some point in time, become
early-developing and stable trait that has a consis-
tent effect on that person’s attractions, fantasies, and
romantic feelings over the lifespan. What few peo-
ple realize, however, is that these assumptions are
based primarily on men’s experiences because most
research on sexual orientation has been conducted
on men.
2
Although this model of sexual orientation
describes men fairly accurately, it does not always
apply so well to women.
Historically, women who deviated from this
model by reporting shifts in their sexuality over
time—heterosexual women falling in love with fe-
male friends, lesbian women periodically dating
men—were presumed few in number and excep-
tional in nature. In other words, they were just incon-
venient noise cluttering up the real data on sexual
orientation. Yet as research on female sexuality has
increased over the years, these “exceptional” cases
now appear to be more common than previously
thought. In short, the current conventional wisdom
about the nature and development of sexual orienta-
tion provides an incomplete picture of women’s ex-
periences. Researchers now openly acknowledge that
despite signifi cant advances in the science of sexual-
ity over the past twenty years, “female sexual orienta-
tion is, for the time being, poorly understood.”
3

This situation is now changing. As scientists have
begun investigating female and male sexual orienta-
tion as distinct phenomena instead of two sides of
the same coin, consensus is gradually building on
why women appear so different from men. Specifi –
cally, we have found that one of the fundamental,
defi ning features of female sexual orientation is its
fl uidity. We are now on the brink of a revolutionary
new understanding of female sexuality that has pro-
found scientifi c and social implications.
Sexual fl uidity, quite simply, means situation-
dependent fl exibility in women’s sexual respon-
siveness. This fl exibility makes it possible for some
women to experience desires for either men or
women under certain circumstances, regardless of
their overall sexual orientation. In other words,
though women—like men—appear to be born with
distinct sexual orientations, these orientations do
not provide the last word on their sexual attractions
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144 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
individuals of the same sex, the other sex, or both
sexes, regardless of whether this pattern of desire is
manifested in sexual behavior. A woman can have a
lesbian orientation but never have a same-sex rela-
tionship, just as she can have a heterosexual orienta-
tion and still pursue multiple same-sex affairs. Most
scientists consider desire, not behavior, the marker
of sexual orientation. “Sexual identity” refers to a
culturally organized conception of the self, usually
“lesbian/gay,” “bisexual,” or “heterosexual.” As
with sexual orientation, we cannot presume that
these identities correspond to particular patterns of
behavior. Nor can we presume that they correspond
to particular patterns of desire. Because sexual
identities represent self-concepts, they depend on
individuals’ own notions about the most important
aspects of their sexual selves. These notions, as
we will see, can vary quite a bit from individual to
individual. Moreover, some people—particularly
women—reject conventional lesbian/gay/bisexual
identity labels in favor of alternative labels such as
“queer,” “questioning,” or “pansexual.” Others re-
ject all identity labels in order to make room for a
broad range of sexual possibilities, as well as to
acknowledge the fact that all labels are somewhat
arbitrary.
9
I devote substantial attention to this
issue later in the book, as it is directly related to the
phenomenon of fl uidity.
Global terms like “homosexuality” or “lesbian-
ism” imply that same-sex desires, behaviors, and
identities cluster together as part of an overall syn-
drome. But again, this is not always true. For this
reason I fi nd such terms to be potentially misleading.
Instead, I use the term “same-sex sexuality” to refer
to all experiences of same-sex desire, romantic affec-
tion, fantasy, or behavior. A person might experience
one and only one form of same-sex sexuality (like
same-sex attractions), or perhaps several (such as
same-sex attraction and a lesbian identity), but I do
not assume that any of these experiences necessarily
cluster together. Correspondingly, I use the term
“other-sex sexuality” to refer to all aspects of other-
sex desire, romantic affection, fantasy, or behavior
(readers will be more familiar with the phrase “oppo-
site-sex,” but researchers have increasingly gravitated
attracted to a woman, just as a predominantly les-
bian woman might at some point become attracted
to a man. Despite these experiences, the women’s
overall orientation remains the same.
Does fl uidity mean that sexual orientation is a
matter of choice? No. Even when women undergo
signifi cant shifts in their patterns of erotic response,
they typically report that such changes are unex-
pected and beyond their control. In some cases they
actively resist these changes, to no avail. This fi nd-
ing is consistent with the extensive evidence . . .
showing that efforts to change sexual orientation
through “reparative therapy” simply do not work.
6

Does fl uidity mean that sexual orientation is due
to “nurture” instead of “nature”? No. In fact, sex-
ual fl uidity sheds no light on this question, since it
deals with the expression of same-sex and other-sex
attractions rather than with their causes. Questions
of causation typically receive the most debate and
attention, but questions about expression are
equally important. Nonetheless, fl uidity raises im-
portant questions about how we think about bio-
logical versus cultural infl uences on sexuality, and
it highlights the need for more integrative models.
Couldn’t all individuals be characterized as
fl uid? Perhaps, though women appear to be more
fl uid than men. Certainly, few researchers would
argue that sexual orientation is the sole factor deter-
mining each and every instance of sexual desire and
behavior. Human sexual responses have been
shown to be somewhat fl exible, and thus any indi-
vidual should be capable of experiencing desires
that run counter to his or her overall sexual orienta-
tion.
7
For example, many men from different cul-
tures and times have been shown to periodically
pursue sexual behaviors that are atypical of their
overall pattern of desire.
8
But in general, the degree
of fl uidity in women appears substantially greater
than in men, though we do not yet have enough data
to fully evaluate this possibility. . . .
KEY TERMS AND CONCEPTS
. . . I use the term “sexual orientation” to mean a
consistent, enduring pattern of sexual desire for
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of a person’s identity or orientation, any experience
with same-sex sexuality—from fantasy to unre-
quited love to sexual behavior—violates societal
norms prescribing exclusive heterosexuality,
thereby making that person a sexual minority.
WHY IT MATTERS
The writer Minnie Bruce Pratt, refl ecting on the
confusion she experienced when she fi rst discov-
ered her capacity for same-sex sexuality, recalled
being aware that such an abrupt change seemed im-
possible and incongruous:
I didn’t feel “different,” but was I? (From whom?)
Had I changed? (From what?) Was I heterosexual in
adolescence only to become lesbian in my late twen-
ties? Was I lesbian always but coerced into hetero-
sexuality? Was I a less authentic lesbian than my
friends who had “always known” that they were sexu-
ally and affectionally attracted to other women? What
kind of woman was a lesbian woman?
10

Pratt perfectly captures the conundrum created
by sexual fl uidity. Because our culture believes that
all individuals are, unequivocally, one sexual type
or the other (such that a lesbian must have “always
known” of her essential lesbian nature), women
with more complex and variable patterns of sexual
experience are inherently suspect. No wonder Pratt
felt “inauthentic” when comparing herself with the
cultural prototype of lesbianism as uniformly sta-
ble, early developing, and exclusive.
Yet it is this rigid prototype that is inauthentic, not
experiences like Pratt’s. Greater appreciation and
awareness of sexual fl uidity are critical not only for
building more accurate models of sexuality but also
for communicating to women—young and old, les-
bian and heterosexual, married and single—that fl ex-
ible, changing patterns of sexual response are normal
rather than deviant, and that they can occur in any
woman at any stage of life. This information needs to
be integrated into the numerous educational and ther-
apeutic programs aimed at providing support and ac-
ceptance for individuals coming to grips with their
same-sex desires. If such programs cling to rigid
models of sexual orientation that inadequately
toward “other-sex” because it is more scientifi cally
accurate. The two sexes are certainly different from
each other, but they are by no means opposites).
Terms like “lesbian” and “bisexual” are also prob-
lematic. Do they refer to an individual’s sexual orien-
tation, sexual identity, or sexual behavior? To avoid
confusion, I always pair these terms with the words
“orientation” and “identity.” Hence a “lesbian sexual
orientation” can be taken to mean a pattern of near-
exclusive desire for the same sex, even if a woman
does not call herself a lesbian. A “lesbian sexual iden-
tity,” in contrast, refers to a woman’s self-description
and self-presentation. Thus she might have a bisexual
orientation but a lesbian identity (or vice versa).
When referring to desires and behavior, I use the
descriptors “same-sex” and “other-sex.” I refer to
attractions and behaviors pursued with both sexes
(either concurrently or sequentially) as “nonexclu-
sive.” If being 100 percent attracted to one sex
means that you are exclusively attracted, then all
other patterns of attraction are nonexclusive. I use
this term rather than “bisexual,” which has a wide
range of different defi nitions across cultures and
communities, making it potentially confusing. Of
course, “nonexclusive” comes with its own prob-
lems. Because the term “exclusive” is often used to
describe monogamous sexual relationships, “non-
exclusivity” could be misinterpreted as sexual infi –
delity. This is not what I mean! I use “nonexclusive”
simply to refer to the capacity to experience both
same-sex and other-sex desires and behaviors,
though not necessarily at the same point in time.
Someone with nonexclusive attractions might have
experienced only other-sex attractions up until ado-
lescence, and then only same-sex attractions there-
after. Someone else might experience desires for
both women and men concurrently. All that matters
is that for that person, both types of desire are pos-
sible, in contrast to someone who has always been
exclusively attracted to one sex or the other.
Finally, when speaking in the most general sense
about individuals who have any experience with
same-sex sexuality, at the level of orientation,
desire, behavior, or identity, I use the term “sexual
minority.” This term captures the fact that regardless
READING 15: Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire 145
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146 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
Any model of female sexual orientation that fails to
account for their experiences is no model at all.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. How does Diamond defi ne sexual fl uidity?
2. Do Americans now generally assume that
women’s sexuality is fl uid? How prevalent is
the assumption of sexual fl uidity?
3. Why is the idea of sexual fl uidity controver-
sial?
NOTES
1. Reviewed in Diamond, 2003b.
2. Reviewed in Mustanski, Chivers, and Bailey, 2002. Also
see Blackwood and Wieringa, 2003, for an anthropologi-
cal perspective on the invisibility of female same-sex
sexuality.
3. Rahman and Wilson, 2003, p. 1371.
4. Kitzinger and Wilkinson, 1995, p. 95.
5. For perspectives on these issues see Brookey, 2000;
Gonsiorek, 2004; Stein, 1994; Tygart, 2000.
6. Drescher, 2002.
7. Bancroft, 1989; Cass, 1990; Money, 1988.
8. Gagnon and Simon, 1968; Garland, Morgan, and Beer,
2005; Herdt, 1984; Laumann et al., 1994; Murray, 2000.
9. See Diamond, 2003a, 2005c; Hollander, 2000; Rust, 2003.
10. Pratt, 1995, p. 11.
REFERENCES
Bancroft, J. H. (1989). Sexual desire and the brain. Sexual
and Marital Therapy , 3, 11–27.
Blackwood, E., and S. E. Wieringa. (2003). Sapphic shad-
ows: Challenging the silence in the study of sexuality. In
L. D. Garnets and D. C. Kimmel, eds., Psychological per-
spectives on lesbian, gay, and bisexual experiences , 2nd
ed. (pp. 410–434). New York: Columbia University Press.
Brookey, R. A. (2000). Saints or sinners: Sociobiological
theories of male homosexuality. International Journal of
Sexuality and Gender Studies , 5, 37–58.
Cass, V. (1990). The implications of homosexual identity
formation for the Kinsey model and scale of sexual
preference. In D. P. McWhirter, S. A. Sanders, and J. M.
Reinisch, eds., Homosexuality/heterosexuality: Concepts
of sexual orientation (pp. 239–266). New York: Oxford
University Press.
Diamond, L.M. (2003a). Was it a phase? Young women’s
relinquishment of lesbian/bisexual identities over a fi ve-
year period. Journal of Personality and Social Psychol-
ogy , 84, 352–364.
represent the enormous variability in female sexual-
ity, women may end up feeling doubly deviant, their
experiences refl ecting neither mainstream societal
expectations nor perceived norms of “typical” gay
experience. We must refashion science and public
outreach to better represent women’s experiences.
But this brings its own challenges. Almost every
time I present my research publicly, someone raises
their hand and asks, “Isn’t the idea of fl uidity dan-
gerous? Couldn’t it feed right into antigay argu-
ments that sexual orientation can—and should—be
changed?” Let me be clear: fl uidity does not, in
fact, imply that sexual orientation can be intention-
ally changed. But I know from experience that some
people will nonetheless manipulate and misuse the
concept of fl uidity, despite my best efforts to de-
bunk such distortions. Yet the solution to this dan-
ger is not to brush fl uidity under the rug and stick to
outdated, overly simplistic models of sexuality.
Such an approach offers no real protection against
political distortion: the truth is that any scientifi c
data on sexual orientation can be—and pretty much
have been—appropriated to advance particular
worldviews. If scientists discovered tomorrow that
same-sex sexuality was 100 percent genetically de-
termined, some people would say, “Aha, this proves
that homosexuality is normal, natural, and deserv-
ing of social acceptance and full legal status!” Oth-
ers would say, “Aha, this proves that homosexuality
is a dangerous genetic disorder that can be screened
for, corrected, and eliminated!” In short, there are
no “safe” scientifi c fi ndings—all models of sexual-
ity are dangerous in the present political climate.
The only way to guard against the misuse of scien-
tifi c fi ndings is to present them as accurately and
completely as possible, making explicit the conclu-
sions that they do and do not support. . . .
The well-being of all women will be improved
through a more accurate, comprehensive under-
standing of female sexuality in all its diverse and
fl uid manifestations. In short, women like Anne
Heche, Cynthia Nixon, Julie Cypher, and Holly
Near are not “noise in the data” on sexual orienta-
tion. Rather, they are the data with something im-
portant to tell us about the nature of female sexuality.
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READING 16: The Biology of the Homosexual 147
lesbian, gay, and bisexual experiences , 2nd ed. (pp. 227–
269). New York: Columbia University Press.
Stein, E. (1994). The relevance of scientifi c research about
sexual orientation to lesbian and gay rights. Journal of
Homosexuality , 27, 269–308.
Tygart, C. E. (2000). Genetic causation attribution and pub-
lic support of gay rights. International Journal of Public
Opinion Research , 12, 259–275.
R E A D I N G 1 6
The Biology of the Homosexual
Roger N. Lancaster
Three studies, published close on each other’s heels
in the early 1990s, have been widely ballyhooed in
the mass media as establishing the “organic seat,”
the “hormonal link,” and the “genetic cause” of
homosexual desire and gay identity: Simon LeVay’s
“gay brain” research, Michael J. Bailey and Rich-
ard Pillard’s “gay twins” survey, and Dean Hamer’s
“gay gene” study. Major design fl aws, problems
with the defi nition and operationalization of terms,
and alternative interpretations of the data were lost
in the din of blaring headlines: “First Evidence of a
Biological Cause for Homosexuality,” “Genes Tied
to Sexual Orientation; Study of Gay Men Bolsters
Theory,” “Study Shows Homosexuality Is Innate,”
“Genes Linked to Being Gay,” “Report Suggests
Homosexuality Is Linked to Genes,” “Study Pro-
vides New Evidence of a ‘Gay Gene’” . . .
1

THE INTERSEXED
HYPOTHALAMUS
Simon LeVay’s much-cited “gay brain” study was
published, with much fanfare, in 1991. The journal
Science set the tone for press reportage, vigorously
spinning LeVay’s study to the media under its own
press-release headline: “the homosexual brain:
biological basis for sexual orientation?”
2

————. (2003b). What does sexual orientation orient?
A biobehavioral model distinguishing romantic love and
sexual desire. Psychological Review , 110, 173–192.
————. (2005). What we got wrong about sexual identity
development: Unexpected fi ndings from a longitudinal
study of young women. In A. Omoto and H. Kurtzman,
eds., Sexual orientation and mental health: Examining
identity and development in lesbian, gay, and bisexual
people (pp. 73–94). Washington, D.C.: American Psycho-
logical Association Press.
———— Gonsiorek, J. C. (2004). Refl ections from the con-
version therapy battlefi eld. Counseling Psychologist , 32,
750–759.
Drescher, J. (2002). Sexual conversion (“reparative”) thera-
pies: History and update. In B. E. Jones and M. J. Hill,
eds., Mental health issues in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
transgender communities (pp. 71–91). Arlington, VA:
American Psychiatric Publishing.
Gagnon, J. H., and W. Simon. (1968). The social meaning of
prison homosexuality. Federal Probation , 32, 28–29.
Garland, J. T., R. D. Morgan, and A. M. Beer. (2005). Impact
of time in prison and security level on inmates’ sexual
attitude, behavior, and identity. Psychological Services , 2,
151–162.
Herdt, G. (1984). Ritualized homosexuality in Melanesia.
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Hollander, G. (2000). Questioning youths: Challenges to
working with youths forming identities. School Psychol-
ogy Review , 29, 173–179.
Kitzinger, C., and S. Wilkinson. (1995). Transitions from
heterosexuality to lesbianism: The discursive production
of lesbian identities. Developmental Psychology , 31,
95–104.
Laumann, E. O., J. H. Gagnon, R. T. Michael, and F. Mi-
chaels. (1994). The social organization of sexuality: Sex-
ual practices in the United States. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Money, J. (1988). Gay, straight, and in-between: The sexol-
ogy of erotic orientation. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Murray, S. O. (2000). Homosexualities . Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
Mustanski, B. S., M. L. Chivers, and J. M. Bailey. (2002). A
critical review of recent biological research on human
sexual orientation. Annual Review of Sex Research , 13,
89–140.
Pratt, M. B. (1995). S/he. Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books.
Rahman, Q., and G. D. Wilson. (2003). Born gay? The psy-
chobiology of human sexual orientation. Personality and
Individual Differences , 34, 1337–1382.
Rust, P.C.R. (2003). Finding a sexual identity and commu-
nity: Therapeutic implications and cultural assumptions in
scientifi c models of coming out. In L. D. Garnets and
D.  C. Kimmel, eds., Psychological perspectives on
Roger N. Lancaster is a professor of anthropology and cultural
studies at George Mason University.
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148 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
the resulting numbers lie close to the statistical
margin of error—and that the reclassifi cation of a
small number of brains in the study would render
LeVay’s fi ndings statistically insignifi cant.
4

To make matters more complicated, LeVay talks
as though identifying, delineating, and measuring
the third interstitial nucleus were a simple matter.
This is not the case.
5
The nucleus LeVay measured
is a tiny structure by no means clearly differentiated
from the similar neural tissue surrounding it. The
fact that LeVay, rather than a colleague, performed
the measurements, coupled with the absence of a
“blind rater” to confi rm his measurements indepen-
dently, departs from the usual standards in research
of this sort and does nothing to lend credibility to
the fi ndings.
6

Worse yet, all of the “homosexual” men in
LeVay’s sample died from AIDS-related illnesses.
Both AIDS and HIV medical treatments are known
to affect a variety of brain structures. LeVay’s in-
clusion of six (again, presumably) “heterosexual”
men who died from AIDS scarcely addresses this
problem.
7
Nor does the subsequent examination of
the brain of one gay man who died from causes
other than AIDS.
8

In serious publications, LeVay rightly acknowl-
edges that his results are open to a variety of inter-
pretations. For instance, even if his results held—and
to date his fi ndings have not been replicated by a
single subsequent study—it is by no means clear
whether LeVay’s average difference would measure
biological “cause” or sociological “effect.” As
LeVay himself puts it, “It is not possible, purely on
the basis of my observations, to say whether the
structural differences were present at birth, and lat-
ter infl uenced the men to become gay or straight, or
whether they arose in adult life, perhaps as a result
of the men’s sexual behavior.”
9
It is also not possible
to say whether the average structural differences
have anything to do with sexual object choice per se
or with other aspects of life associated with sexual
object choice. Certainly, extended anxieties, social
stress, the experience of inequality, sexual activity
and inactivity, and various other cumulative life ex-
periences affect organic processes, brain structures,
and hormonal systems in human beings. . . .
LeVay found that the third interstitial nucleus of
the hypothalamus (a neural structure at the base of
the brain) is, on the average, smaller in gay men and
straight women than in straight men.
3
(In theory,
lesbians’ hypothalami would resemble those of
straight men—in other words, where gay men show
a “feminized” pattern, lesbians would show a “mas-
culinized” effect.) . . . The hypothalamus affects
certain endocrine functions and is thought to infl u-
ence “basic urges” such as hunger, thirst, and sex-
ual arousal. . . .
The results of LeVay’s research were widely dis-
seminated in mass-media outlets, but LeVay’s data
are less impressive than the public was led to be-
lieve, and his study is plagued with methodological
problems. LeVay’s study examined the hypothal-
ami of forty-one cadavers. While living, nineteen of
the subjects were described in hospital records as
“homosexual” (a fi gure that includes one “bisex-
ual”). We do not actually know for how long, or
with what degree of consistency, or for that matter
even whether the “homosexual” subjects described
themselves as gay. We know only what someone
saw fi t to observe (speculate?) in their hospital re-
cords. We also do not know how the other subjects
described themselves when they were alive, nor do
we know anything about anyone’s sexual fantasies
or sexual histories, but for purposes of LeVay’s
study, the sixteen other male subjects are presumed
to have been “heterosexual,” and all six women
subjects are presumed to have been “heterosexual.”
Many critics have commented on the vagueness—
indeed, the capriciousness—of the labels and clas-
sifi cations employed by LeVay.
Needless to say, important aspects of LeVay’s
research were not always given due weight in sci-
ence journalism. Note, for instance, that the much-
reported difference between “gay” and “straight”
men in LeVay’s sample is a statistical average, not
an absolute difference. Individual measurements
overlap: Some of the men in the “gay” sample had
larger hypothalami than most of the men in the
“straight” sample. Since many individuals did not
fi t the “average” picture, one could not thus predict
who was what simply by looking at his hypothala-
mus. Such results in such a small sample mean that
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READING 16: The Biology of the Homosexual 149
blood brothers, which would further seem to falsify
the genetic hypothesis. And by defi nition, the mono-
zygotic twins are genetically identical—yet only
half of the pairs were sexually concordant. Given
the conditions and assumptions of Bailey and Pil-
lard’s study, this fi gure could be viewed as surpris-
ingly high or as revealingly low. It could even
indicate that sexual orientation has no genetic basis
whatsoever.
This is because twin studies normally use pairs
of identical twins who were separated at birth. Such
studies thus attempt to view the development of ge-
netically identical individuals in (supposedly) dif-
ferent environments.
13
Since the identical twins in
Bailey and Pillard’s study in fact shared a family
environment, it is a non sequitur to claim that the
comparatively high (although theoretically low?)
degree of concordance is genetically caused. It
might just as easily result from the fact that the two
occupy the same environment. As Hubbard and
Wald put it: “If being a fraternal twin exerts an en-
vironmental infl uence, it does not seem surprising
that this should be even truer for identical twins,
who the world thinks of as ‘the same’ and treats
accordingly, and who often share those feelings of
sameness.”
14
Gilbert Zicklin goes even further:
“The intensely shared life of identical twins, in-
cluding the phenomena of identifi cation, mirroring,
and imitation, might plausibly constitute fertile
ground for the development of same-sex erotics.”
15

Zicklin’s suggestion is at least as plausible as the
invocation of “genetic causation” to explain the
52 percent of identical-twin pairs who were concor-
dant and “environmental factors” to account for the
48 percent who were discordant, an accounting that
in no way follows from the data, but that dominated
media presentations of the topic.
Consider the extraordinary anecdote related in
Newsweek ’s 1992 cover story, “Born or Bred: The
Origins of Homosexuality.”
Until the age of twenty-eight, Doug Barnett (not his
real name) was a practicing heterosexual. He was
vaguely attracted to men, but with nurturing parents,
a lively interest in sports and appropriate relations
with women, he had little reason to question his pro-
clivities. Then an astonishing thing happened: his
LeVay has made far less cautious claims in pub-
lic discussions of his study. LeVay’s interpretation
of his results, aggressively forwarded in a variety of
media, is in no small part driven by his personal
conviction that he was “born gay” and from his be-
lief that the innatist scenario advances the social
interests of gays and lesbians. LeVay thus favors a
biologically reductive argument: The hypothala-
mus is the “seat” of sexual desire, and sexual object
choice (or preference, or orientation) is physically
there, in the third interstitial nucleus. As LeVay told
Newsweek, “I felt if I didn’t fi nd any [differences
between gay and straight men’s hypothalami],
I would give up a scientifi c career altogether.”
10
. . .
BROTHERHOOD
Only months later the same year LeVay’s study
appeared, Michael Bailey and Richard Pillard
published the results of a survey they conducted
among gay men and their brothers.
11
The researchers
recruited respondents by placing ads in gay newspa-
pers across the Midwest and Southwest, ultimately
gathering information on 56 pairs of identical
(monozygotic) twins, 54 pairs of fraternal (dizy-
gotic) twins, 142 non-twin brothers, and 57 pairs of
adoptive brothers. They found that the “concordance
rate” of homosexual self-identifi cation—that is,
the  percentage of pairs in which both brothers
called  themselves gay—was highest for identical
twins (52  percent), next highest for fraternal twins
(22 percent), and lowest for non-twin and adoptive
brothers (roughly 10 percent each).
Once again, methodological concerns and alter-
native interpretations were ignored or brushed
aside. And once again, headlines trumpeted “mount-
ing evidence” of a genetic basis for homosexuality.
How one interprets this data is largely a matter of
the perspective one takes. As Ruth Hubbard and
Elijah Wald dryly observe: “The fact that fraternal
twins of gay men were roughly twice as likely to be
gay as other biological brothers shows that environ-
mental factors are involved, since fraternal twins are
no more similar biologically than are other biologi-
cal brothers.”
12
Indeed, genetically unrelated adop-
tive brothers show the same concordance rate as
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150 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
study—that is, within the assumption that their re-
sults are meaningful, that their numbers actually
refl ect real trends among siblings. But this is not
necessarily the case.
The authors’ sampling procedure almost gua-
rantees a certain skewing. It is based on the self-
selection of volunteers recruited through gay
newspapers, rather than on a random sample of the
general population. Given the stated aims of the
study, which are clear enough in the ad, and given
the cultural and political background of the question,
which includes the active promotion of “innatist”
scenarios in most gay newspapers, it is altogether
possible that those who were most motivated to par-
ticipate were those who already believed that sexual
orientation is genetically determined. And it is alto-
gether conceivable that those most likely to respond
to the ad—to nominate themselves for study—
would be concordant sets of identical twins.
These are not minor problems. They fatally un-
dermine the study’s reliability. As Zicklin elaborates:
The overrepresentation of concordant MZ [monozy-
gotic, identical] twins is quite possible, since gay MZ
twins are likely to be more interested in studies that
highlight the special meaning of close biological con-
nections, and they might also have less trepidation
about participating since there is a greater likelihood
that they would be “out” with one another than would
any other pair of male siblings. Conversely, some
twins who perceive themselves as discordant on sex-
ual orientation may be motivated to avoid studies
wherein this difference may be revealed. Thus Bailey
and Pillard have a double problem: they attract the
kind of twins who fi t their hypothesis and deter the
ones who might weaken it.
19

Bailey and Pillard skirt the usual standards of twin
studies, sampling procedures, and logical deduc-
tion. Again, only those already committed to the
notion that homosexuals have biologically marked
bodies would be swayed by this kind of evidence.
THE “GAY GENE”
The 1993 study by Dean Hamer and his associates
is usually praised for being the most serious,
identical twin brother “came out” to him, revealing
he was gay. Barnett, who believed sexual orientation
is genetic, was bewildered. He recalls thinking, “If
this is inherited and we’re identical twins—what’s
going on here?” To fi nd out, he thought he should try
sex with men. When he did, he says, “The bells went
off, for the fi rst time. Those homosexual encounters
were more fulfi lling.” A year later both twins told
their parents they were gay.
16

The author of the Newsweek piece relates this tale as
evidence of a fi xed, clear-cut, and genetic basis for
sexual orientation.
17
That is, no doubt, what the pro-
tagonist, “Doug Barnett,” himself believes. But the
tale could be read just as easily as a demon stration
of the fl ux, ambiguity, and capriciousness—indeed,
the suggestibility —of sexual desire. The subject’s
description of his life as a “practicing heterosexual”
is in no sense unusual. In various surveys, beginning
with the Kinsey study, large percentages of men
whose sexual activity is predominately or exclu-
sively heterosexual agree, in principle, that every-
one experiences “vague feelings” of “occasional
attraction” toward members of their own sex.
18

Such fi ndings are conveniently forgotten in the cur-
rent rush to geneticize and typologize desire. The
Newsweek anecdote could be understood as a
particularly sharp example of the “twinning”
behavior Zicklin invokes. Indeed, if taken seriously,
it could even be understood from a constructionist
perspective—why not?—as a gauge of the social
force of reductionist theories in shaping personal
life and identity formation.
In the end, even if we take Bailey and Pillard’s
fi gures as reliable ones, we simply do not know
which had more of an effect on the identical twins’
sexuality, shared genes or a shared environment,
and we cannot even be sure whether we are moni-
toring a genetic tendency through degrees of sib-
ling relatedness, a social tendency for twins—
especially identical twins—to be alike, to mimic
mirror, and “twin” each other, or even a homoerotic
tendency among identical twins.
So far, all of these interpretations lie within the
realm of a generous reading of Bailey and Pillard’s
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READING 16: The Biology of the Homosexual 151
(“Hey, Mom, Thanks for the Genes!” is the message
that with minor variations appeared on gay T-shirts
across the country—a line that proved even more
popular than the camp come-on “How Big Is Your
Hypothalamus?”)
In his scientifi c (as opposed to journalistic or
popularizing) publications, Hamer has been careful
to avoid extreme variants of biological determinist
arguments. Indeed, Hamer himself often points out
that a “link” is not the same as a “cause.” He distin-
guishes between “genetic infl uences” and “genetic
destiny,” and even while in search of a “gay gene,”
he often puts the term inside eyebrow-raising quo-
tation marks.
22
Still, there is something less than
fully congruous about searching for a “gay gene”
while claiming that one does not exist, and the
problems with Hamer’s study are quite serious.
The pedigree studies invite certain preliminary ob-
servations. First, not all of the families in Hamer’s
samples exhibit the “maternal pattern” highlighted
in the subsequent genetic study of gay brothers.
The results suggest a “signifi cant” but not dramatic
elevation of homosexuality among the maternally
linked relatives of gay men.
Next, some of the raw numbers supporting the
idea of a maternal linkage are in fact quite low.
In  the fi rst pedigree study, 7 of 96 gay men (7.3
percent) reported having a gay maternal uncle, as
opposed to only 2 of 119 (1.7 percent) who reported
a gay paternal uncle. But there is little difference
between the 4 of 52 (7.7 percent) who reported a
gay maternal cousin on their aunt’s side and the 3 of
56 (5.4 percent) who reported a gay paternal cousin
on their uncle’s side.
In consequence, the difference between rates of
homosexuality among maternal and paternal kin is
statistically signifi cant only if one assumes a (rela-
tively low) 2 percent “base rate” of male homosex-
uality. As Edward Stein and others have pointed
out, the difference becomes statistically insignifi –
cant if one assumes a (more plausible) base rate of
4 percent.
23

Finally, given such small raw numbers, Hamer’s
pedigree analysis is open to charges that it fails to
sophisticated, and careful of the three major studies
purporting to substantiate a link between genes and
male homosexuality.
Hamer’s research team recruited an original
group of 76 gay men for a pedigree study. (A “ped-
igree study” is an attempt to determine how a trait
is distributed among members of a kin group.) One
or more relatives from 26 of these men’s families
were also interviewed, for a total of 122 partici-
pants. Hamer’s team found elevated levels of ho-
mosexuality among gay men’s maternal uncles and
among their maternal cousins, linked by aunts, as
compared to their paternally linked relatives.
Hypothesizing transmission of a homosexual gene
through the X chromosome, the researchers then
recruited 38 pairs of gay brothers for a second ped-
igree study. These pairs of gay brothers were spe-
cifi cally culled from families without known
lesbians or paternally linked homosexuals in order
to eliminate subjects likely to display “nonmater-
nal” routes of “transmission.” The second pedigree
study found a somewhat more pronounced mater-
nal pattern. Finally, the Hamer team performed
DNA linkage analysis on the 38 pairs of gay broth-
ers from the second pedigree study, plus two pairs
of gay brothers from the fi rst study. Hamer et al.
reported that 33 of 40 pairs (or 82 percent) shared a
DNA marker, Xq28, located on the tip of the
X chromosome. (The term “DNA marker” denotes
a strip of DNA that is usually transmitted “whole”
from parent to offspring; it thus allows geneticists
to work with units of a few million base pairs of
DNA, rather than trying to sort out individual genes
from among several billion base pairs. Xq28, as the
authors note, is large enough to contain several
hundred genes.)
20
Hamer et al. conclude: “We have
now produced evidence that one form of male
homosexuality is preferentially transmitted through
the maternal side and is genetically linked to
chromosomal region Xq28.” The authors suggest
that a thorough mapping of the region will
eventually yield a gene involved in homosexual
expression, but they also suggest that more than
one gene might contribute to sexual orientation,
and that environmental factors also play a role.
21

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152 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
It is important to specify fi rst what has not been
shown by Hamer’s group. First, no “gay gene” has
been identifi ed. Nor can we safely conclude that
one is there, in Xq28, like a needle in the proverbial
haystack, awaiting discovery. All kinds of traits
“run in families” without having a genetic basis.
And because human populations are quite variable,
when a trait “runs in families,’” a “DNA sequence
that is a marker for a particular trait in one family
may not be associated with that trait in another.”
27

The complexity of the relationships between genes,
heredity, and even relatively simple phenotypic and
behavioral characteristics has frustrated the search
for genes “for” all manner of things that would ap-
pear far more straightforward than sexual desire.
There also is no genetic on/off switch for homo-
sexuality. Even after a deliberate screening and se-
lection process designed to produce a “maternal
pattern” of “linkages,” if not “transmission,” not all
the pairs of gay brothers whose X chromosomes
were examined shared DNA markers for Xq28.
A subsequent study by the Hamer group reported a
somewhat lower percentage of Xq28 concordance
among gay brothers.
28
Even a generous interpreta-
tion of these results along the lines laid out by the
authors clearly does not indicate a simple or direct
genetic “cause” for homosexuality.
There is no conceivable genetic “test” for homo-
sexuality. Specifi cally, it has been reported that a
percentage of pairs of self-identifi ed gay brothers,
culled from certain highly selected samples, share a
genetic marker. Note that this selectively culled
group of gay brothers share that marker with each
other , not with unrelated gay men. Thus, even if
Hamer’s results hold, no one can take a blood sam-
ple and look at this genetic marker to determine
whether a person is gay or straight.
Finally, in larger terms, the search for an “or-
ganic seat” or “biological cause” of homosexuality
remains an undemonstrated conceit—a mishmash
of selective citation from the animal kingdom and
speculative parallels to poorly understood human
processes. Although various commentators have
speculated that some gene in Xq28 might play a
role in sexual orientation by way of neurohormonal
account for even the most obvious relevant effects of
gender and family relations in American society.
Women—mothers—play a much greater role than
men in negotiating and cementing family ties, a ten-
dency that is well established in the sociological and
anthropological literature.
24
As a result, Americans
tend to be closer to and to know more about their
maternal relatives than their paternal ones. This
sociological effect is likely to be even more pro-
nounced in the case of gay men than in society at
large. Given the role of fathers in perpetuating cul-
tural expectations of masculinity, given the cultural
anxieties that a gay son refl ects upon his father, and
given the nature of the idealized maternal role (nur-
turing caregiver), it is certainly conceivable that on
the average, gay men tend to be closer to their moth-
ers and to know more about their maternal, consan-
guineal kin than they are to their fathers, about whose
blood relations they know correspondingly less.
25

Hamer’s team did attempt to apply a reasonable
check on information provided by the gay men.
They also interviewed at least one relative each for
twenty-six participants (for a total of forty-six rela-
tives interviewed). On this basis, Hamer concluded
that the information provided by the seventy-six
total participants was reliable. One might suggest,
instead, that the claims were merely consistent : that
one relative tended to think pretty much what an-
other relative thought. Since extensive networks of
the gay men’s relatives were not systematically in-
terviewed, either or both of the above sociological
factors could fully account for the maternally
skewed results of Hamer’s pedigree study.
26

At this point in a review of Hamer’s study, it is usu-
ally conceded: “Yes, but Hamer’s group nonethe-
less found something —a genetic marker—shared
by gay brothers, and that is in itself signifi cant.”
And after all, Hamer’s group claims only to have
established a genetic link for “one form” of male
homosexuality—presumably the kind genetically
transmitted along maternal lines. Still, there is con-
siderably less signifi cance here than one could
glean from media reports, which took Hamer’s
study as the charmed third to seal the argument.
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READING 16: The Biology of the Homosexual 153
infl ated claims in the fi eld of “behavioral genetics,”
the design of Hamer’s study makes it extremely
sensitive to a small number of families matching or
not. The real question is not “Is there a gene for
homosexuality?” but rather, “Is the 82 percent
concordance result suffi ciently different from the
50 percent rate that would occur by chance to be
meaningful?” The concordance rate in the second
study lies considerably closer to the 50 percent rate
that would presumably occur in a DNA linkage anal-
ysis of pairs of brothers chosen entirely at random.
29

More signifi cant than any technical problems with
Hamer’s research design, however, are fundamental
problems with the conception of the research and
with the untested and untestable assumptions em-
bedded therein. As is frequently the case with such
research, the Hamer study implicitly understands
phenotype (the aggregate physical and behavioral
characteristics of an organism, usually understood
as the product of a dynamic interaction between
genes and environment) as the more or less direct
expression of genotype (the state of the organism’s
genes, or the inherited genetic “givens” that are
brought to the interaction), thus demoting “environ-
mental” factors to an order of secondary impor-
tance. Whereas genes “for” this or that trait are
conceived as playing a stable and “active” role in
constructing the person, the environment serves as a
backdrop and plays an essentially “passive” role,
either speeding along the pre-given results or posing
obstacles for the normal course of their expression.
This conception has the effect of obscuring the
peculiar environment established by the study itself.
Note the selection process that produced the sib-pair
sample: There are always two gay brothers, mater-
nally linked to other homosexual kin. We do not
know how to compare this very specifi c sample
with gay men who do not have gay brothers or other
gay kin. This is no minor quibble, for the sampling
procedure makes it impossible to distinguish envi-
ronmental and social factors from genetic ones.
There might well be major social differences be-
tween the development and experience of sexuality
where a gay sibling is present, as opposed to sexual
links with the hypothalamus, no one has specifi ed
exactly how this might happen, much less tested a
coherent hypothesis. In view of the aforementioned
problems with LeVay’s hypothalamus work, it is
unlikely that they will. . . .
The questions raised about the reliability of
Hamer’s pedigree studies are crucial. Because the
pedigree study is based on such poor design for
sociological research, the likelihood is increased
that the Xq28 concordance rates are the equivalent
of “false positive” readings, results that appear to be
signifi cant but that are not replicated in subsequent
research. (This kind of result happens all the time,
even in unimpeachable, well-designed research.)
Notably, the Hamer group did not try to deter-
mine how many nongay brothers share this region
of the chromosome with their gay brothers, much
less whether pairs of straight brothers exhibit high
rates of Xq28 concordance among themselves. This
is not a trivial matter, because unless we know the
Xq28 concordance rates for gay men with their het-
erosexual brothers, we have no way of interpreting
the meaning of the 82 percent rate among gay
brothers reported in the fi rst study or the 67 percent
rate reported in the Hamer group’s follow-up study.
Hamer’s conclusions—that the gay men received a
maternal chromosome for homosexuality and that
Xq28 is a (or even the ) genetic site involved in sex-
ual orientation—depend on a viable control group
that has never been established. The absence of
such a control group renders Hamer ’s fi rst study’ s
results virtually meaningless.
The follow-up study, which found a lower rate
of Xq28 consonance between gay brothers, did re-
port a very small sample of eleven families in which
two gay brothers shared the Xq28 marker and also
had a nongay brother. It is reported that nine of the
nongay brothers did not share the marker with their
two gay brothers and that two did—but these num-
bers are very small indeed, scarcely adequate for a
viable control group.
Perhaps most signifi cantly, the Xq28 concor-
dance rate for gay brothers fell from 83 percent in
the fi rst study to 67 percent in the second study. As
Jonathan Marks makes clear in his discussion of
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154 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
understandings of genetics and heritability. Headlines
tell us that biologists have unearthed the “roots” of
sexual orientation, or that geneticists have identifi ed
the gene “for” thrill seeking or a love of novelty. . . .
30

Such reportage, directed at the lay public, inevitably
glosses complex technical questions. But it is not
always clear that the research itself, considered apart
from its splashy publicity, maintains a properly sci-
entifi c approach to the question of heritability or the
role of genetics in biological processes.
In the vernacular, heredity denotes what is
“given,” what is “in” the “blood”: It is the part of
human variation that is “caused” by genetic “na-
ture,” rather than by environmental “nurture.” The
folk conception of heredity also implies “immuta-
bility”: The leopard cannot change his spots, and
short of wearing colored contact lenses, human be-
ings cannot change the color of their eyes.
31

The biological conception of heritability is more
precise and less deterministic. In biological terms,
heritability is a measure of the likelihood that a trait
present in one generation will recur in subsequent
generations sharing a common gene pool in the
same environment. Expressed as an equation, he-
redity includes both a numerator and a denomina-
tor. Richard Lewontin, Steven Rose, and Leon
Kamin give that equation this way:
Heritability = H = genetic variance
genetic variance +
environmental variance
where “genetic variance” refers to “the average per-
formance of different genotypes” and “environ-
mental variance” refers to the “variation among
individuals of the same genotype.”
32

Two important qualifi cations follow from this
formula. First, scientists attempting to determine
the heritability of a trait assess average genetic vari-
ation. They do not measure genetic “causes.” Sec-
ond, environmental variation is part of the
denominator—a basic point that is often forgotten
in genetic research on complex human behaviors.
Note what limited arguments a properly biologi-
cal conception of heritability and genetic factors
development and experience in other kinds of
settings. Hamer has presumably accounted for this
objection by claiming that he has identifi ed “one
form” of male homosexuality—presumably the
kind genetically “transmitted” from mother to son.
But this does not necessarily follow, and there are
no compelling grounds for concluding it, unless one
assumes that Xq28 in fact hides a “gay gene,” which
has not been demonstrated.
An alternative hypothesis, then: If older and suc-
cessfully homosexual relatives serve as role models,
fostering a sense of esteem for the homosexual feel-
ings of younger relatives during crucial periods, then
the “trait” in question might actually be “ transmitted”
socially, from uncle to nephew, from cousin to
cousin, from brother to brother. . . . And the “form”
of homosexuality identifi ed here might mean only
that there is an environmental difference—in that
having a gay brother constitutes a different environ-
ment than not having a gay brother.
In this context, consider the most generous possi-
ble reading of Hamer’s results, on their own terms—
including the assumption that there must be some kind
of “linkage” between genes and sexual object choice.
Even assuming that Hamer’s data, in toto, are reliable,
there is no way of specifying exactly what is shared by
gay brothers in Xq28: some gene directly related to
sexuality and sexual orientation? Or some gene that
has nothing to do with sexuality directly, but that can
become linked, indirectly and under certain circum-
stances, to sexuality? In other words, the question of
cause versus effect—indeed, of multiple causes and
effects—has not been settled. Are consonant sibling
pairs simply expressing a genetic predisposition to-
ward homosexuality? Or are they being subtly social-
ized into homosexuality based on some other
characteristic or set of traits? Or are they indirectly
prodded toward the resolution of various confl icts
through a homosexual outcome? Or even, yet again:
Are they discovering and/or coming to emphasize a
homosexual potential by way of some other character-
istic, or by way of some other affi nity with close kin?
Media reportage of genetic research like Hamer’s
invariably traffi cs in over-simplifi ed, folkloric
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READING 16: The Biology of the Homosexual 155
dramatically to changes in the environment—but
not in any linear or straightforward way.
35
Famous
experiments by Jens Clausen, David Keck, and
William Heisey elegantly illustrate this principle.
36

The scientists took three clippings each from several
different individual plants of the species Achillea
millefolium . Such clippings will produce “clone”
plants genetically identical to their parent plant and
to each other. The scientists planted the clippings
from each of the different plants in three different
environments to observe how they grew under dif-
ferent conditions: one each at low, medium, and
high elevations. The genetically identical plants
grew to different heights at different elevations, but
some were “tall” at low elevations, “short” at me-
dium elevations, and “tall” again at high elevations.
Others exhibited the opposite relationship: “short,”
“tall,” and “short” from low to high elevation. Some
showed a wide range of variation in different cli-
mates, others a narrow range. Although it was clear
that the plants’ heights were affected by elevation, it
proved impossible to predict just how individuals
would actually respond to different environments.
37

Let us imagine, then, that homosexuality has a
heritability factor, and that Hamer and his team are
on to something. Even if one takes the Hamer results
at face value—and I have tried to indicate some of
what might be wrong with the research itself—and
even if the fi ndings withstand subsequent restudies,
which is already very doubtful, the correlation of
some form of sexual variation with some kind of
genetic variation has many fewer implications than
the lay public (or for that matter much of the science
establishment) seems to think. Even a relatively
high correlation—a high heritability factor (the
worst-case scenario for partisans of a construction-
ist perspective)—could not preclude dramatic or
unpredictable environmental effects on sexual ori-
entation. Nor could it preclude the possibility that,
under other circumstances, the “trait” in question
could manifest itself differently or among altogether
different kin groups.
Genetic research like Hamer’s almost never
announces itself with anything resembling the
range of caveats appropriate for properly restrained
actually permits. To say that a trait is “highly
heritable”—that a high percentage of phenotypic
variation is correlated to genetic variance—does
not preclude saying that the trait also responds dra-
matically to environmental conditions. For exam-
ple, if we say that height among a group of human
beings has a heritability factor of about .9, or
90 percent, what this implies is that children in that
group tend to be about the same height as their par-
ents, all other things being equal.
33
But height also
responds, impressively, to environmental factors,
especially to childhood nutrition. Drought in the
Sahel and famine in North Korea produce children
whose height is substantially less than that of their
parents, as is their body weight, among other
things. In much of Asia, a shift away from tradi-
tional rice-and-fi sh staples to a cuisine more
closely resembling the Western diet, with its em-
phasis on red meat, has dramatically raised the
average height—along with body weight, average
cholesterol levels, cardiovascular ailments, and the
like. Heritability, then—even an extremely high
measure of heritability—does not imply inevitabil-
ity, immutability, or even genetic “causation.” To
say that a trait is “highly heritable” for a given
population means only that the trait in question re-
curs at a certain rate among genetically related kin
reproducing in a shared and relatively stable envi-
ronment. It also implies a number of very substan-
tial contingency clauses. If the environment
changes, whether by accident, by migration, or as a
result of changes introduced by the activity of the
population itself, then the trait in question could
also change dramatically.
To make matters yet more complicated, the heri-
tability of a given trait can vary from group to group
and place to place: “Some populations may have a
lot of genetic variance for a character[istic], some
only a little. Some environments are more variable
than others.”
34
For certain complex traits correlated
to polygenic factors, environmental changes could
signal the appearance of the trait in families where it
was previously absent—or its elimination from lines
where it had previously occurred. Finally, some sim-
ple, highly heritable traits in some species respond
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156 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
4. See Edward Stein’s calculations in The Mismeasure of
Desire: The Science, Theory, and Ethics of Sexual Ori-
entation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999),
200–201.
5. Gail Vines, Raging Hormones: Do They Rule Our Lives?
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 112.
John Maddox, “Is Homosexuality Hardwired?” Nature
353 (1991): 13.
6. Gilbert Zicklin, “Media, Science, and Sexual Ideology:
The Promotion of Sexual Stability,” in A Queer World:
The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader , ed.
Martin Duberman (New York: New York University
Press; 1997), 383.
7. See Simon LeVay, The Sexual Brain (Cambridge, Mass.:
MIT Press, 1993), 121–22. William Byne, “LeVay’s
Thesis Reconsidered,” in A Queer World , 325, and Stein,
The Mismeasure of Desire , 201.
8. Stein, The Mismeasure of Desire , 210. Simon LeVay and
Dean Hamer, “Evidence for a Biological Infl uence in
Male Homosexuality,” Scientifi c American 270 (May
1994): 44–49.
9. LeVay, The Sexual Brain , 122.
10. David Gelman with Donna Foote, Todd Barrett, and
Mary Talbot, “Born or Bred?” Newsweek , February 24,
1992, 49. See also Ruth Hubbard and Elijah Wald, Ex-
ploding the Gene Myth: How Genetic Information Is
Produced and Manipulated by Scientists, Physicians,
Employers, Insurance Companies, Educators, and Law
Enforcers (Boston: Beacon, 1993), 97–98.
11. Michael J. Bailey and Richard Pillard, “A Genetic Study
of Male Sexual Orientation,” Archives of General Psy-
chiatry 48 (1991): 1089–96. See also Michael J. Bailey
and Richard Pillard, “Are Some People Born Gay?”
New York Times , December 17, 1991.
12. Hubbard and Wald, Exploding the Gene Myth , 97.
13. Actually, adoption procedures tend to select for rela-
tively homogeneous, middle-class environments, even
for twins separated at birth. And it turns out that many
twins called “separated at birth” were not really so sepa-
rated after all. Many such twins are actually reared by
different sets of relatives in the same town.
14. Hubbard and Wald, Exploding the Gene Myth , 97.
15. Zicklin, “Media, Science, and Ideology,” 385.
16. David Gelman et al., “Born or Bred: The Origins of
Homosexuality,” Newsweek , February 24, 1992, 46.
17. I leave aside here a discussion of all those terms that give
away more than they need divulge of the author’s pre-
suppositions, for example, “nurturing” parents, a “lively
interest” in sports, and “appropriate relations with
women.”
18. See the section entitled “Homosexual Outlet” in Alfred
C. Kinsey et al., Sexual Behavior in the Human Male
(Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1948), 610–66.
19. Zicklin, “Media, Science, and Sexual Ideology,” 384.
biogenetic research. More often than not, it lapses
into an essentially folkloric understanding of herita-
bility; the search for “the” “gay” “gene,” the confu-
sion of “genetic correlation” with “genetic causation.”
That is because biologists, as a group, tend to be
committed to an ideology of biological reductionism,
with its reifi cation of practices into things, even
when such reduction runs contrary to their own best
methods.
38
They also tend to reject the notion that
science cannot answer every question.
39

Readers will no doubt see where I stand. I do not
believe that homosexuality is really susceptible to
even “good” biological research. As a complex,
meaningful, and motivated human activity, same-
sex desire is simply not comparable to questions like
eye color, hair color, or height. I am not even con-
vinced that “desire” can be defi nitively identifi ed,
isolated from other human feelings, objectively
classifi ed, gauged, or compared. For how are we to
measure the “occurrence” (or non-occurrence) of a
“trait” that is itself relational, subtle, and subject to
varied modalities and modulations? And how are we
to measure environmental constancy across genera-
tions on a subject defi ned by contestation, volatility,
and change?
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What are some of the fl aws Lancaster identifi es
in this research on sexuality?
2. Should one study sexuality in the same way
that one studies genetic traits such as eye or
hair color?
NOTES
1. Thomas H. Maugh II and Nora Zamichow, Los Angeles
Times , August 30, 1991. Malcolm Gladwell, Washington
Post , December 17, 1991. Jamie Talan, Newsday ,
December 9, 1991. Kim Painter, USA Today, December 17,
1991. Natalie Angier, New York Times , July 16, 1993. Curt
Suplee, Washington Post , October 31, 1995.
2. Anne Fausto-Sterling, Myths of Gender: Biological The-
ories about Women and Men , rev. ed. (1985; New York:
Basic Books, 1992), 257.
3. Simon LeVay, “A Difference in Hypothalamic Structure
between Heterosexual and Homosexual Men,” Science
253 (1991): 1034–37.
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READING 16: The Biology of the Homosexual 157
Xq28 in Males but Not in Females,” Nature Genetics 11,
no. 3 (1995): 248–56.
29. Jonathan Marks, “Behavioral Genetics,” chapter 5 in
What It Means to Be 98 Percent Chimpanzee (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2002).
30. Natalie Angier, “Variant Gene Tied to a Love of New
Thrills, ” New York Times , January 2, 1996. See Angier’s
follow-up story later the same year, which reports a fail-
ure to replicate the original studies: “Maybe It’s Not a
Gene behind a Person’s Thrill-Seeking Ways,” New York
Times , November 1, 1996.
31. Although the shorthand that refers to genetic “causes” is
appealing when simple Mendelian traits such as eye
color are under discussion, the idea of a genetic “cause”
founders when polygenic traits are in question. Simple
Mendelian traits account for only a small percentage
of human traits. See Hubbard and Wald’s discussion in
Exploding the Gene Myth , 40–42.
32. R. C. Lewontin, Steven Rose, and Leon J. Kamin, Not in
Our Genes: Biology, Ideology, and Human Nature (New
York: Pantheon, 1984), 97.
33. To be more precise, it means that 90 percent of the
variance in height for a population is accounted for by
genetic variance. See Lewontin, Rose, and Kamin, Not
in Our Genes , 97.
34. Ibid.
35. This important point is meticulously illustrated by
Richard Lewontin, from whom I draw the following
example, in The Triple Helix: Gene, Organism, and
Environment (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 2000), 20–24.
36. Jens Clausen, David Keck, and William Heisey, Experi-
mental Studies on the Nature of Species, Vol. 3: Environ-
mental Responses of Climatic Races of Achillea ,
Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication 581
(1958), 1–129.
37. I leave aside certain well-known paradoxes of the scien-
tifi c approach to heritability. Since heritability is a mea-
sure of variance , certain traits that are absolutely genetic
show no variation—hence, zero heritability. (Imagine a
population in which everyone has brown eyes.) Correla-
tively, if certain other traits “run in families” (because of
where the families live) or are socially attached to a ge-
netic trait (like skin color), they display high heritability,
despite having plainly environmental origins. See Edward
Stein’s discussion in The Mismeasure of Desire , 142–44.
38. See Richard Lewontin’s short masterpiece of science
criticism, Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA
(New York: HarperPerennial, 1992).
39. See John Horgan, The End of Science: Facing the Limits of
Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientifi c Age (Reading,
Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1996), and The Undiscovered
Mind—How the Human Mind Defi es Replication, Medica-
tion, and Explanation (New York: The Free Press, 1999).
20. See Dean Hamer and Peter Copeland, The Science of
Desire: The Search for the Gay Gene and the Biology of
Behavior (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), 21.
21. Dean Hamer, Stella Hu, Victoria Magnuson, Nan Hu,
and Angela Pattatucci, “A Linkage between DNA Mark-
ers on the X Chromosome and Male Sexual Orienta-
tion,” Science 261 (1993): 321–27.
22. Hamer and Copeland, The Science of Desire , 203–4,
17–38.
23. Stein, The Mismeasure of Desire , 217. Neil Risch, E.
Squires-Wheeler, and B. J. B. Keats, “Male Sexual Orien-
tation and Genetic Evidence,” Science 262 (December 24,
1993): 2063–65.
24. On the matrilateral skewing of American and English
kinship systems, especially but not exclusively patterns
of kinship in the lower classes, see David M. Schneider
and Raymond T. Smith, Class Differences in American
Kinship (1973; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
1978), 9, 40–43, 53–55. On the signifi cance of maternal
kin work, see Micaela di Leonardo, “The Female World
of Cards and Holidays: Women, Families, and the Work
of Kinship,” Signs 12, no. 3 (1987): 440–53.
25. See Zicklin, “Media, Science, and Sexual Ideology,” 385.
26. In The Science of Desire and in response to Hamer’s crit-
ics, Hamer and Copeland report that the Hamer team did
attempt other checks: the fi rst was to ponder the distribu-
tion of lesbian relatives of the gay male subjects. Theo-
retically, if the maternal links simply refl ected better
knowledge of one’s maternal kin, then there ought to also
be elevated reportage of lesbianism along maternal lines.
Hamer and Copeland report that the research team found
no such pattern. The second check was to review lesbian
informants’ reportage of gay male relatives from a sepa-
rate study. The authors report that there was no signifi cant
difference between maternal and paternal links for les-
bian subjects (103–4). Of course, these “checks” assume
that communication about relatives’ sex lives occurs in a
transparent environment unaffected by either sexual in-
tolerance or gender inequalities—that talk about sex is
uninfl ected by different maternal as opposed to paternal
(and male as opposed to female, or mother-son, as op-
posed to mother-daughter, etc.) strategies of revelation
and concealment. . . . It is by no means unthinkable that
such factors could differentially distribute family knowl-
edge about gays and lesbians. As Edward Stein demon-
strates in The Mismeasure of Desire (218), it remains
altogether plausible that the elevated maternal pattern of
homosexuality reported by gay subjects is a strictly socio-
logical effect, derived from partial knowledges, selec-
tively revealed and asymmetrically conveyed.
27. Hubbard and Wald, Exploding the Gene Myth , 75.
28. Stella Hu, Angela Pattatucci, C. Patterson, L. Li, D.W.
Fulker, S. S. Cherny, L. Kruglak, and Dean Hamer,
“Linkage between Sexual Orientation and Chromosome
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158 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
8. Why do you insist on fl aunting your hetero-
sexuality? Can’t you just be what you are and
keep it quiet?
9. Would you want your children to be hetero-
sexual, knowing the problem they’d face?
10. A disproportionate majority of child molesters
are heterosexuals. Do you consider it safe to
expose your children to heterosexual teachers?
11. Even with all the societal support marriage re-
ceives, the divorce rate is spiraling. Why are there
so few stable relationships among heterosexuals?
12. Why do heterosexuals place so much emphasis
on sex?
13. Considering the menace of overpopulation,
how could the human race survive if everyone
were heterosexual like you?
14. Could you trust a heterosexual therapist to be
objective? Don’t you fear that the therapist
might be inclined to infl uence you in the direc-
tion of his or her own leanings?
15. How can you become a whole person if you
limit yourself to compulsive, exclusive hetero-
sexuality and fail to develop your natural,
healthy homosexual potential?
16. There seem to be very few happy heterosexu-
als. Techniques have been developed that might
enable you to change if you really want to.
Have you considered trying aversion therapy?
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What is your reaction to the Heterosexual
Questionnaire?
2. What are the assumptions behind these
questions?
R E A D I N G 1 7
The Heterosexual Questionnaire
Martin Rochlin
This Heterosexual Questionnaire reverses the ques-
tions that are very often asked of gays and lesbians
by straight people. By having to answer this type
of question, the heterosexual person will get some
intellectual and emotional insight into how oppres-
sive and discriminatory a “straight” frame of refer-
ence can be to lesbians and gays.
1. What do you think caused your heterosexuality?
2. When and how did you fi rst decide you were a
heterosexual?
3. Is it possible that your heterosexuality is just a
phase you may grow out of?
4. Is it possible that your heterosexuality stems
from a neurotic fear of others of the same
sex?
5. If you’ve never slept with a person of the same
sex, is it possible that all you need is a good
gay lover?
6. To whom have you disclosed your heterosex-
ual tendencies?
7. Why do you heterosexuals feel compelled to
seduce others into your lifestyle?
Martin Rochlin (1928–2003) was one of the founders of the
Association of Gay Psychologists and a leader in the campaign
that led to removing homosexuality from the list of mental
disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders .
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READING 18: Disability Defi nitions: The Politics of Meaning 159
modern industrial societies. In this process of identi-
fi cation and classifi cation, disability has always been
an important category, in that it offers a legitimate
social status to those who can be defi ned as unable to
work as opposed to those who may be classifi ed as
unwilling to do so (Stone, 1985). Throughout the
twentieth century this process has become ever more
sophisticated, requiring access to expert knowledge,
usually residing in the ever-burgeoning medical and
paramedical professions. Hence the simple dichot-
omy of the nineteenth century has given way to a
whole new range of defi nitions based upon clinical
criteria or functional limitation.
A third reason why defi nitions are important
stems from what might be called “the politics
of  minority groups.” From the 1950s onwards,
though earlier in the case of alcoholics, there was
a growing realisation that if particular social prob-
lems were to be resolved, or at least ameliorated,
then nothing more or less than a fundamental re-
defi nition of the problem was necessary. Thus a
number of groups including women, black people
and homosexuals, set about challenging the pre-
vailing defi nitions of what constituted these prob-
lems by attacking the sexist and racist biases in
the language used to underpin these dominant
defi nitions. They did this by creating, substituting
or taking over terminology to provide more posi-
tive imagery (e.g., gay is good, black is beautiful,
etc.). Disabled people too have realised that domi-
nant defi nitions of disability pose problems for
individual and group identity and have begun to
challenge the use of disablist language. Whether it
be offensive (cripple, spastic, mongol, etc.) or
merely depersonalising (the handicapped, the
blind, the deaf, and so on), such terminology has
been attacked, and organisations of disabled peo-
ple have fostered a growing group consciousness
and identity.
There is one fi nal reason why this issue of defi –
nitions is important. From the late fi fties onwards
there was an upswing in the economy and an
increasing concern to provide more services for
R E A D I N G 1 8
Disability Defi nitions:
The Politics of Meaning
Michael Oliver
THE IMPORTANCE OF
DEFINITIONS
The social world differs from the natural world in
(at least) one fundamental respect; that is, human
beings give meanings to objects in the social world
and subsequently orient their behavior towards
these objects in terms of the meanings given to
them. W. I. Thomas (1966) succinctly puts it thus:
“if men defi ne situations as real, they are real in
their consequences.” As far as disability is con-
cerned, if it is seen as a tragedy, then disabled peo-
ple will be treated as if they are the victims of some
tragic happening or circumstance. This treatment
will occur not just in everyday interactions but will
also be translated into social policies which will
attempt to compensate these victims for the trage-
dies that have befallen them.
Alternatively, it logically follows that if disabil-
ity is defi ned as social oppression, then disabled
people will be seen as the collective victims of an
uncaring or unknowing society rather than as indi-
vidual victims of circumstance. Such a view will
be translated into social policies geared towards
alleviating oppression rather than compensating
individuals. It almost goes without saying that at
present, the individual and tragic view of disabil-
ity dominates both social interactions and social
policies.
A second reason why defi nitions are important
historically centres on the need to identify and
classify the growing numbers of the urban poor in
WHAT IS DISABILITY?
Michael Oliver is professor emeritus of disability studies at the
University of Greenwich in the United Kingdom.
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160 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
This reformulation is not only about methodol-
ogy or semantics, it is also about oppression. In
order to understand this, it is necessary to under-
stand that, according to OPCS’s own fi gures, 2231
disabled people were given face-to-face interviews
(Martin et al., 1988, Table 5.2). In these interviews,
the interviewer visits the disabled person at home
and asks many structured questions in a structured
way. It is in the nature of the interview process that
the interviewer presents as expert and the disabled
person as an isolated individual inexperienced in re-
search, and thus unable to reformulate the questions
in a more appropriate way. It is hardly surprising
that, given the nature of the questions and their di-
rection that, by the end of the interview, the disabled
person has come to believe that his or her problems
are caused by their own health/disability problems
rather than by the organization of society. It is in this
sense that the process of the interview is oppressive,
reinforcing onto isolated, individual disabled peo-
ple the idea that the problems they experience in
everyday living are a direct result of their own per-
sonal inadequacies or functional limitations. . . .
disabled people out of an ever-growing national
cake. But clearly, no government (of whatever per-
suasion) was going to commit itself to a whole
range of services without some idea of what the fi –
nancial consequences of such a commitment might
be. Thus, after some pilot work, the Offi ce of Popu-
lation Censuses and Surveys (OPCS) was commis-
sioned in the late sixties to carry out a national
survey in Britain which was published in 1971
(Harris, 1971). Subsequent work in the interna-
tional context (Wood, 1981) and more recently a
further survey in this country, which has recently
been published (Martin, Meltzer and Elliot, 1988),
built on and extended this work. However, this
work has proceeded isolated from the direct experi-
ence of disability as experienced by disabled peo-
ple themselves, and this has led to a number of
wide-ranging and fundamental criticisms of it. . . .
THE POLITICS OF MEANING
It could be argued that in polarising the tragic and
oppressive views of disability, a confl ict is being
created where none necessarily exists. Disability
has both individual and social dimensions and that
is what offi cial defi nitions from Harris (1971)
through to WHO [World Health Organization]
(Wood, 1981) have sought to recognize and to op-
erationalize. The problem with this, is that these
schemes, while acknowledging that there are social
dimensions to disability, do not see disability as
arising from social causes. . . .
This view of disability can and does have op-
pressive consequences for disabled people and can
be quite clearly shown in the methodology adopted
by the OPCS survey in Britain (Martin et al., 1988).
[ Table 1 presents] a list of questions drawn from the
face-to-face interview schedule of this survey.
These questions clearly ultimately reduce the
problems that disabled people face to their own per-
sonal inadequacies or functional limitations. It
would have been perfectly possible to reformulate
these questions to locate the ultimate causes of dis-
ability as within the physical and social environ-
ments [as they are in Table 2 ].
TA B L E 1
SURVEY OF DISABLED ADULTS—OPCS, 1986
Can you tell me what is wrong with you?
What complaint causes your difficulty in holding, gripping
or turning things?
Are your difficulties in understanding people mainly due to
a hearing problem?
Do you have a scar, blemish or deformity which limits
your daily activities?
Have you attended a special school because of a long-
term health problem or disability?
Does your health problem/disability mean that you need
to live with relatives or someone else who can help
look after you?
Did you move here because of your health problem/
disability?
How difficult is it for you to get about your immediate
neighborhood on your own?
Does your health problem/disability prevent you from
going out as often or as far as you would like?
Does your health problem/disability make it difficult for
you to travel by bus?
Does your health problem/disability affect your work in
any way at present?
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1983). In others, impairments resulting from infec-
tious diseases are declining, only to be replaced by
those stemming from the aging of the population,
accidents at work, on the road or in the home, the
very success of some medical technologies in en-
suring the survival of some severely impaired chil-
dren and adults and so on (Taylor, 1977). To put the
matter simply, impairments such as blindness and
deafness are likely to be more common in the Third
World, whereas heart conditions, spina bifi da, spi-
nal injuries and so on, are likely to be more com-
mon in industrial societies.
Again, the distribution of these impairments is
not a matter of chance, either across different soci-
eties or within a single society, for
Social and economic forces cause disorder directly;
they redistribute the proportion of people at high or
low risk of being affected; and they create new
pathways for the transmission of disorders of all
kinds through travel, migration and the rapid diffu-
sion of information and behaviour by the mass
communication media. Finally, social forces affect
the conceptualisation, recognition and visibility of
disorders. A disorder in one place and at one time is
not seen as such in another; these social perceptions
and defi nitions infl uence both the provision of care,
the demands of those being cared for, and the size
of any count of health needs. (Susser and Watson,
1971, p. 35)
Social class is an important factor here both in
terms of the causes of impairments or what Doyal
(1979) calls degenerative diseases, and in terms of
outcomes, what Le Grand (1978) refers to as long-
standing illnesses.
Just as we know that poverty is not randomly
distributed internationally or nationally (Cole and
Miles, 1984; Townsend, 1979), neither is impair-
ment, for in the Third World at least
Not only does disability usually guarantee the poverty
of the victim but, most importantly, poverty is itself a
major cause of disability. (Doyal, 1983, p. 7)
There is a similar relation in the industrial countries.
. . . Hence, if poverty is not randomly distributed
and there is an intrinsic link between poverty and
IMPAIRMENT: A STRUCTURED
ACCOUNT
Recently it has been estimated that there are some
500 million severely impaired people in the world
today, approximately one in ten of the population
(Shirley, 1983). These impairments are not ran-
domly distributed throughout the world but are cul-
turally produced.
The societies men live in determine their chances of
health, sickness and death. To the extent that they
have the means to master their economic and social
environments, they have the means to determine their
life chances. (Susser and Watson, 1971, p. 45)
Hence in some countries impairments are likely
to stem from infectious diseases, poverty, igno-
rance and the failure to ensure that existing medical
treatments reach the population at risk (Shirley,
TA B L E 2
ALTERNATIVE QUESTIONS
Can you tell me what is wrong with society?
What defects in the design of everyday equipment like
jars, bottles and tins causes you difficulty in holding,
gripping or turning them?
Are your difficulties in understanding people mainly due
to their inabilities to communicate with you?
Do other people’s reactions to any scar, blemish or
deformity you may have, limit your daily activities?
Have you attended a special school because of your
education authority’s policy of sending people with
your health problem or disability to such places?
Are community services so poor that you need to rely on
relatives or someone else to provide you with the right
level of personal assistance?
What inadequacies in your housing caused you to move
here?
What are the environmental constraints which make it
difficult for you to get about in your immediate
neighborhood?
Are there any transport or financial problems which
prevent you from going out as often or as far as you
would like?
Do poorly designed buses make it difficult for someone
with your health problem/disability to use them?
Do you have problems at work because of the physical
environment or the attitudes of others?
READING 18: Disability Defi nitions: The Politics of Meaning 161
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162 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Can you list some words that have changed
meaning over time?
2. Why must minority groups continue to chal-
lenge defi nitions?
REFERENCES
Abberley, P. (1987). “The Concept of Oppression and the
Development of a Social Theory of Disability,” Disability,
Handicap and Society, Vol. 2, no. 1, 5–19.
Barrett, D., and McCann, E. (1979). “Discovered: Two Toed
Man,” Sunday Times Colour Supplement, n.d.
Cole, S., and Miles, I. (1984). Worlds Apart (Brighton:
Wheatsheaf).
Doyal, L. (1979). The Political Economy of Health (London:
Pluto Press).
Doyal L. (1983). “The Crippling Effects of Underdevelop-
ment” in Shirley, O. (ed.).
Harris, A. (1971). Handicapped and Impaired in Great
Britain (London: HMSO).
Le Grand, J. (1978). “The Distribution of Public Expendi-
ture: the Case of Health Care,” Economica, Vol. 45.
Martin, J., Meltzer, H., and Elliot, D. (1988). The Prevalence
of Disability Amongst Adults (London: HMSO).
Shirley, O. (ed.) (1983). A Cry for Health : Poverty and Dis-
ability in the Third World (Frome: Third World Group and
ARHTAG).
Stone, D. (1985). The Disabled State (London: Macmillan).
Susser, M., and Watson, W. (2nd ed.) (1971). Sociology in
Medicine (London: Oxford University Press).
Taylor, D. (1977). Physical Impairment — Social Handicap
(London: Offi ce of Health Economics).
Thomas, W. I. (1966). In Janowitz, M. (ed.), Organization
and Social Personality : Selected Papers (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press).
Townsend, P. (1979). Poverty in the United Kingdom
(Harmondsworth: Penguin).
Wood, P. (1981). International Classifi cation of Impair-
ments, Disabilities and Handicaps (Geneva: World Health
Organization).
impairment, then neither is impairment randomly
distributed.
Even a structured account of impairment cannot,
however, be reduced to counting the numbers of
impaired people in any one country, locality, class
or social group, for
Beliefs about sickness, the behaviours exhibited by
sick persons, and the ways in which sick persons are
responded to by family and practitioners are all aspects
of social reality. They, like the health care system itself,
are cultural constructions, shaped distinctly in different
societies and in different social structural settings
within those societies. (Kleinman, 1980, p. 38)
The discovery of an isolated tribe in West Africa
where many of the population were born with only
two toes illustrates this point, for this made no dif-
ference to those with only two toes or indeed the
rest of the population (Barrett and McCann, 1979).
Such differences would be regarded as pathological
in our society, and the people so affl icted subjected
to medical intervention.
In discussing impairment, it was not intended to
provide a comprehensive discussion of the nature
of impairment but to show that it occurs in a struc-
tured way. However
such a view does not deny the signifi cance of germs,
genes and trauma, but rather points out that their ef-
fects are only ever apparent in a real social and his-
torical context, whose nature is determined by a
complex interaction of material and nonmaterial fac-
tors. (Abberley, 1987, p. 12)
This account of impairment challenges the no-
tion underpinning personal tragedy theory, that im-
pairments are events happening to unfortunate
individuals. . . .
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READING 19: What Wounds Enable: The Politics of Disability and Violence in Chicago 163
“When wintertime hits, and it’s hard to get peo-
ple to stand on the corner, he goes all bootleg and
starts selling everything,” Justin mutters.
Justin’s back faces me. He’s gripping the arm-
rests of his wheelchair, raising his body up and
down—slow, fl uid movements—his triceps bulge
and his breath labors as he fi nishes his third set of
inverted push-ups. He catches me in his peripheral
vision, studying the latest contraband from a rusted
foldout chair. This “hot” merchandise means it’s
cold outside, as confi rmed by the draft that stings us
from the side door someone has left ajar. Kemo
closes it when he arrives.
“What’s Urkel doin’ here?” Kemo says as he
enters.
R E A D I N G 1 9
What Wounds Enable:
The Politics of Disability
and Violence in Chicago
Laurence Ralph
We’re in Kemo’s garage. I sit near a pile of DVD
players, cell phones, car stereos, laptops, and Inter-
net routers.
1

P E R S O N A L A C C O U N T
Invisibly Disabled
I am a disabled individual. I am an invisibly disabled per-
son, which makes me not disabled enough. My earliest
memories are of being in pain. Unfortunately, when
those around me could not see my pain and, when doc-
tors could not diagnose my pain, it was decided for me
that my pain did not exist. If someone grabbed my arm
and it was not “that hard,” I learned I was not supposed
to say it hurt, because it didn’t really hurt—at least not
them. This is when I began to put my disabilities in the
closet.
I was 17 years old when I went to a rheumatologist
about my medical problems. I heard the words, “Well,
I am sorry to tell you this, but your daughter has fibromy-
algia.” I smiled with relief to finally find out what it was that
was causing my problems. “Great, so . . . how do we fix
it?” I asked. The look on his face was serious and almost
sad as he told me, “Well, there is no cure. What I mean is
we can treat some of the symptoms.” That is when it hit
me; I would be in pain for the rest of my life. The medica-
tions I have had to take since I was 17 have caused their
own medical conditions. When I was 19, my rheumatolo-
gist realized I had rheumatoid arthritis as well, and when
I was 22, I began showing the signs of what I would later
find out is myoclonic epilepsy. At the age of 27, I experi-
enced a full seizure; my body was flipping around like a
fish out of water on the floor. The only time I ever remem-
ber being so scared was waking up as a child not being
able to feel my legs.
With all that I am because of, in spite of, and thanks
to my disabilities, I continue to try to keep them to myself
and people close to me. Making my disabilities visible to
someone is a choice I do not make lightly, or very often.
From experience, I know they will make certain judg-
ments about me and/or view me differently. Most of all,
I  fear people not believing me. It takes most people a
long time to believe I am in pain at all, and explaining that
I have had a lifetime of masking my pain is always a
pointless endeavor.
I find myself using phrases like “I’m all right” and
“Don’t worry about me” because worrying about me will
do no good, and I am all right—I am not completely help-
less on the ground and unable to move, not yet anyway.
As long as others are seeing me as able, I feel and act
more able. It makes it more of a reality to some extent.
Every time I see someone who is physically disabled
treated poorly because of their disability, I take it person-
ally. I see my own future and become angry, because
I know they would not treat me that way since they view
me as able . . . for now.
Heather L. Shaw
Laurence Ralph is a professor of anthropology and African and
African American Studies at Harvard University.
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164 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
result of car crashes is more common). And for our
purposes, we must note that gun violence is the pri-
mary cause of disability among Hispanics and
blacks; these two populations, in turn, make up the
majority of gang members in Chicago.
This paper is about what injury allows us to see
about the diversity among disabled populations.
My argument is that, while admirable, the focus on
assuaging social difference within the disability
right’s movement has served to obscure key distinc-
tions within disabled communities along the axes
of race and socioeconomic status. While the larger
community of disabled activists in Chicago tends to
use the social model of disability, in which there is
multiple ways to view ability and physical capaci-
ties are not devalued, disabled ex-gang members
rely on a medical model of disability that highlights
physical differences rather than seeking to diminish
them. I contend that the reliance on the medical
model is one (of many) demonstrations of the se-
verity of circumstances for these disabled, African
American ex-gang members.
I demonstrate this point by discussing how no-
tions of debt and obligation surface as critical com-
ponents of gang sociality. When it comes to the
familiar sequence (wherein a gang member shoots
an affi liate of a rival gang, and in response, mem-
bers of the rival gang retaliate) death and injury can
be thought of as forms of debt exchange. I show
that it is precisely because social relations between
gang members are so often solidifi ed through vio-
lence that expressive communication by a disabled
gang member (which transmits knowledge about
the streets and about injury) can be strategically de-
ployed to disrupt a cycle of vengeance. Since the
audience now owes it to the disabled affi liate who
sacrifi ced his life, to change theirs, wounds become
the precondition that enable social transformation.
RACE AND THE DISCOURSE OF
DISABILITY
Social scientists interested in race and urban
America have long pointed out the underbelly of
American exceptionalism. The “land of promise”
“I told you, he’s helping out with the forum.
He’s here to take notes,” Justin says.
“I don’t want you guys mentioning any gang
leaders or any sets by name,” he says, looking back
and forth between the two of us. “No blocks, no
streets, nothing like that. I don’t know who’s gonna
be around, you know.”
2

“Nah, I don’t do that,” Justin replies. “That’s not
the point of what I do.”
“Well, that’s good . . . that’s good, then.” Kemo
seems pleased.
“But, I am going to talk about the consequences,”
Justin continues. “You know, the consequences of
gang banging. I am going to talk about what hap-
pened to me, and how it’s affected my life.”
“I ain’t got no problem with that,” Kemo says
with a smirk. “But, good luck getting them to listen.
l’ll do my part. I’ll get them there. Then they’re all
yours.”
Why would a paralyzed, ex-gang member-
turned-activist team up with a gang leader to orga-
nize a community forum on violence? What can
this event teach us about the concept of disability?
And what can this event show us about the seem-
ingly contradictory ways that people disempower
themselves in order to empower others?
In 2009 the rate of violent crime in Chicago was
almost double that of New York City and Los Ange-
les. Among the nation’s 10 largest cities, only Phil-
adelphia had higher rates of murder and violent
crime than Chicago.
3
What is more, during the
2008–2009 academic year, a record number of pub-
lic school students (38) were murdered. The enor-
mity of these numbers naturally focuses our
attention on murder and death. Such a focus, how-
ever, limits our understanding of urban violence.
Unacknowledged in these disheartening statistics is
a more complex reality: most victims of gun vio-
lence do not die. While the most common cause of
violence in urban areas is gun violence, a victim of
a gunshot wound is four times more likely to end up
disabled than killed. Though guns are no doubt
deadly, equally important is that gunshot injuries
constitute the second most common cause of dis-
ability in urban areas overall (only paralysis as a
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story is therefore an act of empowerment. In Crip
Theory , Robert McRuer brilliantly demonstrates
how, by turning a story of suffering into testimony,
disabled activists who “come out crip,” endow the
pejorative slur “crippled” with a positive valence.
In a similar vein, . . . the wounded storyteller’s dis-
avowal of medical experience is the basis by which
he voices his own experience of suffering. The no-
tion that a person should embrace his own wounded
body as an act of empowerment has been greatly
infl uenced by the Americans with Disabilities Act
of 1990. The Act makes discrimination based on
disability illegal, but just as importantly, it has
made acceptable the idea that people with disabili-
ties face systemic societal barriers that impact their
worldview and the ways in which they navigate
their social environment.
Though the ADA has made great strides in
providing resources for disabled people, one
unintended consequence has been that in the pro-
cess of leveling the playing fi eld, both scholars of
bodily impairment and the public have glossed over
the ways race operates within disabled communi-
ties.
9
My time in Eastwood reveals the perils of
such an omission. Justin’s wheelchair-bound life,
and the way he uses his disability, as we’ll see,
would be nearly unrecognizable—not to mention
incomprehensible—to, for example, a well-off,
white, middle-aged, suburban polio survivor.
. . . I aim to pinpoint how disabled populations
have always had to highlight their differences in
order to advocate for themselves, typically in ways
that are politically strategic and refl ective of their
marginalized status. I ask: how, within a model of
disability rights, do we account for the fact that,
depending on the way a disability was acquired,
what caused it, and the factors that might stop oth-
ers from becoming similarly hurt, disabled people
may choose to defi ne themselves in terms of their
defectiveness?
. . . The success of the disability rights move-
ment has created the impression that the medical
model is harmful, an outmoded relic of a discrimi-
natory past, but the efforts of these disabled ex-gang
members suggests that perhaps the disability rights
celebrated in the Constitution of the United States,
they argue, has a fl ipside, which is the construction
of the “defective” black subject.
4
Whether in the
1890s, when anthropologists measured the skulls of
African descendants to show that behaviors and
abilities corresponded to different racial groups, or
more recently when scholars and government agen-
cies suggested that the socioeconomic plight of
urban blacks was associated with degenerate cul-
tural values, notions of the defective body, born in
the 19th century, continue to shape the 21st.
5

The nascent literature on disability can thus
serve as a point of intervention—a way to examine
the relationship between biology and culture with-
out invoking ideas of innate dysfunction—since
scholars in this fi eld have been attentive to bodily
injury, yet have also advanced a “social model” of
illness.
6
As these scholars have viewed disability as
an institutionalized source of oppression, compa-
rable to inequalities based on race, gender, and
sexual orientation, they have argued that it is not an
individual’s actual “impairments” which construct
disability as a subordinate social status and deval-
ued life experience but socially imposed barriers
(anything from inaccessible buildings, to limited
modes of transportation and communication, to
prejudicial attitudes).
7
This “social model,” not sur-
prisingly, is a radical step away from the medical
model of illness, which has dominated Western
thinking since the early 1900s, and which views
disabilities and diseases as physical conditions that
reduce a person’s quality of life, and thus pose clear
disadvantages to that person. In this way, the medi-
cal model echoes the 19th century notion of the
black defective body. It is important to point out
that advocates of disability rights have long re-
jected the medical model of disability, and instead
emphasize a rights-based model that “emphasizes
people’s personal adjustment to impairment and
their adaptation to a medical-rehabilitative regimen
of treatment.”
8

The medical model is often presumed to silence
a disabled person’s voice . . . because a core expec-
tation of being disabled is surrendering oneself to
the care of a physician. The act of telling one’s own
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166 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
movement has eschewed the medical model all too
soon. Although these ex-gang members in Chicago
face criticism from the wider disability rights com-
munity for highlighting variations in social differ-
ence (between “the normals” and the stigmatized,
the paralyzed and the able-bodied) they feel that
they must do so—since, as they put it, their wounds
enable them to saves lives. Though I focus on the
anti-gang forums hosted by disabled ex-gang mem-
bers, rather than their positionality within the larger
disability rights movement, both these forums, and
the tenuous subject position of the people who run
them, highlight the ways in which disabled com-
munities are stratifi ed along the lines of race, mas-
culinity, and socioeconomic status.
10
It is the
interplay of these culturally constructed identities
that map the contours of oppression that African
Americans face, allowing us to see the extent to
which violence becomes both a gang and community-
defi ning feature.
11

GANG GEOGRAPHIES OF
COMMERCE
Days after Justin and I met with Kemo, I see him
again. Only this time, instead of a garage, he is
holding court in an abandoned lot. A group of
8  teenage boys sit on the rubbled, glass-strewn
ground at his feet. The leader of the local gang set
waves his arms, punctures his words with stares. As
he scolds the small group for failing to police their
neighborhood, Kemo looks like an urban griot.
“You know what? Y’all lack discipline,” he says.
“That’s why you got the Bandits comin’ in here
shooting up the place.” Kemo is referring to a rival
gang set, whose members recently infi ltrated his
territory, injuring two people. Pete, an affi liate who
was shot in the leg during that incident, sits next to
Kemo. The cane he will use for the rest of his life
lies between them. After Kemo praises Pete for his
bravery, and announces to the group that he is one
of the few among them who has “what it takes” to
be a gang leader, he reaches for Pete’s curved han-
dle cane and drags the rubber tip through the dirt,
sketching the boundaries of their block. X’s mark
the places he predicts rival gangs will attempt to
invade. Then he draws a series of arrows that sur-
round the Xs. These are the routes gang members
should travel to safeguard their domain.
“Y’all gotta protect your turf,” Kemo barks:
“ That’s the most important thing.”
Kemo’s depiction of his commercial strategy lit-
erally relies on a marker of disability—the cane. In
other words, the cane is the tool Kemo uses to ex-
plain to his foot soldiers how they are going to main-
tain economic control; the cane is simultaneously
a reminder of the consequences of that task. . . .
Since the 1920s, the term “gang” has been used
to describe all kinds of collectives, from groups of
well-dressed mobsters to petty criminals and juve-
nile delinquents—everything from substitute fam-
ily units to religious groups and entrepreneurial
drug-dealing cartels.
12
Perhaps the only thing that
has remained consistent about gangs in nearly a
century of research is their characterization as an
internal Other from the vantage point of the law—a
group that lives amongst us but does not abide by
our “normal” rules.
13

As we saw through Kemo’s inscription in the
dirt, the interplay between wounding and enabling
surfaces in the ways in which gang cultures have
been said to emerge out of the rationalities and
strategies of protecting “turf”—i.e. territory, prop-
erty, access—as a means to accrue good standing in
a society in which people are frequently excluded
from participation in the American polity.
14
On the
face of it, the violent event associated with injury
allows the disabled gang member to rise in social
stature and moral standing, similar to the war vet-
eran in contemporary American society. And like
the war veteran in contemporary society, the rhe-
torical effect of this patriotism stands in sharp relief
to reality. Unlike the gang member who has been
labeled as a police informant (or “snitch”), disabled
gang members in Eastwood are not given a “dis-
honorable discharge”—rather, they are released
from service. An “honorable discharge” would be
the appropriate analogy here. Of course, some dis-
abled gang members will prefer to resume their ac-
tivities, and in such cases, they are not so much
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of them, so he worried about their effi cacy: “I don’t
know man,” he says to me one day, as we put away
basketballs in the after-school program where he
works and I volunteer, “It’s like they’re preaching
to the choir. The guys who really need to be there,
them boys who really need to hear those stories,
they’re out on the street.”
Justin, however, has a solution: sessions offered
by a very different group of men, forums which dif-
fered from the approaches of what he refers to as
the “out-of-touch” gang-prevention programs. And,
even though Justin himself does not organize these
forums, he identifi es with the people who do. The
men who Justin is speaking of are in their early to
mid-twenties—young enough to relate. Many of
them still communicate with members of the Divine
Knights, so they do not underestimate the gang’s
infl uence in the lives of young people. Plus, their
very presence makes the consequences of gang life
salient for everyone who attends their events—
these men are all in wheelchairs. This group of
paralyzed ex-gang members fi rst met at Eastwood
Hospital. Across the last fi ve years, they partici-
pated in a rehabilitation program that teaches
people suffering from spinal cord injuries how to
adapt to their new lives. After fi nishing the program,
a few of these men petitioned the hospital to sponsor
the next step in their work: with the “In My Shoes”
program, these former gang affi liates—themselves
the victims of gun violence—travel to schools to
discuss what it feels like to have your life perma-
nently altered by a disability.
One day I accompany Justin to Jackson High,
where the school administrators decide to dedi-
cate  the bulk of the day to violence prevention
programming . . .
I watch with the boisterous crowd as four ex-
affi liates form a semi-circle on the stage of the
school’s auditorium . . .
“Welcome to the ‘In My Shoes’ program,” the
leader of the group, Darius, starts.
“What we are is a violence prevention program.
We’re a little different from other programs. Like,
we’re not here to scare you or anything like
that.  We’re basically here to educate you about
willfully ignored as forgotten about, marginalized,
or neglected. Hence, in contrast to members who
die in gang wars and become martyrs—those by-
gone affi liates often emblematized on graffi ti’d
R.I.P. t-shirts—the disabled gang member, who
cannot contribute to the organization in the way
that is most valued (that is, as a street-corner drug
dealer) becomes like the presumably honored war
veteran who begs for change by day, and is tucked
beneath a highway underpass by night.
As disability can signal honor and ignominy at
the same time, wounding as it pertains to disabled
bodies should be read as a commentary on
enabling—whether this is the enabling of gang en-
trepreneurship and the forms of violence associated
with it or, as we will see, the enabling of initiatives
to stop violence. Likewise, enabling should be read
as a commentary on wounding— whether this is the
injury that stems from the drug trade, or the crimi-
nalization of black urbanites, which make them
prone to debilitation. Hence, if this analysis of
wounding is to be read with a negative moral va-
lence, it is not because the notion of disability itself
should be devalued. Rather, the disabled subject
signals the ways in which the intersection of race
and socioeconomics funnels risk of morbidity, un-
employment, incarceration and mortality rates to-
wards young urban residents in Chicago, who are
far more likely than most of those who will read
this article to fall victim to a stray bullet in the
midst of drug-related gang warfare.
IN MY SHOES
In the aftermath of 2009’s record number of shoot-
ings of public school students, community forums
on violence became commonplace in Eastwood, the
west side neighbourhood. . . . These forums were
typically sponsored by non-profi t organizations,
schools, or churches and coordinated by adults
who—though well intentioned by all accounts—
had only a tangential relationship to the troubled
youths they were targeting. . . .
Justin had attended many such forums over the
past year, but had not seen many young men at any
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168 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
places his thumb and index fi nger a couple of inches
apart: “For males it’ll probably go about tha-a-a-a-t
deep inside the pee hole before it starts draining.”
The group of adolescents erupt in a deafening
chorus of gags and grimaces—this, at the mere
thought of using a device in service of something
which seems so natural.
“And this gotta be done every four-to-six hours
for the rest of your life. Cause what can happen is,
either you’re gonna pee all over yourself . . . and
you can imagine you’re on the corner chillin’ and
all of a sudden: You’re wet.”
More groans. Now laughter. Nervous, embar-
rassed laughter. I worry that the kids in the audi-
ence are actually making fun of Darius. Some boys
point at the catheter. But Darius waits out the snick-
ers; he smiles with the kids, willing to indulge their
nervousness, willing to play the role of the hapless,
disabled person.
“Or it can stay in your system,” Darius continues
as the tittering from the crowd dies down. “And,
basically, urine is just waste. So if it stays in your
system, you can get sick, catch infections from it,
and ultimately be hospitalized. What I’ma do is
pass this around so you can check it out. It ain’t
never been used or nothing like that.”
The crowd laughs in relief.
After Darius describes how the most prominent
biological feature of manhood is transformed from
the penetrator to that which is penetrated, another
activist, Aaron, begins to speak.
“One of the most important things that you have
to look out for is the health of your skin, cause it
can also get infected. Y’all know when you’ve been
sitting down for a long time, how your butt starts to
hurt and you get a little uncomfortable. You know,
you gotta fi dget a little bit. Well in a situation like
ours, we can’t feel our butts. So what we have to do
is, we have to be constantly lifting off our chairs,
doing ‘pressure reliefs.’ So you’ll see me every
once and a while do this—” he grabs the armrests
of his chair and lifts his body above it, holding him-
self in an inverted push-up.
‘“Cause what could happen is, I can develop a
‘pressure sore’—also known as a ‘bedsore,’ or a
the  consequences of drug activities and gang life.
As you can see, all of us here have wheelchairs,” he
continues. “And the reason we have wheelchairs is
because we were out in the streets gang banging,
selling drugs. We got shot, and ultimately we got
paralyzed. So what we’re gonna do today is tell you
what happens to your body when you have a spinal
cord injury.”
The “In My Shoes” speakers have two primary
goals in a situation like this. First, they try to coun-
teract the foundational belief that perpetuating vio-
lence unifi es the gang. Next, they argue that when
the gang is no longer around, gunshot victims have
to care for themselves.
“There’s two types of spinal cord injuries,” Dar-
ius begins, “there’s a paraplegic and a quadriplegic.
Par- meaning two: it means two of your limbs are
affected. I’m a paraplegic. I’m paralyzed from the
waist down. A quadriplegic is paralyzed from the
neck down.”
“See, the thing about the spine,” he adds, “is that
it’s one of the few parts of your body that doesn’t
heal for itself. You know how if you break your arm
or you get a cut, your body naturally heals itself,
right? Well, when you have a spinal cord injury or
a  brain injury, that’s permanent because there
ain’t no medicine or no doctor in the world that can
fi x that.”
With a few sentences, Darius establishes his
authority through medical expertise. The teenagers
in the audience still fi dget, hesitant to look directly
at the injured bodies on stage. Then he tells the
crowd how much his life has changed since he has
become paralyzed.
“Aside from your movement, one of the fi rst
things that gets affected is your bladder. Y’all know
when you gotta use the washroom, you get that
feeling, right? Well when you’re in a situation like
ours, you no longer get that sensation. So what hap-
pens is that you gotta be on the clock. You know
every four-to-six hours, you have to manually ex-
tract the urine. And that’s done with one of these.
This right here is a catheter.”
He holds up a cloudy plastic bag, which is met
with a collective groan from the crowd. Then he
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also “outfold” into social space, giving shape and
meaning to the society in which we live. Borrowing
from the Kleinmans, I want to suggest that the sto-
ries of these disabled, ex-gang members are not just
about the interpersonal affects of disability. These
stories outfold as well, inviting “at risk” teenage,
black males to recognize themselves in them.
16

By  speaking about what it is like to be disabled
former gang members signal the mutual constitu-
tion between wounding and enabling as a means to
respond to the gang’s far-reaching infl uence in
Eastwood.
. . . The men at Jackson High show no anger or
resentment towards the medical establishment. To
the contrary, disabled ex-gang members build
their narratives out of the medical model of dis-
ability, in order to emphasize the biological real-
ity of their now “broken” body. They do so to
amplify the magnitude of urban violence. For
members of racial groups who are prone to debili-
tation through gun violence, highlighting one’s
body as broken is a political act. The members of
“In My Shoes,” like Justin and every other dis-
abled ex-gang member I  have met, speak about
the best ways to craft their stories; they borrow
narrative techniques from each other; they re-
hearse, constantly. They learn by hearing them-
selves tell their own stories, absorbing each
others’ reactions, and experiencing their stories
being shared.
17
On this day, for example, one of
the disabled ex-gang members, Sam, did not
speak at all. He listened and watched, still honing
his own illness narrative in preparation for the
next school assembly when, perhaps, he will feel
ready to testify. In this way, the “In My Shoes”
speakers draw on presuppositions of illness that
enable collectively salient descriptions of disabil-
ity. Crafting their paralysis as undesirable and
preventable is crucial since it helps excavate an
altered vision of a world, already radically trans-
formed by violence. Disabled ex-gang members
hope that by seeing the world through their eyes—
the eyes of the injured—these inner city students
will come to see the effects of violence more
clearly.
‘ubiquitous ulcer.’ That’s when the bone starts dig-
ging through the skin. It starts off as a little pimple;
but this is one pimple you don’t wanna pop, ’cause
you could make it worse.”
“The thing about these pressure sores is that
I  can get one in a matter of hours. If I was to sit
down in one of those chairs for two or three hours,”
Darius says, gesturing towards the wooden seats
in the crowd, “I could develop a pressure sore.”
“The problem is gettin’ rid of one,” Aaron in-
tervenes. “To get rid of one could take anywhere
from two months to a year. And the only way to
heal it is to stay off it. Bed rest. So you can imag-
ine if it’s the summer. Summer just kicked off, and
I got a pressure sore—now I gotta stay in bed to
heal it.”
“And what a lot of people don’t know,” Oscar
says, taking the reigns, “is that Christopher
Reeves, you know the actor that played Superman;
he actually passed away from one of these. He
caught a pressure sore, it got infected, and it got
into his blood. And you know how blood is con-
stantly traveling through your body? Well, it hit
his heart, and he had a heart attack. What I try to
tell people is that this is Christopher Reeves: this
is Superman. He had Superman money. And he
couldn’t prevent one of these? What’s gonna hap-
pen to one of us from the ’hood? We don’t got that
kind of money. We don’t have that kind of around-
the-clock care.”
Here, Oscar’s reference to Superman does not
merely underscore the gulf in access to medical re-
sources between a world-renowned actor and a
poor person of color. He highlights another register
of wounding: the fact that no one is actually fast
enough to dodge a speeding bullet. Even Superman
can die from a pimple.
The “In My Shoes” presentation at Jackson
High resonates with Arthur and Joan Kleinman’s
insights about the stakes of telling stories through
wounded bodies.
15
They argue that illness stories
transcend the bodies of the ill. It is not merely that
culture “infolds” into the body through differing
ways to defi ne disease, or varying access to, and
attitudes towards, healthcare. Our bodily processes
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170 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
most of the fi ghts I was getting into wasn’t because
of me, or something I did. It was because of my
friends. That’s why when the paralyzed speakers
came to my new school, it was kinda like a privi-
lege because before I didn’t think it was real.”
“But two of my friends just died over the past
three weeks now,” he continues. “And one of my
cousin’s friends, he died also. I know you heard
about the fi fteen-year-old boy that was found in the
dumpster. That was him. ”
Marcus takes a sip from a glass of water and
looks out of the window. I think about what he has
just told me. The notion that he does not start most
of the fi ghts in which he is engaged could be read as
a convenient excuse (especially with his mother
within earshot). But even so, the stakes of the peer
pressure that he describes are painfully high in a
context in which teenagers are regularly murdered
and debilitated. Trade in injury is so common that
even a hospital bed doesn’t necessarily occasion a
person to orient his life away from the gang. It may
simply lead him to seek revenge.
“I got jumped on a while back. I got put in the
hospital—in the trauma center. She’ll tell you,”
Marcus says, gesturing towards his mother. “When
my momma came in there I was talking to the doc-
tor like: ‘So, umm . . . What’s up? What’s your son’s
name? Can I play video games?’ I was having fun—
not knowing that something could’ve seriously been
wrong with me. When my friends came I was jump-
ing on the bed like, ‘Yeah, man, they ain’t do noth-
ing to me! They ain’t do nothing to me!’”
“I wanted revenge. I didn’t think nothing really
bad could happen. I even put the hospital band—
the one that was on my arm—I put it around my
neck and I wore it as a chain, like a trophy. My
momma said that scared her. She told me that
I could be dead, ’cause I blacked out for a second
while I was fi ghting. In the meantime, I ain’t really
know what was happening.”
“After I got out of the hospital, the next day, my
friends came to my house. They were like, ‘Man,
what up? What you gonna do?’”
“Inside my head I’m like, ‘Do I really want to go
with them, or do I wanna listen to my momma?’”
INJURIOUS DEBTS AND
ENABLING OBLIGATIONS
A couple of days after the assembly I run into
Marcus, a neighbor whom I haven’t seen on the
block in a while. He is a senior at Jackson High;
I ask him what he thought about “In My Shoes.”
Marcus invites me into his house; his mother is
cooking dinner and asks if I want to stay. Marcus
and I sit at the dining room table while she prepares
food in the adjoining kitchen. He tells me about
how the assembly has altered his perspective on
gang life.
“Yeah,” Marcus begins, “it was real deep to hear
them speak, ’cause my mom kept telling me that
my associations will lead me to one day, God
forbid, be in the same predicament. And my heart
was beating like 100 miles an hour, ’cause I could
just see myself in the position they’re in.”
“Most of the people I hang out with are gang
bangers,” he explains. “And I was the type that al-
ways wanted to do right, but did wrong. I didn’t
want my brothers and them fi ghting, but I was right
there in front—fi ghting everybody. But it’s kinda
like . . . over here . . . in this area . . . in the school I
go to . . . thinking about tomorrow is the last thing
you wanna do. Cause you wanna live through today. ”
Marcus’ statement is meant to set the backdrop
for life in Eastwood, where gangs are commonly
imagined as stand-in family units, where even a
teenager who opts not to join the Divine Knights
will be cognizant of who belongs to which set, and
the jurisdictions of each, where young people are
well aware that although most of the gang sets in
their neighborhood fall under the Divine Knights
umbrella, two factions can inspire violence at any
given moment, becoming de facto rivals.
18
It is for
this reason, at least in part, that a gang’s legacy is
heightened even as the immediacy of “tomorrow”
is diminished.
“You know how it is,” Marcus says. “We got all
the rival gangs. I actually got pulled outta my last
high school ’cause me and my friends got into it
with some Bandits. My momma feared for my life.
And I noticed when she took me out of school that
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. . . In the days after Marcus’ beating, as he
chooses to listen to his mother, a curious thing hap-
pens. He leaves school and comes home. He doesn’t
dawdle on the corner. He stays inside. His friends
stop talking to him. He gets dirty looks. At one
point the leader of his local set even visits him at
home, and says he has turned his back on his friends
and his community. In other words, he is viewed by
other affi liates as abandoning the gang. The crucial
point here is that in refusing to retaliate, by being
willing to look “weak,” by extracting himself from
social activities outside of his home, Marcus for-
goes the opportunity to cultivate bonds with his
brethren; and it is primarily because he withdraws
from a system in which injury is often proposed as
a means for debt settlement, that he is viewed as a
deserter.
CASHING IN
Intimately felt obligations have an immeasurable
impact on the ways in which a teenager like Marcus
navigates his social world. But this sense of indebt-
edness does not always have to wound. It is because
Justin knows intuitively that the most signifi cant
aspect of gang rivalry is its ability to maintain rela-
tionships between affi liates, that he brings a gang
leader to the negotiating table to talk about the crip-
pling violence that the gang set he commands has
become known for. By rechanneling gang notions
of reciprocity—and in the process allowing his
wounds to enable peace, rather than violence—
Justin frames his community forum as a harmoni-
ous way to settle debts between gang members.
In the winter of 2008, Justin decides that he
wants the “In My Shoes” program to sponsor a com-
munity forum on violence. Even though he is not
one of the speakers, he appreciates their approach.
But, when he brings his proposal to the administra-
tors at Eastwood Hospital, they decline. . . . As he
seeks fi nancial support, one of the fi rst people to
contact him is Kemo, on behalf of the Divine
Knights. He pledges to donate funds for the pur-
chase of food and promises to make the event a
mandatory meeting for his constituency.
For the next several minutes, Marcus describes
arguing with his friends about his decision not to
retaliate, and their response that he would look
“weak” if he didn’t. It wasn’t just his reputation that
was on the line, they argued, but that of the whole
set. Still, Marcus insists that he remained adamant
about resisting the temptation to strike back.
“The point is,” Marcus says, “instead of listen-
ing to my friends, I listened to what my momma
said. And they were looking at me like, ‘Dang man,
what’s wrong with you? Why you actin’ like this?”’
He pauses, takes another sip of water. His mother
has stopped preparing dinner; I can’t tell if she is
paying attention.
“So I know how hard it is to get up on stage and
do what they did. I saw one of the speakers, Darius,
the other day and I told him. I said, ‘I take my hat
off to y’all. For y’all to come to my school and have
the courage to say that in front of everybody, that
means a lot. So I thank y’all, man, for real.”’
Marcus’ insights allude to the fact that in East-
wood the obligation to seek vengeance is fre-
quently anticipated, and its fulfi llment relentlessly
planned. Here, vengeance is an enduring ritual of
exchange. Still, it is critical to note that in a context
in which the Divine Knights cultivate feuds over
territory and economic control, violence does not
merely wound. More importantly, as we will see, it
can enable. The fact that my conversation with
Marcus takes place in his mother’s house high-
lights the similarities between their familial bond
and a kind of gang sociality in which members
habitually express social obligations in an idiom of
kinship. Here, the dichotomy between the Divine
Knights’ imagined community and physical debil-
ity does not merely surface through wounds, or the
bodily pain that Marcus endures on behalf of his
gang. It is also evidenced through the invocation of
his mother who, he says, steers him away from
gang affi liation.
19
But despite Marcus’ discussion
of his choice to stay in the house rather than enact
revenge in the streets (to listen to “what my
momma said”), one should not read my conversa-
tion with this teenage gang member as a story of
redemption, primarily.
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172 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
and would assume I was in the same gang. So now
they started treating me like opposition. It got to the
point where I was already marked as a gang mem-
ber, so I just decided to join the gang.” . . .
“I joined up, and I never really thought twice
about it. It seemed like I was where I should be
because a lot of my friends, my cousins, and my
uncles—even my grandfather—they were all in-
volved in the gang. So it wasn’t nothing new to me.
But after awhile I started going to school less and
less, and I was surrounded by violence more and
more. I saw close family members and good friends
die. I thought, ‘If my friends and my family, they all
died for the gang, then why not me? What makes
me better than them?’ I started telling myself,
‘Man, I’m willing to die for this.’”
“At the time, I needed that mentality because
I started dealing drugs. My two closest friends were
becoming gang leaders and big-time drug dealers.
They were the ones giving the product to everyone
in my neighborhood. One day, there was a meeting
with the high-ranking gang offi cials and the
guy who was supplying both of them said that they
would have to consolidate their gang sets. He said
they could play Rock, Paper, Scissors, for all he
cared, but someone had to step up, and someone
had to fall back. It had to be done, he said. So my
two boys decided to set up a meeting.”
“It was January 3, 2000,” Justin continues after
taking a deep breath, “That day, the friend who
I worked for picked me up and told me what they de-
cided. They were gonna do it like the old-timers: meet
and fi ght, one-on-one. Whoever won the fi ght would
get the neighborhood drug market. The other person
would be the right-hand man, and make his crew fall
in line. They would even shake hands afterwards.”
“They decided to fi ght in an abandoned lot. No
one was there when we arrived, so me and my boy
got out and waited for my other friend to show.”
“After a couple minutes, a car came down the
street. I made eye contact with the driver, but didn’t
recognize him. The car kept going. When it reached
the dead end, it circled back around. It was creeping
up slowly, so my boy said ‘Let’s get outta here.’ But
by the time we got back inside, the car was right
Even though I know Justin and Kemo’s relation-
ship dates back 17 years, when the two of them
were budding gang bangers, I am initially taken
aback when I hear that Kemo, a gang leader, is con-
tributing to the forum that will talk about the haz-
ards of gang life.
One day I ask about the gang leader’s motiva-
tion: “So, Kemo is actually telling his crew to go to
the forum?” I question. “How did you convince him
to do that?”
“I mean, Kemo don’t want the killings either,”
Justin replies. “You gotta remember: some of those
boys are his cousins, and the little brothers of peo-
ple we grew up with. Besides Kemo owes me and
now I’m cashin’ in.”
On the brisk Saturday morning of May 10,
2009—three days after the 36th killing of a Chicago
public school student—Kemo delivers. He person-
ally drops off an Escalade full of young gang mem-
bers at the House of Worship for Justin’s violence
forum. Kemo and some of the leaders from the
other neighborhood gang sets linger outside of
the  church while the members of their respective
constituencies fi le in. . . . Justin is seated in his
wheelchair. He quickly grabs the crowd’s attention
by describing how he got “plugged” into the gang.
“I was raised right here in Eastwood,” Justin be-
gins after introducing himself. “And just like today,
there was a lot of violence when I was growing up.
It was real bad over here.”
“You know, Eastwood is not that big of a com-
munity,” he continues, “but when I was coming up,
there was a lot of different gang sets; and they were
all at war. To make matters worse, there was only
one high school in the entire area. So everybody
within those gang boundaries had to attend that
high school. Being that the school was within a par-
ticular gang’s territory, it was pretty rough. I re-
member in the ninth grade—before I was even in
the gang—I would get frustrated because I had to
cross rival territories to get to school. I was getting
chased, beat up, and robbed constantly. Sometimes
the people from my block would stick up for me. . .
What would happen was, members of the rival
gangs would see me with the boys from my block
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I knew is that my legs wouldn’t work. I was trying
and trying, but I couldn’t move my legs. I couldn’t
get up. I just couldn’t. I laid my head on the grass,
and that’s when I heard footsteps running away and
a car screeching off.”
“I started yelling: ‘ Help, Help. ’ I was screaming
my boys’ names. ‘ Help. ’ One-by-one, I screamed
by cousins’ names and all the people that I was
willing to die for: ‘ Help. ’”
“Then all of sudden I saw this lady look out her
window. I sat up and called out to her, the best
I  could. I said, ‘I’ve been shot. I’ve been shot.
Please, ma’am, help me. I’ve been shot.’”
“While I was waiting to see if she would come
out I tried to get up. I grabbed the storm drain and
lifted my upper body. I remember looking at my
legs and they were dangling. They were dead.
When I saw that, I fell back down.”
“The lady came out with a cell phone and called
the ambulance. If it wasn’t for her, who knows if I’d
be here today. She waited with me and tried to com-
fort me: ‘Everything’s gonna be alright ,’ she said.
‘ Don’t worry , everything’s gonna be alright. ’”
“As she’s telling me this, I see her eyes watering.
Tears are coming down her face. And I just remem-
ber thinking, like, ‘man, I don’t wanna die.’ I re-
member thinking that in my head. All my life I told
myself that, I’m willing to die for this. I was willing
to get shot. I didn’t care. But, when I was lying
there. I was scared to die. I didn’t want to die.
I don’t know why, but I didn’t want to die. ”
Justin ends his story with a somber description
of the day the doctor informs him that he will
“never walk again.” As he begins to recount his
early days in a wheelchair, what strikes me most is
how Justin felt abandoned. The pain of Kemo run-
ning from their car, and his recitation of the names
of his gang brethren while lying in the woman’s
yard, seem to eclipse even the pain of the bullets
lodged in his body.
. . . Today, Justin’s inability to feel—the physical
and psychological wounds of paralysis—enables
him to elicit rare shades of empathy and sorrow
from otherwise unshakeable young gang members.
Days prior to the event, I overheard Kemo telling
beside us. I looked up and the person in the passen-
ger seat had pulled out a pistol.”
“Tink . . . Tink . . . t-t-tink. Tink. Tink. That’s all I
heard. I saw fl ashes. My boy said, ‘ Pull off. Pull off,’
so I started driving. But I was already hit, so I lost
control of the vehicle. Eventually, I crashed. That’s
when I noticed that I was bleeding from my shoulder
and my thigh. I started screaming: ‘I got shot. I got
shot.’ Next thing you know, I hear the car door slam
shut. Just then I realized: one of my friends had left
me, and my other friend wanted me dead.” . . .
During this brief lull, I recall how weeks ago he
told me that Kemo “owes” him because they were
together when he was shot. It hadn’t registered be-
fore now: Kemo had been in the car with Justin. His
words now resonate with what I already knew about
his shooting. Another affi liate, Eric, once told me
that Kemo wanted badly to retaliate against the per-
son who shot Justin, but he forbade it. As Justin had
made a commitment to God to turn his life around
on what he thought was his deathbed, the most he
allowed Kemo to do was to confront the perpetra-
tor, tell him to leave the neighborhood, and warn
him to never come back. Because Kemo hoped that
one day Justin would change his mind and permit
revenge, the gang never informed the police about
the shooter. The assailant escaped without sanction.
As I refl ect on these circumstances, Kemo’s com-
mitment to the forum makes all the more sense—as
does Justin’s willingness, to accept his help.
“I just got out of the car and started running,”
Justin continues. “I cut through an alleyway and
stopped at the fi rst house I saw. I knocked on the
door. Then I knocked harder.”
“All of a sudden the porch lit up. I got excited at
fi rst, but then I realized that the light wasn’t coming
from inside of the house. Headlights were beaming
on the door from behind me. The car from before
was approaching fast.”
“Someone got out and started running towards
me with a gun so I hopped over the porch railing. I
almost reached the back of the house when I heard
a shot go off— BANG. ”
“I just remember falling to the ground. I wasn’t
in pain or anything like that. I was in shock. All
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174 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
their own lifelong friendship. . . . Young gang mem-
bers from rival gang sets are supposed to use
Justin’s life story as a conduit through which to
become more peaceful. Debilitated gang members’
stories of catheters and enemas, pressure sores and
bed rest, stories of their mothers warning them
about their associations, illuminate an invisible as-
pect of gang sociality: disability is a distinct, though
often frequently invisible, reality.
Unlike many researchers, gang members them-
selves acknowledge the fact of disability, and even
place paralyzed members on a pedestal in gang lore.
Disabled ex-gang members like Justin, however,
counter the prominent belief that by sacrifi cing your-
self for  the gang you’ll become a martyr or time-
honored veteran. It is critical that their method of ex-
posing this myth is by fi xing themselves as inhabitants
of imprisoned bodies—as a disabled gang member,
Tony, reminded us in yet another Eastwood forum:
“They say when you gang bang. . . when you drug
deal, the outcomes are either death or jail. You never
hear about the wheelchair. I ain’t know this was an
option. And if you think about it, it’s a little bit of both
worlds cause half of my body’s dead. Literally. From
the waist down, I can’t feel it. I can’t move it. I can’t do
nothing with it. The rest of it’s confi ned to this wheel-
chair. This is my prison for the choices I’ve made.”
This “imprisoned” body, I would add to Tony’s
statement, should not be dismissed as an outmoded
and narrow-minded conception of disability.
Rather, Tony is calling attention to his immobility
to make the argument that the violence to which his
body bears witness can and should be prevented.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Was it a surprise to you to learn that disability
resulting from a gunshot wound is so common
in urban areas? Why do you think this is not a
well-known fact?
2. Why might the disabled activists in Chicago
prefer the medical model of disability, rather
than the social model?
3. How effective do you think these anti-gang
forums are?
young affi liates of how Justin sacrifi ced his body so
that he could fl ee in a gun battle. It is for this reason
that Justin should be respected, the gang leader
said. Watching them now, I hope they understand:
not only did Justin sacrifi ce himself. But after doing
so, he forgave the debt that was owed to him and
transformed it into a communal project to stop the
killings. This sacrifi ce, Justin hopes, will help
youngsters like Marcus break free from the obliga-
tions that gang life is built upon.
WOUNDS THAT ENABLE
While traveling to local high schools and talking to
“at risk” youth, disabled ex-gang members are will-
ing to insist on the defectiveness of their bodies in
order to highlight the burden that violence creates
in communities like Eastwood. Their methods con-
trast sharply with the aims of the disability rights
movement, in which constructing physical differ-
ence as an inferior identity is routinely and un-
equivocally criticized. This incongruity suggests
that paralyzed ex-gang members and the larger
world of disabled activists are not fully visible to
each other. The disconnection also points to the fact
that the disability rights movement and the fi eld of
disability studies have generally been silent about
the ways in which race and socioeconomic status
intersect. The success of the disability rights move-
ment has created the impression that the medical
model of disability breeds pity. My examination,
however, reveals another more complex possibility.
The sympathy, disgust, fear, and perhaps even the
relief at being able-bodied, are all indicative of dis-
abled, ex-gang members’ approach to anti-violence.
They essentially disempower themselves in order
to empower others. Their efforts show that a medi-
cal model of disability does not always muffl e the
voices of the injured, but can demonstrate the scale
of the social problems that African Americans
growing up in violent neighbourhoods face.
Justin and Kemo, the organizers of the forum,
attempt to address gang violence by establishing
meaningful bonds between members, a bond that
mirrors the sense of debt and obligation intrinsic to
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10. See Jain, Sarah S. 1999. “The Prosthetic Imagination:
Enabling and Disabling the Prosthesis Trope.” Science,
Technology & Human Values 24, no. 1 (Winter 1999):
31-54. Here, I borrow from Jain (1999) who similarly
views disabled bodies or bodies “dubbed as not fully
whole” through these “richly intertwined (and ulti-
mately inseparable) axes of identity.” Only instead of
socioeconomic status, Jain’s focus on prostheses draws
her to “another category that considers identity as cor-
relate to technology” (32).
11. See Crenshaw, Kimberlé, ed. 1995. Critical Race The-
ory. New York: New Press.
See also Lorde, Audre. 1984. Sister Outsider: Essays
and Speeches. Crossing Press Feminist Series. Truman-
sburg, NY: Crossing Press.
12. For the gang as mobsters see: Adler, Jeffrey S. 2006.
First in Violence, Deepest in Dirt: Homicide in Chi-
cago, 1875–1920. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Univer-
sity Press. Asbury, Herbert. [1940] 2002. The Gangs of
Chicago: An Informal History of the Chicago Under-
world. New York: Thunder Mouth Press. For the gang
as petty criminals and juvenile delinquents see:
Thrasher, Frederic Milton. 1926 [1963]. The Gang: A
Study of 1,313 Gangs in Chicago. Abridged ed. Chi-
cago: University of Chicago Press. For the gang as sub-
stitute family units see: Decker, Scott H. and Barrik van
Winkle. 1996. Life in the Gang: Family, Friends, and
Violence. 1st ed.Cambridge University Press. For the
gang as religious groups see: Brotherton, David. 2004.
The Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation Street Poli-
tics and the Transformation of a New York City Gang.
New York: Columbia University Press. For the gang as
entrepreneurial drug-dealing cartels see: Venkatesh,
Sudhir Alladi. 2006. Off the Books: The Underground
Economy of the Urban Poor. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard
University Press.
13. Thrasher 1926, Klein 1995, Hayden 2004, Venkatesh
2006.
14. Venkatesh 2006.
15. Kleinman, Arthur and Joan Kleinman, “How Bodies
Remember: Social Memory and Bodily Experience of
Criticism, Resistance, and Delegitimation Following
China’s Cultural Revolution,” New Literary History 25
(1994): 710–711.
16. Frank, Arthur W. 1995. The Wounded Storyteller: Body,
Illness, and Ethics. 1st ed. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 50.
17. Frank 1995: 1.
18. Decker and Winkle 1996. For the geography of gang
territories, see: Jankowski, Martin Sanchez. 1991. Is-
lands in the Street: Gangs and American Urban Society.
Berkeley: University of California Press. For violence as
related to gang rivalries, see: Levitt and Venkatesh 2000.
“An Economic Analysis of a Drug-Selling Gang’s
NOTES
1. In accordance with the Internal Review Board protocol
for the University of Chicago (my institutional affi lia-
tion on when this research was conducted) I have
changed the names of people (i.e. “Justin and Kemo”),
gangs (i.e. “The Divine Knights”), institutions (i.e.
“Eastwood Hospital”) and specifi c neighborhoods (i.e.
“Eastwood”) throughout this study.
2. The Divine Knight gang is split into segments, referred to
by gang members as “sets.” There are currently eight
gang sets of the Divine Knight gang dispersed throughout
Chicago. These sub-groups are overwhelmingly male
and African American. Of this membership, crews of 4 to
6 members serve as “foot soldiers,” responsible for street
level dealing in open-air markets. Approximately 8–10
members fulfi ll other drug-related duties (i.e., runners,
muscle, treasurers) (c.f. Levitt and Venkatesh 2000). The
rest of the affi liates may or may not have an explicit con-
nection to the gang’s drug distribution network. For
them, the gang is primarily a social group.
Levitt, Steven D., and Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh. 2000.
“An Economic Analysis of a Drug-Selling Gang’s
Finances
*
.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 115 (3):
755–789.
3. These statistics are from the Annual Crime Statistics
released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in
May 2010.
4. See Muhammad, Khalil Gibran. 2010. The Condemna-
tion of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Mod-
ern Urban America. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard
University Press. See also Parenti, Christian. 1999.
Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of
Crisis. London: Verso.
5. For an early critique of biologically based theories of
innate dysfunction, see: Boas, Franz. 1910. Changes in
Bodily Form of Descendants of Immigrants. Washing-
ton, D.C.: United States Immigration Commission. For
a prominent example of a “culture of poverty” thesis,
see: Moynihan, Daniel Patrick. 1965. The Negro
Family: The Case for National Action. Washington,
D.C.: Offi ce of Policy Planning and Research, U.S.
Department of Labor.
6. Linton, Simi. 1998. Claiming Disability: Knowledge
and Identity. New York: New York University Press.
7. Berger, Ronald and Melvin Juette. 2008. Wheelchair
Warrior: Gangs, Disability, and Basketball. Philadel-
phia: Temple University Press.
See also Siebers, Tobin Anthony 2008. Disability
Theory. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
8. Berger and Juette 2008: 10.
9. For a similar critique see Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie.
2009. Staring: How We Look. New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press.
READING 19: What Wounds Enable: The Politics of Disability and Violence in Chicago 175
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176 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
small group of visual people (Bahan, 2004; Padden
& Humphries, 1988) who use a natural visual-
gestural language and who are often confused with
the larger group who view themselves as hearing
impaired and use a spoken language in its spoken or
written form. To acknowledge this contrast, often
signaled in the scholarly literature by capital-D
Deaf versus small-d deaf , is not to deny that there is
a gray area between the two; for example, some
hard-of-hearing people are active in the American
Deaf-World; others are not. Oral deaf adults and
late-deafened adults usually consider that they have
a hearing impairment and do not self-identify as
members of the Deaf-World.
This article is concerned exclusively with the
smaller group, the Deaf-World. It aims to show that
the Deaf-World qualifi es as an ethnic group, and that
an unsuitable construction of the Deaf-World as a
disability group has led to programs of the majority
that aim to discourage Deaf children from participat-
ing in the Deaf-World (programs such as oral educa-
tion and cochlear implant surgery) and that aim to
reduce the number of Deaf births, programs that are
unethical from an ethnic group perspective. In other
words, this article makes the case that our ethical
standards for the majority’s treatment of Deaf people
depend, not surprisingly, on whether our representa-
tion of the Deaf-World is that of a disability group on
the one hand or an ethnic group on the other.
THE DEAF-WORLD IS AN
ETHNIC GROUP
Internal Properties
Table 1 shows the criteria that have been advanced
by social scientists for characterizing a social group
as an ethnic group.
Collective Name
The members of this group have a collective name
in their manual-visual language by which they refer
to themselves. We refer to them by that name in
adopting the English gloss of their compound sign:
the Deaf-World .
Finances.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 115, no. 3:
755–789.
19. Though not a central concern of this paper, I use
Marcus’ description of his neighborhood, and the rec-
ollections of his mother’s warnings, to gesture towards
the fact that it is one’s family members-oftentimes,
those who condemn gang lite the most-who become
the primary caretakers for black urban youth who are
disabled (Devlieger et al. 2007). Devlieger, Patrick J.,
Gary L. Albrecht, and Miram Hertz. 2007. The pro-
duction of disabilty culture among young African-
American men. Social Science & Medicine 64, no. 9
(May): 1948–1959.
R E A D I N G 2 0
Ethnicity, Ethics, and the
Deaf-World
Harlan Lane
It has become widely known that there is a Deaf-
World in the United States, as in other nations, citi-
zens whose primary language is American Sign
Language (ASL) and who identify as members of
that minority culture. The size of the population is
not known, but estimates generally range from half
a million to a million members (Schein, 1989). The
English terms deaf and hearing impaired are com-
monly used to designate a much larger and more
heterogeneous group than the members of the Deaf-
World. Most of the 20 million Americans (Binnie,
1994) who are in this larger group had conventional
schooling and became deaf after acculturation to
hearing society; they communicate primarily in
English or one of the spoken minority languages;
they generally do not have Deaf spouses; they do
not identify themselves as members of the Deaf-
World or use its language, participate in its organi-
zations, profess its values, or behave in accord with
its mores; rather, they consider themselves hearing
people with a disability. Something similar is true
of most nations: There is a Deaf-World, a relatively
Harlan Lane is a professor of psychology at Northeastern
University.
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READING 20: Ethnicity, Ethics, and the Deaf-World 177
marriage, in gaining status by enhancing the group
and acknowledging its contributions, in the giving
of culturally related names, in consensual decision
making, in defi ning oneself in relation to the cul-
ture, in distributed indebtedness, in the priority
given to evidence that arises from experience as a
member of the culture, in treasuring the language
of the Deaf-World, and in promoting among
Deaf  people dissemination of culturally salient
information (cf., Lane, 2004a; Mindess, 1999;
T. Smith, 1997).
Knowledge
Deaf people have culture-specifi c knowledge, such
as who their leaders are (and their characteristics);
the concerns of rank-and-fi le members of the Deaf-
World; important events in Deaf history; how to
manage trying situations with hearing people.
Knowing when and with whom to use ASL and
when to use English- marked varieties of sign lan-
guage is an important part of being recognized as
Deaf (Johnson & Erting, 1989).
Customs
The Deaf-World has its own ways of doing intro-
ductions and departures, of taking turns in a con-
versation, of speaking frankly and of speaking
politely; it has its own taboos.
Social Structure
There are numerous organizations in the American
Deaf-World: athletic, social, political, literary, reli-
gious, fraternal, and many more (Lane, Hoffmeister,
& Bahan, 1996). As with many ethnic minorities,
there are charismatic leaders who are felt to em-
body the unique characteristics of the whole ethnic
group (A. D. Smith, 1986).
Language
“The mother tongue is an aspect of the soul of a
people. It is their achievement par excellence. Lan-
guage is the surest way for individuals to safeguard
or recover the authenticity they inherited from their
Feeling of Community
Self-recognition, and recognition by others, is a
central feature of ethnicity (Barth, 1969; A. D. Smith,
1986). Americans in the Deaf-World do indeed
feel a strong identifi cation with that world and
show great loyalty to it. This is not surprising: The
Deaf-World offers many Deaf Americans what
they could not fi nd at home: easy communication,
a positive identity a surrogate family. The Deaf-
World has the highest rate of endogamous mar-
riages of any ethnic group—an estimated 90%
(Schein, 1989).
Norms for Behavior
In Deaf culture, there are norms for relating to the
Deaf-World: for decision making, consensus is the
rule, not individual initiative; for managing infor-
mation; for constructing discourse; for gaining
status; for managing indebtedness; and many more
such rules. Cultural rules are not honored all the
time by everyone any more than are linguistic
rules. Such rules tell what you must know as a
member of a particular linguistic and cultural
group; what one actually does or says depends on
a host of intervening factors, including other rules
that have priority.
Distinct Values
The underlying values of an ethnic group can often
be inferred from cultural norms. A value that
appears to be fundamental in the Deaf-World is al-
legiance to the culture, which is expressed in priz-
ing one’s relation to the Deaf-World, in endogamous
TA B L E 1
PROPERTIES OF ETHNIC GROUPS: DISTINCT
Collective name Customs
Feeling of community Social structure
Norms for behavior Language
Values Art forms
Knowledge History
Kinship
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178 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
limited in their ability to communicate with one
another. In this, they are like Diaspora groups, such
as the Jews. And, like the Diaspora ethnic minori-
ties worldwide, prejudice and discrimination in
the  host society encourage them to cultivate their
ethnicity to maintain their dignity despite social
marginalization.
Some scholars maintain that the core of ethnic-
ity lies in the cultural properties we have examined,
so kinship is not necessary for the Deaf-World or
any other group to qualify as an ethnic group
(Barth, 1969; Petersen, 1980; Schneider, 1972;
Sollors, 2001). Others say kinship should be taken
in its social meaning as “those to whom we owe
primary solidarity” (Schneider, 1969). “ Ethnie em-
body the sense of being a large unique family; the
members feel knit to one another and so committed
to the cultural heritage, which is the family’s in-
heritance” (A. D. Smith, 1986, p. 49). What is in-
volved is a sense of tribal belonging, not necessarily
genetic and blood ties. Certainly, there is a strong
sense of solidarity in the Deaf-World; the metaphor
of family goes far in characterizing many Deaf-
World norms and practices.
What kinship is really about, other scholars
contend, is a link to the past; it is about “intergen-
erational continuity” (Fishman, 1989). The Deaf-
World does pass its norms, knowledge, language,
and values from one generation to the next: fi rst
through socialization of the child by Deaf adults
(parent or other) and second through peer social-
ization. Here, however, there is a signifi cant differ-
ence from other ethnic groups: For many Deaf
children, socialization into Deaf culture starts late,
usually when the Deaf child meets other Deaf chil-
dren in school (Johnson & Erting, 1989). Mem-
bers of the Deaf-World have a great handicap and
a great advantage when it comes to intergenera-
tional continuity. The handicap is that their hear-
ing parents usually have a different ethnocultural
identity that, lacking a shared language, they can-
not pass on to their children. Moreover, they com-
monly do not advocate in the schools, community,
courts, and so on for their Deaf child’s primary
language. Minority languages without parental
ancestors as well as to hand it on to generations yet
unborn” (Fishman, 1989, p. 276). Competence in
ASL is a hallmark of Deaf ethnicity in the United
States and some other parts of North America.
A  language not based on sound is the primary
element that sharply demarcates the Deaf-World
from the engulfi ng hearing society.
The Arts
First, the language arts: ASL narratives, storytell-
ing, oratory, humor, tall tales, word play, panto-
mime, and poetry. Theatre arts and the visual arts
also address Deaf culture and experience.
History
Ethnic groups construct rootedness, with forms of
expression that include history, territory and gene-
alogy. The Deaf-World has a rich history recounted
in stories, books, fi lms, and the like. Members of
the Deaf-World have a particular interest in their
history for “[T]he past is a resource in the collective
quest for meaning [and ethnic identity]” (Nagel,
1994, p. 163). A sense of common history unites
successive generations (Fishman, 1982, 1989;
A. D. Smith, 1986).
Kinship
Many ethnic groups have a belief in the land of their
ancestors. However, “territory is relevant not because
it is actually possessed but because of an alleged and
felt connection. The land of dreams is far more sig-
nifi cant than any actual terrain” (A. D. Smith, 1986,
p. 34). Land that the Deaf-World in the United States
has traditionally felt an attachment to includes the
residential schools; Deaf travel is often planned
around visits to some of those schools. There is a
Deaf utopian vision of “a land of our own” ex-
pressed in folk tales, novels, journalism, theater,
and political discussions (Bullard, 1986; Lane,
1984; Levesque, 1994; Van Cleve & Crouch, 1989;
Winzer, 1986). Deaf-Worlds are to be found around
the globe, and when Deaf members from two dif-
ferent cultures meet, they feel a strong bond al-
though they share no common territory and are
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READING 20: Ethnicity, Ethics, and the Deaf-World 179
Many scholars in the fi eld of ethnicity believe
that these “internal” properties of the ethnic group
just reviewed must also be accompanied by an “ex-
ternal” property a boundary separating the minority
from other ethnicities, in particular, the majority
ethnicity (Barth, 1969). Does the Deaf-World in the
United States occupy its own ecological niche?
Does it look to itself for the satisfaction of certain
needs, while looking to the larger society for the
satisfaction of other needs—and conversely?
Ethnic Boundaries
Table 2 shows, at the left, activities that are pri-
marily conducted by Deaf people for Deaf people
in the Deaf-World in the United States; at the
right, activities in the hearing world that impact
Deaf people; and in the middle, areas of overlap.
The more Deaf people celebrate their language
and culture, the more they affi rm their distinct
identity, the more they reinforce the boundary de-
lineating them from the hearing world. Language
comes fi rst for it always plays a powerful role in
maintaining ethnic boundaries, but especially so
in the case of Deaf people because bearing people
are rarely fl uent in visual language and members
of the Deaf-World are rarely fl uent in spoken lan-
guage. Next, Deaf-World social activities are
and community support are normally endangered.
The great advantage of the Deaf-World lies in the
fact that there will always be intergenerational
continuity for sign language because there will al-
ways be visual people who take possession of that
language in preference to any other and with it the
wisdom and values of generations of Deaf people
before them. (Although one can imagine an inter-
vention in the future that would provide high-
fi delity hearing to Deaf children and thus threaten
intergenerational continuity, it seems likely that
most countries will not be able to afford it, and
that most Deaf parents will continue to refuse such
interventions with their Deaf children.)
When we think of kinship, yet other scholars
maintain, what is at stake is common ancestors,
what Joshua Fishman (1977) termed paternity—
real or putative biological connections across gen-
erations. Johnson and Erting (1989) suggested that
what is primary in this biological criterion for kin-
ship is not genealogy but biological resemblance
across generations. In that case, members of the
Deaf-World are kin because Deaf people resemble
one another biologically in their reliance on vision
for language and for much else (Johnson & Erting,
1989). To some extent, like the members of many
other ethnic groups, Deaf people come by their bio-
logical resemblance through heredity more often
than not. The estimate commonly cited is 50% of
all people born deaf with little or no usable hearing
are so for hereditary reasons (Reardon et al., 1992).
However, another 20% are Deaf for reasons un-
known; many of those may be hereditarily Deaf
people not aware of the role of their ancestry
(S. Smith, 1995).
To summarize in the words of social scientist
Arthur Smith
By involving a collective name, by the use of sym-
bolic images of community, by the generation of ste-
reotypes of the community and its foes, by the ritual
performance and rehearsal of ceremonies, by the
communal recitation of past deeds and ancient hero’s
exploits, men and women partake of a collectivity and
its historic fate which transcend their individual exis-
tences. (A. D. Smith, 1986, p. 46)
TA B L E 2
DEAF-WORLD—HEARING WORLD BOUNDARIES
Deaf-World Overlap Hearing world
Sign language
Social activities
Sign language
teaching
Political
activities
Athletics
Arts and leisure
Finding
employment
Publishing
Interpreter services
Religious services
Consumer goods
and services
Deaf history
Deaf education
Deaf service
agencies
Spoken language
Law enforcement
Employment
(not Deaf related)
Military services
Garbage collection
Medical care
Banking
Transportation
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180 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
people to help them (alcoholism counselors, psy-
chologists, psychiatrists, and others) and special
facilities to care for them, such as detox centers.
However, this understanding of alcoholism dates
from the latter half of the 20th century. In the fi rst
half, the temperance movement branded excessive
drinking as voluntary, and the movement promoted
not treatment but prohibition. With the shift in the
construction of alcoholism from illegal (and im-
moral) behavior to illness, the need was for medical
research and treatment, halfway houses, hospital
wards, outpatient clinics, and specialized hospitals
(Gusfi eld, 1982).
Homosexuality went from moral fl aw, to crime,
to treatable disability, to a minority group seeking
civil rights (Conrad & Schneider, 1980). Shortness
came to be seen as a disability of childhood, not a
normal variation, when growth enzyme was discov-
ered, not before (Downie et al., 1996; Werth, 1991).
Mild mental retardation came to be seen as a dis-
ability, not merely normal human variation in intel-
lect, with the arrival of the IQ test (Gelb, 1987). In
societies in which sign language use is mostly re-
stricted to Deaf people, hearing people commonly
see being Deaf as a serious problem requiring pro-
fessional intervention; but in societies in which
sign language use is widespread because of a sub-
stantial Deaf population—on Martha’s Vineyard
and Bali, for example—being Deaf is simply seen
as a trait, not a disability (Lane, Pillard, & French,
2000).
The case of the forest dwellers of Central Africa
is instructive. Their short stature, some 4.5 feet on
average, allows them modest caloric requirements,
easy and rapid passage through dense jungle cover
in search of game, and construction of small huts
rapidly disassembled and reassembled for self-
defense and hunting. The Bantu villagers, formerly
herdsmen, now farmers, have contempt for the pyg-
mies because of their puny size, and they in turn
have contempt for the villagers who are “clumsy as
elephants” in the forest, much too tall to move
swiftly and silently; they “do not know how to
walk” (Turnbull, 1962, p. 79). Each group considers
organized and conducted by Deaf people with
little or no hearing involvement. On the other
hand, law enforcement is a hearing world activity.
Religious services overlap the Deaf and hearing
worlds; there are missions to the Deaf, Deaf pas-
tors, and signed services, but the operation of the
house of worship is generally in hearing hands.
All in all, the Deaf-World keeps to itself for many
of its activities; it collaborates in a few with the
hearing world; and it leaves the really broad re-
sponsibilities such as law enforcement to the
larger society; in this, it is like other ethnic groups,
such as Hispanic Americans.
This brief survey is intended to show that the
Deaf-World in the United States today meets the
criteria put forth for ethnic groups (also see Erting,
1978, 1982; Johnson & Erting, 1979, 1982, 1984,
1989; Markowicz & Woodward, 1978; Padden &
Markowicz, 1976). Classifying the Deaf-World as
an ethnic group should encourage those who are
concerned with Deaf people to do appropriate
things: learn their language, defend their heritage
against more powerful groups, study their ethnic
history; and so on. In this light, the Deaf-World
should enjoy the rights and protections accorded
other ethnic groups under international law and
treaties, such as the United Nations Declaration
of the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or
Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities (United
Nations, 2003a).
REASONS ADVANCED TO
VIEW THE DEAF-WORLD
AS A DISABILITY GROUP
Is it also appropriate to label the Deaf-World a dis-
ability group? We do not ask whether Deaf people
in fact have a disability because it is not a matter of
fact: Disability, like ethnicity, is a social construct,
not a fact of life, although it is a property of such
constructs that they appear misleadingly to be a fact
of life. For example, the social problem of alcohol-
ism evidently consists of this: Many Americans suf-
fer from alcoholism; there are specially trained
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READING 20: Ethnicity, Ethics, and the Deaf-World 181
job when the job requires good English; they miss
out on important information because it has not
been provided in their language.
Still, say the Deaf-are-disabled advocates, why
not acknowledge the many things that physically
different people share by using a common label
(Baynton, 2002). After all, some disability activists
make a claim for disability culture, just as there is a
Deaf culture; many oppose mainstreaming, as do
many Deaf activists. Both groups pay the price of
social stigma, and stigmatized groups—among
them disabled people, blacks, women, gays, and the
Deaf—are often claimed to be biologically inferior.
Moreover, both the Deaf-World and disability
groups struggle with the troubled-persons indus-
tries for control of their destiny (Gusfi eld, 1984).
Both endeavor to promote their construction of
their identity in competition with the efforts of
professionals to promote their constructions
(Finkelstein, 1981). Finally, because there are great
differences among disability groups, accommodat-
ing one more with its unique issues need not be a
problem.
At one level, oppressed minorities do indeed
share important traits and a common struggle for
the defense and valuing of their diversity. At that
level, disabled people, blacks, women, gays, the
Deaf, and other language minorities can inform and
reinforce one another’s efforts. They can promote
an understanding of the value of diversity, learn
successful strategies from one another, and use
their combined numbers to urge government in the
right directions. At another level, however, many
practical truths apply only to individual minorities,
with their own makeup, demographics, histories,
and cultures. To minimize that diversity with the
same global representation would undermine the
most cherished goal of each group: to be respected
and valued for its difference. After all, beyond
being stigmatized because of their physical differ-
ence, what, practically speaking, do the Deaf have
in common with gays, women, blacks, Little
People, and people with mobility impairment, for
example? Deaf people have been subject to the
the other handicapped by their physical size. Each
fails to appreciate how physical makeup, culture,
and environment are intertwined.
Despite all this evidence that disability is con-
structed in a given society at a given time, many
writers addressing ethics and Deaf people, appar-
ently unaware of disability studies and medical an-
thropology, simply adopt the naïve materialist view
when it comes to disability: “Almost by defi nition
deaf persons . . . have a disability” (Gonsoulin,
2001, p. 554). “I maintain that the inability to hear
is a defi cit, a disability, a lack of perfect health”
(D. S. Davis, 1997, p. 254). And, their ethical con-
clusions turn on this postulate. We understand,
however, that disability is a label that can be applied
with more or with less aptness to a particular group.
That application is not a matter of chance, even less
is it foreordained; it is powerfully infl uenced by the
“technologies of normalization” (Foucault, 1980,
p.  21) that exist to mitigate what is seen as a dis-
ability for they have a great stake in retaining that
conception of the group. In the next section, argu-
ments that have been made for including members
of the Deaf-World among disability groups are
examined critically.
Oppression from Deaf Bodies
Advocates of classifying Deaf people with disabil-
ity groups claim that Deaf people have this in com-
mon with people who avowedly have disabilities:
They are discriminated against because general
social customs do not accommodate their bodies.
Deaf people are indeed discriminated against in
school, on the job, and in gaining access, but it is
much more their language that is the target of dis-
crimination than their bodies: “The major impact of
deafness is on communication” (Baynton, 2000,
p.  391). Thus, the Deaf are more like oppressed
language minorities than oppressed disability
groups. Like many Hispanic Americans, for exam-
ple, many Deaf people have diffi culty learning in
school because the teacher cannot communicate
with them fl uently; they have diffi culty getting a
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182 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
that society and government or surrender some of
those rights in the hope of gradually undermining
that misconstruction. This dilemma is reminiscent
of similarly oppressive choices offered to other
minority groups: for gays to embrace the disability
label and be spared classifi cation as a criminal and
entry into the army; for women to conform to the
masculine idea of the feminine ideal and gain men’s
support and approval.
In principle, it should be possible for members
of the Deaf-World in the United States to base their
demand for language access on existing legislation
and court rulings protecting language minorities.
For example, in the fi eld of education, the U.S.
Congress has passed two types of statutes to rem-
edy the disadvantage experienced by language-mi-
nority students who cannot communicate freely in
the classroom by using their primary language: the
Bilingual Education Act (P.L. 89–10, Title VII,
1965), which provides funding for a variety of pro-
grams promoting the use of minority languages in
the schools, and civil rights statutes (P.L. 88–352,
Title VI, 1964; P.L. 93–380, 1974), which impose
an affi rmative duty on the schools to give children
who speak a minority language an equal educa-
tional opportunity by lowering the English lan-
guage barriers. The provision of language rights in
Deaf education should bring with it appropriate
school curricula and materials, teachers who are
ethnic models, interpreters, real television access
through sign language, and video-telephone com-
munication. But, in practice that would require that
the public come to understand the Deaf-World as
the Deaf-World understands itself. Until this hap-
pens, the Deaf-World can expect scant support from
other ethnic groups.
Among the obstacles to a change from the dis-
ability to the ethnic construction of Deaf people are
the numerous professional organizations predicated
on the disability construction and who wish to own
the problem of Deaf children. “To ‘own’ a social
problem is to possess the authority to name that so-
cial condition a problem and to suggest what might
be done about it” (Gusfi eld, 1989, p. 433). Consider
just two of the many organizations that have Deaf
globalizing disability label, and it has widely led to
the wrong questions and the wrong answers, which
are considered later in this article under reasons to
reject it. This is the pragmatic answer to disability
scholar Lennard Davis’s proposal that Deaf people
abandon the category of ethnicity in favor of a co-
alition with gays, hearing children with Deaf par-
ents, and people with disabilities (L. Davis, 2002):
Their agendas are utterly different.
The Shared Struggle for Rights
Another argument advanced for Deaf people to
embrace the disability label is that it might assist
them in gaining more of their rights (Baynton,
2002). For example, interpreters are not normally
provided in the classroom for members of ethnic
groups; Deaf people have them in many places
under a disability umbrella. However, much that is
important to Deaf people has come through an un-
derstanding of the Deaf-World as an ethnic group.
Let us cite the burgeoning of ASL in high schools
and colleges in the United States and the increasing
acceptance of ASL classes in fulfi llment of the for-
eign language and culture requirement; the mush-
rooming of scholarship in the last 40 years
concerning Deaf ethnicity—history, arts, social
structure, culture, and language; the fl ourishing of
the interpreting profession; the development of the
discipline of Deaf studies; bilingual bicultural Deaf
education; the growing community of nations that
formally recognize their national sign language. All
these gains refl ect an understanding of the Deaf as
an ethnic group.
Although the disability label seems inappropri-
ate for the Deaf-World, its members have not
aggressively promoted governmental understand-
ing of its ethnicity and of the poor fi t of the disabil-
ity label. As a result, the majority’s accommodation
of the Deaf has come under a disability label, and
Deaf people must in effect subscribe to that label to
gain their rights in access to information, in educa-
tion, and in other areas. This is the Deaf dilemma:
retain some important rights as members of their
society at the expense of being mischaracterized by
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READING 20: Ethnicity, Ethics, and the Deaf-World 183
their families, and the wider society (Conrad &
Schneider, 1980).
When Gallaudet University’s president, I. King
Jordan, was asked on the television program Sixty
Minutes if he would like to be hearing, he replied:
“That’s almost like asking a black person if he
would rather be white . . . I don’t think of myself as
missing something or as incomplete. . . . It’s a com-
mon fallacy if you don’t know Deaf people or Deaf
issues. You think it’s a limitation” (Fine & Fine,
1990). Deaf scholars like I. King Jordan, Tom
Humphries, and MJ Bienvenu in the United States
and Paddy Ladd in England are not rejecting the
disability label because they want to avoid stigma
associated with disability (Ladd, 2003). That would
be to give them little credit. Rather, they are reject-
ing it because, as Tom Humphries has said so well,
“It doesn’t compute” (1993, pp. 6, 14). In ASL, the
sign with a semantic fi eld that most overlaps that of
the English “disability” can be glossed in English
LIMP-BLIND-ETC. I have asked numerous Deaf
informants to give me examples from that category:
They have responded by citing people in wheel-
chairs, blind people, mentally retarded people, and
people with cerebral palsy, among others, but no
informant has ever listed Deaf, and all reject it as an
example of a disability group when asked.
Further examples of how the disability label
does not compute come from Deaf preferences in
marriage and childbearing. Like the members of
many ethnic groups, culturally Deaf people prefer
to socialize with and to marry other members of
their cultural group; as noted, the Deaf have one of
the highest endogamous marriage rates of any eth-
nic group (Schein, 1989). When it comes to Deaf
preferences in childbearing, there are no hard
statistics, but in interviews with the press and
with  me, Deaf parents have expressed a wish for
children like themselves—much as all parents do
who do not see themselves as disabled. “I want my
daughter to be like me, to be Deaf,” one expectant
Deaf mother declared in an interview with the
Boston Globe . She explained that she came from a
large Deaf family, all of whom had hoped that her
baby would be born Deaf (Saltus, 1989; also see
children as clients. The American Academy of
Otolaryngology, with over 10,000 members, has
registered two paid lobbyists in Washington; the
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association,
with l15,925 members, has three (http://sopr.senate
.gov). Members of these organizations collaborate
with government offi cials in approving treatments,
in drawing up legislation, and in evaluating pro-
posed research and training activities. The Deaf-
World has none of these advantages in seeking to
promote an ethnic understanding of being Deaf.
FOUR REASONS TO REJECT
THE DISABILITY LABEL
It “Doesn’t Compute”
The overwhelming reason to reject the view of cul-
turally Deaf people as members of a disability
group concerns how Deaf people see themselves.
People who have grown up Deaf and have become
integrated into Deaf culture are naturally aware of
their biological difference, but they do not, as a
rule, see in that difference a reason to consider
them members of a disability group. This is a very
strong argument for rejecting the disability label
because there is no higher authority on how a group
should be regarded than the members of the group
themselves. Some writers, convinced that the Deaf
have a disability and baffl ed by their refusal to ac-
knowledge it, conclude that Deaf people are sim-
ply denying the truth of their disability to avoid
stigma (Baynton, 2002; Finkelstein, 1991; Gon-
soulin, 2001). But, many people have, like the
Deaf, physical differences that are not accommo-
dated (Zola, 1993)—relatively short and tall
people, for example—and they also deny they have
a disability. Surely, in doing so they are not simply
trying to avoid stigma. The gender preferences of
gay men and women were at one time viewed as an
expression of mental illness. In rejecting that dis-
ability categorization, the gay rights movement
was not simply trying to avoid a stigma; it was try-
ing instead to promote a new representation of gay
men and women that would be better for them,
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184 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
when their bodies differ from their parents in im-
portant ways that age alone does not explain. Par-
ents want children like themselves, and if they are
signifi cantly unlike, they will listen to the doctors
who say they can reduce or eliminate the differ-
ence, sometimes harming the child in the process.
It is very tempting to locate the source of the so-
cial stigma with the child rather than the society;
after all, the child is right there and much more
manageable than an entire society. Moreover,
the technologies of normalization are knocking at
the door. However, the medicalization of differ-
ence defl ects us from the real issue, which is the
stigmatizing of difference in our society. When
children who have undergone surgical normaliz-
ing become adults, many decry what was done to
them as children.
For example, it has been the practice in the
United States to operate on children with ambigu-
ous genitalia, most often carving a vagina in
male children because the surgical methods are not
available to create a suitable penis. Once grown to
adulthood, these and other intersexuals have been
campaigning to dissuade urologists from continu-
ing to perform this maiming surgery on children
(Dreger, 1998). Little People, when their parents
are not dwarfs, are frequently subjected as children
to bone-breaking surgery for limb lengthening. It is
painful, it is risky, and it is incapacitating. At best,
it places the child in a no-man’s land, neither short
as a dwarf nor average size, and most adult dwarfs
are utterly opposed to the surgery (Kennedy, 2003).
There are many more victims of the medical-
surgical imperative. One thinks of the horrors
visited on the mentally ill, like frontal lobotomy
(Valenstein, 1986), and those visited on homosexu-
als, such as deconditioning (Conrad & Schneider,
1980). Not all medical intervention in social issues
is bad, of course; sometimes, it serves us well, and
it derives great prestige from doing so. That is just
why it overreaches at times and why we have to be
wary of its abuse.
Cochlear Implant Surgery. Now to label
the Deaf child as having a disability places that
Mills, 2002). Other expectant Deaf parents report-
edly say it will be fi ne either way, Deaf or hearing.
These views contrast sharply with the tendency of
disability groups. A study of blind people, for ex-
ample, reported that they tend to shun the company
of other blind people, associate with each other
only when there are specifi c reasons for doing so,
seek sighted mates, and do not wish to transmit
their blindness to their children (Deshen, 1992).
Leaders of the disability rights movement call for
ambivalence: They want their physical difference
valued, as a part of who they are; at the same time,
they do not wish to see more children and adults
with disabilities in the world (Abberley, 1987;
Lane, 1995).
We should not be surprised that Deaf people
want Deaf spouses, welcome Deaf children, and
prefer to be together with other culturally Deaf
people—in clubs, in school, at work if possible, in
leisure activities, in political action, in sports, and
so on—in short, they see being Deaf as an inherent
good. Do not ethnic groups characteristically value
their physical difference, from the pygmies of the
Iturbi forest in Central Africa to the tall pale inhab-
itants of, say, Finland? Of course they do, so it is
perfectly expected that culturally Deaf people posi-
tively value the Deaf difference and that hearing
folks fi nd in their own cultures a preference for
hearing bodies, despite their poorer performance on
some visual processing tasks compared to the Deaf
(Lane, 2004a).
Thus, embracing the disability label in hopes it
might assist Deaf people in gaining more of their
rights is fundamentally fl awed because Deaf people
do not believe it. For Deaf people to surrender any-
way to how others defi ne them is to misrepresent
themselves, and that is the fi rst reason to reject the
disability label.
Greater Risk for the Deaf Child
There are many penalties for misrepresenting, for
allowing the disability label. An important penalty
concerns the risk to the Deaf child. It appears that
children are at greater medical and surgical risk
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READING 20: Ethnicity, Ethics, and the Deaf-World 185
surgical team commonly urge oral educational
programs on the parents and discourage sign lan-
guage use (Tye-Murray, 1992). If implanted chil-
dren are unable to learn spoken English and are
prevented from mastering ASL, they will remain
languageless for many years. Developmental mile-
stones for signed languages are similar to those for
spoken languages, and the later the acquisition
of  ASL, the poorer its mastery on the average
(Mayberry & Eichen, 1991; Newport, 1990;
Petitto, 1993). It is inexcusable to leave a child
without fl uent language for years on end. Medi-
cine is coming to realize that it is the overall qual-
ity of life of the person and not just the concerned
organ that must be considered (Reisenberg &
Glass, 1989).
Dubious Benefi ts. Advocates for childhood
implantation acknowledge that “implants do not
restore normal hearing,” and that, after the opera-
tion, “long-term habilitation continues to be essen-
tial” (Balkany et al., 2002, p. 356). According to
a recent report, 59% of implanted children are
judged by their parents to be behind their hearing
peers in reading, and 37% are behind in math
(Christiansen & Leigh, 2004). It seems unlikely
these children will be full-fl edged members of the
hearing world (Lane, 1999; Lane & Bahan, 1998).
We know that early acquisition of ASL facilitates
later mastery of English (Padden & Ramsey, 2000;
Strong & Prinz, 1997). This linguistic intervention
might deliver greater English mastery than implant
surgery; the comparison study has not been done.
On the contrary, every study that has compared the
performance of children with cochlear implants to
an unimplanted control group employed controls
that apparently had not mastered any language
(see,  for example, the literature review in Geers,
Nicholas, & Sedey, 2003). . . .
If medical and surgical procedures used with
children who are Deaf, or intersexuals, or dwarfs
required informed consent from adults like the
child, they would almost never take place. And,
when the parents are like the child, in fact they
rarely take place. . . .
child at risk for interventions like cochlear
implant surgery. Cochlear implant surgery lasts
about 3.5  hours under general anesthesia and
requires hospitalization from 2 to 4 days. A
broad, crescent-shaped incision is made behind
the operated ear, and the skin fl ap is elevated. A
piece of temporalis muscle is removed. A
depression is drilled in the skull and reamed to
make a seat for the internal electrical coil of the
cochlear implant. A section of the mastoid bone
is removed to expose the middle ear cavity. Fur-
ther drilling exposes the membrane of the round
window on the inner ear. Observing the proce-
dure under a microscope, the surgeon pierces
the membrane. A wire about 18mm long is
pushed through the opening. The wire seeks its
own path as it moves around and up the coiled
inner ear. The microstructure of the inner ear is
destroyed; if there was any residual hearing in
the ear, it is likely destroyed as well. The audi-
tory nerve itself is unlikely to be damaged, how-
ever, and the implant stimulates the auditory
nerve directly. The internal coil is then sutured
into place. Finally, the skin is sewn back over
the coil.
Clear Risks. The surgery and general anesthe-
sia entail medical and surgical risks. The incidence
of bacterial meningitis in implanted children is
30  times higher than in age-matched unimplanted
children (Daneshi et al., 2000; Reefhuis et al.,
2003). Other risks include anesthesia risk (Svirsky,
Teoh, & Neuburger, 2004); loss of vestibular func-
tion (Huygen et al., 1995); cerebrospinal fl uid leak
(Reefhuis et al., 2003); facial nerve stimulation
and injury (Kelsall et al., 1997); and damage to
the carotid artery (Gastman et al., 2002). The sur-
gery can have fatal consequences (Jalbert, 2003).
Nine of ten candidates for pediatric implant sur-
gery, those with no or little usable hearing, were
born Deaf (Allen, Rawlings & Remington, 1994;
Center for Assessment, 1992). Such children rarely
receive the main benefi t sought: fl uency in a spo-
ken language (Lane & Bahan, 1998). Compound-
ing the harm, special educators who work with the
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186 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
environment” (1883, p. 46). Residential schools,
where most Deaf children acquired language, iden-
tity, and a life partner, should be closed and Deaf
people educated in small day schools. Sign lan-
guage should be banished; Deaf teachers fi red.
Bell’s Memoir received wide newspaper coverage.
Bell’s actions led many to believe that there would
be, or already were, laws prohibiting Deaf mar-
riage. There was much consternation among Deaf
people contemplating marriage. Some hearing par-
ents of Deaf children chose to have their children
sterilized (Mitchell, 1971).
A 1912 report from Bell’s eugenics section of
the Breeders’ Association cites his census of
blind  and Deaf persons and lists “socially unfi t”
classes to “be eliminated from the human stock”
(American Genetic Association, 1912, p. 3). The
model eugenic law called for the sterilization of
feebleminded, insane, criminalistic (“including the
delinquent and the wayward”), epileptic, inebriate,
diseased, blind, Deaf, deformed, and dependent
people (“including orphans, ne’er-do-wells, the
homeless, tramps, and paupers”). By the time of
World War I, 16 states in the United States had ster-
ilization laws in force. By 1940, 30 states had such
laws (Haller, 1963). Physicians were actively in-
volved in this eugenics movement (May & Hughes,
1987). . . .
Deaf Eugenics Today
Audiometric testing, labeling, special needs school-
ing, genetic research and counseling, surgery, and
reproductive control all are means of currently or
potentially exercising power over the Deaf body. In
1992, researchers at Boston University announced
that they had identifi ed the so-called genetic error
responsible for a common type of inherited deaf-
ness. The director of the National Institute on
Deafness and Other Communication Disorders
[sic] called the fi nding a “major breakthrough that
will improve diagnosis and genetic counseling and
ultimately lead to substitution therapy or gene
transfer therapy” (“BU Team,” 1992, p. 6; “Deaf-
ness gene,” 1992, p. 141). The goal of such efforts
Survival Risk for the Deaf-World
A third argument against the disability label for the
Deaf-World concerns the risk to the Deaf-World as
a whole if that representation prevails. A majority of
people in the Deaf-World have inherited their eth-
nicity. Deaf inheritance and a failure to understand
the ethnic status of culturally Deaf people have his-
torically and at present placed the Deaf-World in
jeopardy of ethnocide and even genocide. Despite
surgical and medical experiments on large numbers
of Deaf children in the 19th century, medicine made
no inroads against the Deaf-World as a whole. How-
ever, developments in biology in the late 19th cen-
tury gave rise to the eugenics movement, which
sought to improve the race and eliminate the Deaf-
World, among other groups considered undesirable,
by selective breeding. From the point of view of the
variety of humankind favored by selective breeding,
the practice is eugenic; from the point of view of the
varieties disfavored, it is genocidal.
The most famous advocate of regulating Deaf
marriage to reduce Deaf childbirth was one of the
founders of oral education in America, Alexander
Graham Bell, who devoted his great wealth and
prestige to these eugenic measures (Lane, 1984).
When the American Breeders Association created a
section on eugenics “to emphasize the value of
superior blood and the menace to society of inferior
blood,” Bell agreed to serve. He engaged the issue of
eugenics and the Deaf population beginning in the
l880s. Sign language and residential schools were
creating a Deaf community, he warned, in which
Deaf people intermarried and reproduced, a situa-
tion fraught with danger to the rest of society. He
sounded the alarm in his Memoir Upon the Forma-
tion of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race , presented
to the National Academy of Sciences in 1883. Be-
cause there are familial patterns of deafness, Bell
wrote, “It is to be feared that the intermarriage of
such persons would be attended by calamitous
results to their off-spring” (Bell, 1883, p. 11).
Bell argued, with breathtaking hubris, that to
avoid this calamity, we must “commence our efforts
on behalf of the deaf-mute by changing his social
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READING 20: Ethnicity, Ethics, and the Deaf-World 187
and Linguistic Minorities (United Nations, 2003a),
are founded on a belief in the value of protecting
minority cultures. The declaration calls on states to
foster their linguistic minorities and ensure that
children and adults have adequate opportunities to
learn the minority language. It further affi rms the
right of such minorities to enjoy their culture and
language and participate in decisions on the
national level that affect them. Programs that sub-
stantially diminish minority cultures are engaged
in  ethnocide and may constitute crimes against
humanity. . . .
Wrong Solutions
Because they are an ethnic group whose language
and mores were long disparaged, Deaf people com-
monly feel solidarity with other oppressed groups,
the more so as the Deaf-World includes such groups
as people with disabilities, seniors, women, blacks,
and so on. Deaf people have special reasons for
solidarity with hard-of-hearing and late-deafened
people; their combined numbers have created ser-
vices, commissions, and laws that the Deaf-World
alone probably could not have achieved. Solidarity,
yes, but when culturally Deaf people allow their
ethnic identity to be subsumed under the construct
of disability, they set themselves up for wrong solu-
tions and bitter disappointments. After all, mem-
bers of the Deaf-World differ from disabled people
in their language and cultural experience, in their
body of knowledge, in their system of rules and
values, and in their models for selfhood.
If the Deaf-World were to embrace a disability
identity, it would urge on Americans an understand-
ing from which grow solutions that Deaf people
oppose. Priorities of the disabilities rights move-
ment include better medical care, rehabilitation ser-
vices, and personal assistance services (Shapiro,
1993). Deaf people do not attach particular impor-
tance to any of these services and instead campaign
for acceptance of their language and better and
more interpreters. Whereas the disability rights
movement seeks independence for people with dis-
abilities, Deaf people cherish interdependence with
as gene transfer therapy is, of course, to reduce
Deaf births, ultimately altogether. Thus, a new form
of medical eugenics applied to Deaf people is envi-
sioned, in this case by an agency of the U.S. gov-
ernment The primary characteristics of Deaf people
with this particular genetic background to be elimi-
nated are numerous Deaf relatives, sign language
fl uency, facial features such as widely spaced eye-
brows, and coloring features such as white forelock
and freckling (Fraser, 1976).
Imagine the uproar if medical scientists trum-
peted a similar breakthrough for any other ethnic
minority, promising a reduction in that ethnic
group’s children—promising fewer Navajos, fewer
Jews, whatever the ethnic group. The Australian
government indeed undertook a decades-long eu-
genic program to eliminate its aboriginal peoples
by placing their children in white boarding houses
in the city, where it was hoped they would marry
white and have white children. In 1997, a govern-
ment commission of inquiry classifi ed these and
other measures as genocide (National Inquiry,
1997). Under international law, an activity that has
the foreseeable effect of diminishing or eradicating
a minority group, even if it is undertaken for other
reasons and is not highly effective, is guilty of
genocide (National Inquiry, 1997; United Nations,
2003b). Why do governments fail to apply this
moral principle and law to the Deaf? Americans fail
to see the danger of pursuing a genocidal program
in this instance because most Americans see Deaf
people as having a disability arising from an im-
pairment. And, the goal of eradicating a disability,
although it may be in some circumstances unwise
and unethical, is not seen as genocide.
If culturally Deaf people were understood to be
an ethnic group, they would have the protections
offered to such groups. It is widely held as an
ethical principle that the preservation of minority
cultures is a good. The variety of humankind and
cultures enriches all cultures and contributes to the
biological, social, and psychological well-being of
humankind. Laws and covenants, such as the
United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Per-
sons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious
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188 SECTION I: Constructing Categories of Difference
of a people. Native Americans were once seen as
savages; black Americans as property; women as
utterly dependent. The case for Deaf ethnicity built
by the social sciences is powerful. Increasingly, lin-
guists take account of ASL, sociologists of the so-
cial structure of the Deaf-World, historians of its
history, educators of its culture, and so on. It re-
mains to reform those other professions that have an
outdated understanding or a representation that suits
their agenda but not that of Deaf people. The chal-
lenge to the professions that seek to be of service to
Deaf children and adults is to replace the normativ-
ness of medicine with the curiosity of ethnography.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Is the ethnic group model of Deaf-World pref-
erable to the disability model as Lane con-
tends? What grounds should be used in making
that calculation?
2. Why hasn’t the ethnic group approach that
Lane recommends so far taken hold in pubic
policy or popular opinion?
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other Deaf people. These differences in values and
priorities far outweigh the areas, such as fi ghting
job discrimination, in which Deaf goals are poten-
tially advanced by joining ranks with disability
groups. . . .
This article has presented a case that the sign
language–using minority in the United States, the
Deaf-World, is best viewed as an ethnic group, and
it has cited reasons why it is inappropriate to view
the Deaf-World as a disability group: Deaf people
themselves do not believe they have a disability;
the  disability construction brings with it needless
medical and surgical risks for the Deaf child; it
also  endangers the future of the Deaf-World.
Finally, the disability construction brings bad
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All of these objections to the disability construc-
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group and a disability group at the same time. Tak-
ing up such a position would weaken the Deaf-World
claim on ethnicity (is there any other ethnic group
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troubling practices in which surgeons, scientists, and
educators are engaged—operating on healthy Deaf
children, seeking the means to diminish and ulti-
mately eradicate the Deaf-World, opposing the Deaf
child’s right to full and fl uent language—exist be-
cause this ethnic group is misunderstood as a dis-
ability group. They will not be avoided by affi rming,
contrary to the group’s own judgment, that it is a
disability group but also an ethnic group.
How we ultimately resolve these ethical issues
goes well beyond Deaf people; it will say a great
deal about what kind of society we are and the kind
of society in which we wish to live. Difference and
diversity not only have evolutionary signifi cance
but, I would argue, are a major part of what gives
life its richness and meaning; ethnic diversity is a
basic human good, and to choose to be with one’s
own kind is a fundamental right. There is reason for
hope: Society can adopt a different understanding
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Lane, H. (1995). Constructions of deafness. Disability and
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Lane, H. (2004a). A Deaf artist in early America: The worlds
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193
S E C T I O N I I
EXPERIENCING DIFFERENCE
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194 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
FRAMEWORK ESSAY
In the fi rst framework essay, we considered the social construction of difference
as master statuses were named, aggregated, dichotomized, and stigmatized. Now
we turn to experiencing these statuses. A story from a friend provides an illustra-
tion of what we mean by this. Many years ago, she and her husband had wanted
to see Men in Black when it opened in the theaters, but they had not been able
to fi nd a babysitter for their eight-year-old daughter. They had watched many
movies as a family and thought their daughter had a good understanding of the
difference between real and pretend, so they decided it would be all right to take
her with them to the show. They were wrong.
Our perception of the movie was that while there was plenty of action, it was defi nitely a com-
edy. The “alien monsters” were ridiculous to us, inspiring laughter or mild disgust like that of
a yucky bug you fi nd in your bathroom and fl ush down the toilet. Jenny, however, found the
movie to be scary and gross. It was beyond her ability to laugh away as something that was
“pretend.” She hid her eyes through 90 percent of the movie and did not agree with us that it
was funny. She talked for months about how scary it was and chastised us for letting her see it.
This story holds a small lesson about experiencing your social status. What we
notice in the world depends in large part on the statuses we occupy; in this way
we may be said to experience our social status. Jenny thought the movie was scary
both because of the unique person she is and because of her age, a master status.
Her parents did not see the movie that way for the same reasons. All experienced
the movie through their unique personalities and as people of certain ages.
Although we do not specifi cally address age in this book, it operates in ways
that are analogous to race, sex, class, sexuality, and disability. For example, being
young affects the way a person is treated in innumerable ways: at a minimum, it
restricts driving, employment, military enlistment, marriage, access to abortion,
admission to movies, and alcohol and cigarette consumption; being young yields
higher insurance rates and mandatory school attendance; youth also creates the
category of “status offenses” (acts that are illegal only for minors). In addition,
minors are excluded from voting and exercising other legal rights.
In these ways, those defi ned as “young” are treated differently from those who
are not so defi ned. Because of that treatment, those who are younger see the world
differently from those who are older and no longer operating within these con-
straints. The young notice things that older people need not notice, because they
are not subject to the same rules. Our experiences are tied to the statuses we occupy.
A different example of experiencing one’s status comes from the autobiography
of one of the fi rst black students in an exclusive white prep school. She recalls
what it was like to hear white students say, “It doesn’t matter to me if somebody’s
white or black or green or purple. I mean people are just people.” While she
appreciated the students’ intentions, she also heard her own real experience being
trivialized by comparison to the Muppets. Her status helps to explain what she
noticed in these conversations.
1

In all, you experience your social statuses; you live through them. They are
the fi lters through which you see and make sense of the world, and in large
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Framework Essay 195
measure they account for how you are treated and what you notice. In the sections
that follow, we will focus on the experiences of both privilege and stigma associ-
ated with master statuses.
THE EXPERIENCE OF PRIVILEGE
Just as status helps to explain what we notice, it also explains what we don’t
notice. In the following classroom discussion between a black and a white student,
the white student argues that because she and the black student are both female,
they should be allies. The black woman responds,
“When you wake up in the morning and look in the mirror, what do you see?”
“I see a woman,” replied the white woman.
“That’s precisely the issue,” replied the black woman. “I see a black woman. For me,
race is visible every day, because it is how I am not privileged in this culture. Race is invis-
ible to you [because it is how you are privileged].”
2

Thus, we are likely to be unaware of the statuses that privilege us, that is,
provide us with advantage, and acutely aware of those that are the source of
trouble—those that yield negative judgments and unfair treatment. Indeed, the
mirror metaphor used by the black woman in this conversation emerges frequently
among those who are stigmatized: “I looked in the mirror and saw a gay man.”
These moments of suddenly realizing your social position with all of its life-
shaping ramifi cations are usually about recognizing how some statuses leave you
stigmatized and underprivileged, but they are rarely about how you might be
privileged or advantaged by other statuses.
Examples of Privilege
This use of the term privilege was fi rst developed by Peggy McIntosh from her
experience of teaching women’s studies courses. Over time, McIntosh noticed that
while many men were willing to grant that women were disadvantaged (or “under-
privileged”) because of sexism, it was far more diffi cult for them to acknowledge
that they were themselves advantaged (or “overprivileged”) because of it. Extend-
ing the analysis to race, McIntosh generated a list of the ways in which she, as
a white woman, was overprivileged by virtue of racism. Her list of over forty
white privileges included the following:
I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their daily protection.
I can arrange my activities so that I will never have to experience feelings of rejection owing
to my race.
I can be sure [that] if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me.
I can take a job with an affi rmative action employer without having my co-workers on the
job suspect that I got it because of my race.
I can worry about racism without being seen as self-interested or self-seeking.
As she talked to people about her list, McIntosh learned about other white
privileges: “A black woman said she was glad to hear me ‘working on my own
people,’ because if she said these things about white privilege, she would be seen
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196 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
as a militant.” Someone else noted that one privilege of being white was being
able to be oblivious of those privileges. “Those in privileged groups are educated
[to be oblivious] about what it is like for others, especially for others who have
to be in their presence.”
3

Privilege makes life easier: it is easier to get around, to get what one wants,
and to be treated in an acceptable manner. For example, perhaps the privilege
least noticed by nondisabled people is the simple ease of getting around— accessing
buildings, restaurants, and movie theaters; easily reading store names, bus stops,
and street signs; riding public transportation; being able to dependably fi nd bath-
rooms one can use; in short, having fairly uncomplicated access to the world. By
contrast, notice the rage and exhaustion that reporter John Hockenberry describes
as he tries to hail a cab or use the Brooklyn subway (Reading 34). Or ponder the
indignity detailed in Tennessee v. Lane , the 2004 Supreme Court case about
county court houses that lacked elevators, which meant that paraplegic people had
to crawl or be carried up the steps (Reading 37). Thus, one usually unnoticed
privilege of not being disabled is the ability to get around. Life is just easier,
because everything is designed for your use.
While privilege makes people’s lives easier, it also makes their lives safer. For
example, many black and Hispanic students describe being closely monitored by
security guards for shoplifting when they are in department stores. Indeed, in one
class discussion of this, an African American student mentioned that she had the
habit of walking through stores with her hands held out, palms open in front of
her, to prove that she was not stealing. Ironically, it is likely easier for white
people to shoplift, since attention is focused on black and Latino customers.
This point was illustrated in a 2009 episode of ABC’s Primetime: What Would
You Do? , which was set in a public park in a predominately white New Jersey
suburb. Called “Teen Vandals,” a hidden camera recorded the reaction of pass-
ersby to a group of white teenagers (who were actors) destroying a car. Almost
no one called the police or attempted to stop them. As one of the white actors
commented later, “I was actually shocked to see how many people would actu-
ally take a good look at what we were doing and just walk on by without even
interfering at all.” By contrast, people did call the police about the black
teenagers who were sleeping in a nearby car waiting for their turn to act as
vandals. Not surprisingly, when it was time for those actors to destroy the car,
there were numerous calls to the police and attempts to stop them. Thus, one
privilege of being white is the presumption that you are not really criminal,
violent, or dangerous to others.
Although whites do not generally assume that other whites are a threat to them,
they often assume that of blacks.
a
The percentage appears to be declining, but
surveys indicate that about half of whites think blacks are aggressive or violent.
4

This is especially important because if one assumes that a person or group is
dangerous, taking preemptive action against them to ward off violence is more
likely to be seen as legitimate.
a
Despite whites’ fear of violence at the hands of African Americans, crime is predominately intra racial.
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Framework Essay 197
The 2013 Florida shooting death of unarmed, seventeen-year-old Trayvon
Martin will unfortunately stand as the classic example of preemptive violence
motivated by beliefs about which categories of people are dangerous. Martin,
visiting his father in a gated community, was shot and killed by George Zimmerman,
a neighborhood watch volunteer. Zimmerman was acquitted in part because he
was protected by Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, which allows the use of
deadly force in self-defense. Such laws—now in effect in about half of U.S.
states—can be expected to especially put African American men like Martin at
risk, since they belong to the group most construed as potentially dangerous. As
one editorialist commented afterward,
One of the burdens of being a black male is carrying the heavy weight of other people’s
suspicions. . . . What this means is that black adolescents cannot afford to be normal
American teenagers. They cannot experiment with pot. They cannot fi ght in any way ever,
even if it means protecting themselves from a stranger. They cannot take sophomoric pic-
tures with middle fi ngers, bare chests, or in silly gear. They cannot have improper conversa-
tions on social media. They can’t wear anything society views as menacing. [All of these
were raised as evidence against Martin at Zimmerman’s trial.] And growing up, they can
never make bad choices or mistakes—the types that teach life lessons, foster humility and
build character.
5

An example of the consequence of the belief that even black women are
dangerous is provided by law professor and author Patricia J. Williams:
My best friend from law school is a woman named C. For months now I have been sending
her drafts of this book, fi lled with many shared experiences, and she sends me back com-
ments and her own associations. Occasionally we speak by telephone. One day, after read-
ing the beginning of this chapter, she calls me up and tells me her abiding recollection of
law school. “Actually, it has nothing to do with law school,” she says.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” I respond.
“Well,” she continues, “It’s about the time I was held at gunpoint by a SWAT team.”
It turns out that during one Christmas vacation C. drove to Florida with two friends. Just
outside Miami they stopped at a roadside diner. C. ordered a hamburger and a glass of milk.
The milk was sour, and C. asked for another. The waitress ignored her. C. asked twice more
and was ignored each time. When the waitress fi nally brought the bill, C. had been charged
for the milk and refused to pay for it. The waitress started to shout at her, and a highway
patrolman walked over from where he had been sitting and asked what was going on.
C.  explained that the milk was sour and that she didn’t want to pay for it. The highway
patrolman ordered her to pay and get out. When C. said he was out of his jurisdiction, the
patrolman pulled out his gun and pointed it at her.
(“Don’t you think,” asks C. when I show her this much of my telling of her story, “that
it would help your readers to know that the restaurant was all white and that I’m black?”
“Oh, yeah,” I say. “And six feet tall.”)
Now C. is not easily intimidated and, just to prove it, she put her hand on her hip and
invited the police offi cer to go ahead and shoot her, but before he did so he should try to
drink the damn glass of milk, and so forth and so on for a few more descriptive rounds. What
cut her off was the realization that, suddenly and silently, she and her two friends had been
surrounded by eight SWAT team offi cers, in full guerrilla gear, automatic weapons drawn.
Into the pall of her ringed speechlessness, they sent a local black policeman, who offered her
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198 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
twenty dollars and begged her to pay and be gone. C. describes how desperately he was
perspiring as he begged and, when she didn’t move, how angry he got—how he accused her
of being an outside agitator, that she could come from the North and go back to the North,
but that there were those of “us” who had to live here and would pay for her activism.
C. says she doesn’t remember how she got out of there alive or why they fi nally let her
go; but she supposes that the black man paid for her. But she does remember returning to
the car with her two companions and the three of them crying, sobbing, all the way to
Miami. “The damnedest thing about it,” C. said, “was that no one was interested in whether
or not I was telling the truth. The glass was sitting there in the middle of all this, with the
curdle hanging on the side, but nobody would taste it because a black woman’s lips had
touched it.”
6

The privilege of not being considered criminal was highlighted in a nationwide
review of the cases in which an undercover, plainclothes, or off-duty police offi –
cer had been fatally shot by fellow police offi cers.
7
For undercover and plain-
clothes offi cers, the review did not fi nd any racial pattern in the shootings because
training and prevention measures have long been in place,
. . . but the reality is strikingly different for off-duty offi cers. As far as we can determine,
1982 was the last year in which an off-duty, white police offi cer was killed in a mistaken-
identity, police-on-police shooting anywhere in the United States. Since then, nine off-duty
offi cers of color have been killed in such shootings. . . .
8

Thus, white off-duty offi cers who have to display their guns in a police action are
safer than their black or Hispanic colleagues because other offi cers are less likely
to assume they are criminal.
This assumption of white non- criminality is reinforced on a daily basis by
television news reporting. In comparison with actual arrest rates, local news shows
appear to underrepresent whites as perpetrators and overrepresent African
Americans.
9
Because television is the primary news source for most Americans,
the underrepresentation of whites as criminals yields a distorted view of the
connection between race and crime.
Even when suspects were clearly white, studies demonstrated that when white [television]
viewers were asked to identify the suspect later, they consistently misidentifi ed the suspect
as African American, a disturbing fi nding that suggests that white viewers have been primed
through years of viewing African Americans almost exclusively as criminals to see all
criminals as African American.
10

As English and journalism professor Carol Stabile concluded from her review
of U.S. crime news since the 1830s, African Americans have been criminalized
with a persistence unlike that experienced by any other group. While the threats
presumably posed by Irish, Eastern European, and Chinese immigrants were
framed in the same terms as those for African Americans, for those groups the
stereotypes have faded over time. Not so for African Americans. Even metham-
phetamine users, who are predominately white, fare better in the media:
Where crack addicts were cast as people disposed to escape reality and responsibility . . .
white [methamphetamine] users were [cast as] rural, hardworking members of the working
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Framework Essay 199
class. Driven by circumstances to drug use, they found themselves hopeless captives to a
powerful substance. The message was clear: white drug users were victims of their circum-
stances and therefore deserving of sympathy and rehabilitation; black drug addicts were
social parasites, beyond redemption and worthy of nothing more than punishment.
11

Indeed, the privilege of not being assumed to be a “real” criminal has conse-
quences even in terms of the degree to which certain behaviors are criminalized.
For example,
In the late 1970s, crack fi rst came on the scene in the form of cocaine freebasing. Many of
its users were stockbrokers and investment bankers, rock stars, Hollywood types, and a few
pro athletes. Some of them began to get into trouble with this form of cocaine use, showing
up in hospital emergency rooms and police stations. Congress passed new laws to extend
health insurance coverage to include drug treatment. The treatment industry expanded the
number of beds available.
In the mid-1980s, crack use spread into America’s inner cities among impoverished
African Americans and Latinos. Some of them began to get into trouble with this form of
cocaine use, showing up in hospital emergency rooms and police stations. Congress passed
new laws to extend the length of criminal sentences for crack offenses. The prison industry
expanded the number of cells available.
12

This comparison of crack cocaine and cocaine powder users is not frivolous.
In the late 1980s, federal sentencing laws established a mandatory fi ve-year sen-
tence for fi rst-time possession of fi ve grams of crack cocaine. By contrast, it took
500 grams (1.1 pounds) of cocaine powder to trigger the fi ve-year sentence—an
intentional 100:1 differential that was established based on the hyperbole that
crack was somehow 100 times more powerful than cocaine. (Crack is cocaine
powder “cooked” with baking soda and water.) The same ratio was applied to the
ten-year mandatory sentence, which was trigged by 50 grams of crack cocaine
but 5 kilograms (11 pounds) of cocaine powder.
In 2010, the Fair Sentencing Act raised the trigger weights and reduced the
sentencing differential (the weight ratio is now 18:1 rather than 100:1). Nonethe-
less, the stage had been set for the differential imprisonment of black men.
In the early 1970s, blacks were about twice as likely as whites to be arrested for a drug
offense. The great growth in drug arrest rates through the 1980s had a large effect on African
Americans. At the height of the drug war in 1989, arrest rates for blacks had climbed to
1,460 per hundred thousand compared to 365 for whites. Throughout the 1990s, drug arrest
rates remained at these historically high levels.
13

These differential arrest rates are in contrast to what we know about drug usage.
National surveys have long shown that white high school students self-report more
drug use than black students
14
and that black and white adults self-report similar
levels of drug use.
15

The War on Drugs that began in the 1980s produced a cascade of consequences
that is still with us. The prison population has quadrupled since 1980,
16
with
2.2  million people now in prison or jail—a rate that exceeds the historic average
in the United States by a factor of nearly fi ve.
17
Although the incarceration rate
started to decline slightly in 2007 (it declined by 0.3 percent in 2010), the
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200 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
United  States still has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Comparable
developed nations incarcerate about 100 people per 100,000; the U.S. rate is 500
per 100,000.
18

These rates vary signifi cantly by race and ethnicity: “Incarceration rates are
signifi cantly higher for Blacks and Latinos than for Whites. In 2010, Black
men were incarcerated at a rate of 3,074 per 100,000 residents; Latinos were
incarcerated at 1,258 per 100,000; and White men were incarcerated at 459 per
100,000.”
19
When added to the long prison terms mandated by drug sentencing,
these differential incarceration rates have had a devastating effect on black
communities. One in four African Americans has had a parent in prison; pris-
oners experience a signifi cant reduction (by 40 percent) in annual earnings after
they are released.
20

Thus, as a category, whites experience the privileges of not being presumed
criminal, not being depicted as criminal, not being at risk of preemptive violence,
and able to pursue their “vices” with less chance of punishment. If they do not
appear to be Middle Eastern, both whites and blacks are at little risk of being
considered terrorists; if they do not look like immigrants, especially Hispanic
immigrants, they are at little risk of being detained and deported. These privileges
are the outcome of racial profi ling .
Singling out members of a race or ethnic group for heightened police sur-
veillance, that is racial profi ling , is a way to act on the assumption that whole
categories of people are dangerous. It became the subject of public debate
following a 1996 Supreme Court decision that allowed the police to use routine
traffi c stops to investigate drug possession and other crimes. African Americans
and Latinos argued that they were disproportionately pulled over—guilty of
nothing more than “driving while black,” or “driving while brown.” Research
by several social scientists confi rmed the allegations, and national attention was
focused by a 1998 shooting in which two New Jersey state troopers fi red eleven
shots into a van carrying black and Latino men from the Bronx to a basketball
camp, wounding three of the passengers. At their sentencing, the troopers “said
their supervisors had trained them to focus on black- and brown-skinned driv-
ers because, they were told, they were more likely to be drug traffi ckers.”
21

Thus, a national consensus against racial profi ling—supported by public opin-
ion, state legislation, and new federal policies barring racial profi ling at the
borders—began to emerge.
That consensus fractured with the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Pub-
lic opinion swung dramatically in favor of profi ling Middle Eastern Americans
as well as immigrants and visitors from the Middle East. Indeed, public debate
about racial profi ling only reemerged in 2013 with the shooting death of Trayvon
Martin.
After the 9/11 attacks special national security measures were implemented—
most notably the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS).
When NSEERS was in place from 2002 until 2011, temporary visitors to the
United States (that is, non-immigrant visa holders) who were male and from a
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Framework Essay 201
Middle Eastern or North African country were required to enter and exit the
country at a designated port, present themselves for an in-person immigration
offi ce visit, and provide notice about any change of address, employment, or
school.
22

Middle Eastern Americans, unlike most other American minorities and white
women, have not experienced an increase in the protection of their civil rights
over time. Limitations on Arab immigration and access to permanent resident
status, increased FBI surveillance, and restrictions on student visas followed not
only the 9/11 attacks, but also the Gulf War of 1990–1991, the 1979 Iranian
hostage crisis, and the terrorist attacks on the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.
23

Indeed, only in 2014 did the New York City Police Department close the surveil-
lance program it had run for eleven years monitoring Muslim neighborhoods by
eavesdropping on conversations, infi ltrating college-student groups, collecting
information on the cars parked at mosques, and maintaining records of where
people ate, prayed, and shopped. “After years of collecting information, however,
the police acknowledged that it never generated a lead.”
24

As federal immigration laws have changed, not being subject to racial profi ling
has provided those who appear to be native-born, non-immigrants with the privi-
lege of not being detained or deported. By contrast, two laws passed in 1996 (the
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and the Illegal Immigration Reform
and Immigrant Responsibility Act) made lawful permanent residents deportable
for virtually any crime, from major offenses to shoplifting or drunk driving,
depending on the wording of local statutes. (A lawful permanent resident is a visa
status that allows the person to live and work in the United States, travel outside
the country, and apply for U.S. citizenship after fi ve years.)
The laws are retroactive, in that permanent residents can be deported for crimes
that did not warrant deportation at the time they were committed or that they com-
mitted as minors. The laws are applied even to those who entered the country as
children and have never actually resided in the country to which they are remanded.
25

If the home country refuses to accept the detainee once the U.S. prison time has
been served, the detainee probably faces lifetime imprisonment in the United
States. Nor can the outcome be changed by an immigration judge: “The legislation
Congress passed in 1996 precluded immigration judges from considering whether
deportation would be excessively harsh in light of the immigrants’ family relation-
ships, community ties, U.S. military service records, or the possibility of persecu-
tion if returned to their country of origin.”
26

While it is illegal to deport a U.S. citizen, there are increasing reports of that
happening
27
as citizens are also sometimes swept up in immigration raids and
imprisoned until they are able to convince authorities of their legal status. A 2010
survey of Latinos reported that 5 percent of both native-born and foreign-born
Hispanic adults report being stopped by police or other authorities asking about
their immigration status (down from about 9 percent in 2008).
28
Because detain-
ees may be sent to any one of 300 detention centers and are likely to be poor,
claims of citizenship are not easily resolved.
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202 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
Whether the population profi led is Latino, African American, Middle Eastern,
or immigrant, and whether the enforcing agency involves federal immigration, local
police, or airport security, the effi cacy of such profi ling has long been questioned,
specifi cally because race-based evaluations are much less useful than behavior-
based ones. For example, in terms of using traffi c stops to uncover drugs, guns, or
criminals, “when stops and searches are not racialized, they are more productive.”
29

“Profi ling is a crude substitute for behavior-based enforcement and . . . invites
screeners to take a less vigilant approach to individuals who don’t fi t the profi le,
even if they engage in conduct that should cause concern.”
30
In all, those of us
who do not look Middle Eastern, black, Hispanic, or foreign-born have the privi-
lege of not being treated like criminals, illegal immigrants, or terrorists.
A quite different kind of privilege, likely to be invisible to those in single-race
families, is the privilege of being recognized as a family. The following account
by a mother illustrates how the failure to perceive a family is linked to the expec-
tation of black criminality.
When my son was home visiting from college, we met in town one day for lunch. . . . On
the way to the car, one of us thought of a game we’d often played when he was younger.
“Race you to the car!”
I passed my large handbag to him, thinking to more equalize the race since he was a
twenty-year-old athlete. We raced the few blocks, my heart singing with delight to be talking
and playing with my beloved son. As we neared the car, two young white men yelled some-
thing at us. I couldn’t make it out and paid it no mind. When we arrived at the car, both of
us laughing, they walked by and mumbled “Sorry” as they quickly passed, heads down.
I suddenly understood. They hadn’t seen a family. They had seen a young Black man with
a pocketbook, fl eeing a pursuing middle-aged white woman. My heart trembled as I thought
of what could have happened if we’d been running by someone with a gun.
Later I mentioned the incident in a three-day diversity seminar I was conducting at a
Boston corporation. A participant related it that evening to his son, a police offi cer, and asked
the son what he would have done if he’d observed the scene.
The answer: “Shot out his kneecaps.”
31

Turning now from privileges of race to privileges of sexuality, the most obvious
privilege enjoyed by heterosexuals is that they are allowed to be open about their
relationships—which is, after all, what heteronormativity is all about. From idle
conversation and public displays of affection, to the legal and religious approval
embodied in marriage, heterosexuals are able to declare that they love and are
loved. That privilege has not been just denied to people in same-sex relationships;
at least until very recently, they have been actively punished for such expressions
by ostracism, physical assault, unemployment, and even loss of child custody and
visitation—not so surprising given the still uncertain legal recognition of gay
families.
Even the ability to display a picture of one’s partner on a desk at work stands
as an invisible privilege of heterosexuality.
Consider, for example, an employee who keeps a photograph on her desk in which she and
her husband smile for the camera and embrace affectionately. . . . [T]he photo implicitly
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Framework Essay 203
conveys information about her private sexual behavior. [But] most onlookers (if they even
notice the photo) do not think of her partner primarily in sexual terms. . . .
[But] if the photograph instead shows the woman in the same pose with a same-sex
partner, everyone is likely to notice. As with the fi rst example, the photograph conveys the
information that she is in a relationship. But the fact that the partner is a woman overwhelms
all other information about her. The sexual component of the relationship is not mundane
and implicit as with the heterosexual spouse.
32

Because heterosexual public affection is so commonplace, it rarely conjures up
images of sexual activity. But that is exactly what we may think of when we see a
same-sex couple embrace or even hold hands. This is why gay and lesbian people
are often accused of “fl aunting” their sexuality: any display of affection between
them is understood by many heterosexuals as virtually a display of the sex act.
Still, these attitudes appear to be changing dramatically. As we discuss in
Reading 37, in 2013 the Supreme Court held (in U.S. v. Windsor ) that the 1996
Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which limited “marriage” and “spouse” to
a union of one man and one woman, was unconstitutional because it denied
federal rights to couples in states where same-sex marriage is allowed. (Over a
thousand federal laws, benefi ts, and programs apply to marital unions.) Though
narrowly framed and by only a fi ve to four vote, the Court’s decision was con-
sistent with signifi cant change in American attitudes: in public opinion polls,
support for the moral acceptability of gay and lesbian relations crossed the
symbolic 50 percent threshold in 2010.
33
That change is almost entirely attribut-
able to the increasing acceptance of same-sex relationships among men, espe-
cially those younger than fi fty; indeed, the 2010 poll was the fi rst in which men
were more accepting of these relationships than women. Still, appreciating
abstractly supportive poll data is not the same as feeling safe enough to express
affection in public settings. For people in same-sex relationships, it is likely that
will remain diffi cult for some  time.
In the realm of class privilege , several readings in this book address the con-
siderable differences in health, life span, educational access, and quality of life
that accompany American class differences. But these are perhaps the more vis-
ible privileges of being middle and upper class. Less apparent is the privilege of
being treated as a deserving and competent member of the community. Higher
education institutions provide a number of examples of this. One of the boons of
the legacy admission system, described by John Larew in Reading 32, is its invis-
ibility. The students admitted to universities this way—who are predominately
middle- and upper-class whites—don’t have their qualifi cations questioned by
faculty or other students, nor are they likely to agonize about whether they
deserved to be admitted.
Like many children of University of Virginia graduates, Mary Stuart Young of Atlanta, Georgia,
wore Cavalier orange and blue long before she took an SAT or mailed an application.
“Coming here just felt right,” said Young, 21, who expects to graduate with a religious
studies degree. . . . “This was where I should be.”
After all, with two generations of faithful alumni backing her, Young doubled her chances
of getting into Thomas Jefferson’s university.
34

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204 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
One of the privileges of being a legacy admission rather than an affi rmative
action admission is that you are treated as a deserving and competent member
of the community.
The assumption that university students are middle or upper class is pervasive
within higher education, so working-class students often fi nd schools oblivious
or even antagonistic to their needs. Students are presumed to understand how
college works, because it is assumed that their parents are college graduates and
can advise them: “In an article on working class students in higher education,
one student was paraphrased as saying that college is a very unforgiving place.
It is unforgiving not of those who don’t know the rules, but rather of those who
did not know the rules before arriving on campus.”
35
Thus, one of the privileges
of being a college student from the middle or upper classes is that you come
to the university with a good deal of information about how it works.
Also, “[w]orking class students often have diffi culty in their studies partially
because colleges and universities—elite and nonelite—refuse to recognize that
many students must work.”
36
For example, schools that require unpaid internships,
off-campus experiences, or study abroad trips may forget not only the costs asso-
ciated with these requirements but also the fact that working-class students may
have to quit their jobs to fulfi ll the requirement. The same is true of faculty offi ce
hours—set as if students could easily arrange their schedules to fi t the professor’s.
If working-class students were seen as deserving and competent members of the
community, their needs would be factored in automatically, not as a “special
favor.”
In all, one of the privileges of being middle or upper class is that higher
education—which is absolutely critical to upward mobility—is in sync with
one’s  experience. In college, middle-and upper-class students can expect to have
their life experiences and perspectives treated as the norm. The institution will be
organized around those experiences in ways large and small, from assuming that
everyone should live on campus (and bear the expense of room and board) to assum-
ing they will be able to cover the cost of texts or forgo employment. In these ways,
students from the middle or upper classes have the privilege of feeling like they
belong.
Overall, two privileges shape the experience of those in nonstigmatized sta-
tuses: entitlement and the privilege of being unmarked . Entitlement is the belief
that one has the right to be respected, acknowledged, protected, and rewarded.
This is so much taken for granted by those in nonstigmatized statuses that they
are often shocked and angered when it is denied them.
[After the lecture, whites in the audience] shot their hands up to express how excluded they
felt because [the] lecture, while broad in scope, clearly was addressed fi rst and foremost to
the women of color in the room. . . . What a remarkable sense of entitlement must drive
their willingness to assert their experience of exclusion! If I wanted to raise my hand every
time I felt excluded, I would have to glue my wrist to the top of my head.
37

Like entitlement, the privilege of occupying an unmarked status is shared by
most of those in nonstigmatized categories. For example, doctor is an unmarked
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Framework Essay 205
status; woman doctor is marked. Unmarked categories convey the usual and
expected distribution of individuals in social statuses—the distribution that does
not require any special comment. Thus, the unmarked category tells us what a
society takes for granted.
Theoretically, the unmarked category might include anyone, but in truth it
refers to white males. How do we know that? Because other occupants of that
status are usually marked: woman doctor, black doctor, and so on. While the
marking of a status signals infrequency—there are few female astronauts or male
nurses—it may also imply inferiority. A “woman doctor” or a “black doctor” may
be considered less qualifi ed.
Thus, a fi nal privilege of those who are not stigmatized is that their master
statuses are not used to discount their accomplishments or imply that they serve
only special interests. Someone described as “a politician” is presumed to operate
from a universality that someone described as “a white male politician” is not.
Because white male politicians are rarely described as such, their anchoring in
the reality of their own master statuses is hidden. In this way, those in marked
statuses appear to be operating from an “agenda,” or “special interest” while those
in unmarked statuses can appear to be agenda-free. Being white and male thus
becomes invisible, because it is not regularly identifi ed as important. For this
reason, some recommend identifying everyone’s race and sex as a way to recog-
nize that we are all grounded in our master statuses.
In all, privilege is usually invisible to those who possess it; they may assume
that everyone is treated as they are. When they learn about instances of dis-
crimination, they may think that the incident was exceptional rather than routine,
that the victim was overreacting or misinterpreting, or that the victim must have
provoked the encounter. Such responses do not necessarily deny that the incident
took place; rather, they deny that the event carries any negative or special
meaning.
Through such dismissals, those operating from positions of privilege can deny
the experience of those without privilege. For example, college-age students often
describe university administrators as unresponsive until they have their parents
call to complain. If the parents later said, “I don’t know why you had such a
problem with those people; they were very nice to me. Did you do something to
antagonize them?” that would indicate that parents were oblivious to their privi-
leged status in the university setting as well as unaware of their student’s under-
privileged status in it.
Dismissals like these treat the stigmatized person like a child inadequate to
judge the world. Often such dismissals are framed in terms of the very stigma
about which people are complaining. In this way, what stigmatized people say
about their status is discounted precisely because they are stigmatized. The impli-
cation is that those who occupy a stigmatized status are somehow the ones least
able to assess its consequence. The effect is to dismiss precisely those who have
had the most experience with the problem.
This process, called looping or rereading, is described by many who have
studied the lives of patients in psychiatric hospitals.
38
If a patient says, “The staff
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206 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
here are being unfair to me,” and the staff respond, “Of course he would think
that—he’s crazy,” they have reread, or looped, his words through his status. His
words have been heard in view of his stigma and dismissed for exactly that reason.
These dismissals serve a function. Dismissing another’s experience of status-
based mistreatment masks the possibility that one has escaped such treatment
precisely because of one’s privilege. If we do not acknowledge that their status
affects their treatment, we need not acknowledge that our status affects our treat-
ment. Thus, we avoid the larger truth that those who are treated well, those who
are treated poorly, and all the rest in between are always evaluated both as indi-
viduals and as occupants of particular esteemed and disesteemed categories.
THE EXPERIENCE OF STIGMA
We have so far considered the privileges conferred by some master statuses; now
we examine the stigma conferred by other master statuses.
In his classic analysis of stigma, sociologist Erving Goffman (1963) distin-
guished between the discredited, whose stigma is immediately apparent to an
observer (for example, race, sex, some disabilities), and the discreditable, whose
stigma can be hidden (for example, sexuality, cognitive disabilities, social class,
and sometimes race and ethnicity). Because stigma plays out differently in the
lives of the discredited and the discreditable, each will be examined separately.
The Discreditable: “Passing”
The discreditable are those who are passing, that is, not publicly acknowledging
the stigmatized statuses they occupy. (Were they to acknowledge that status, they
would become discredited.) The term passing comes from “passing as white,”
which emerged as a phenomenon after 1875 when southern states reestablished
racial segregation through hundreds of “Jim Crow”
b
laws. At that point, some
African Americans passed as white as a way to get better-paying jobs.
[S]ome who passed as white on the job lived as black at home. Some lived in the North as
white part of the year and as black in the South the rest of the time. More men passed than
women . . . the vast majority who could have passed permanently did not do so, owing to
the pain of family separation, condemnation by most blacks, their fear of whites, and the
loss of the security of the black community. . . . Passing as white probably reached an all-
time peak between 1880 and 1925.
40

“Passing as white” is now quite rare and strongly condemned by African Americans.
We will use the term passing here to refer to those who have not made their stig-
matized status evident. For example, in Reading 24, John Tehranian describes the
ways Muslim Americans may sometimes mask their identity. “ Passing” is similar to
b
“Jim Crow” was “a blackface, singing-dancing-comedy characterization portraying black males as
childlike, irresponsible, ineffi cient, lazy, ridiculous in speech, pleasure-seeking, and happy, [and was]
a widespread stereotype of blacks during the last decades before emancipation. . . .”
39
Whites created
segregation in the South after the Civil War by imposing what were called “Jim Crow” laws.
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Framework Essay 207
the phrase “being in the closet,” which is usually applied to gays. “Passing” probably
plays less of a role in the lives of gay and lesbian people now than it has in the past,
but still it remains a signifi cant concern and topic of discussion for both gays and
straights.
One may engage in passing by chance as well as by choice. For example, the
presumption that everyone is heterosexual can have the effect of putting gay
people in the closet even when they had not intended to be. During a series of
lectures on the family, one of our faculty colleagues realized that he had been
making assignments, lecturing, and encouraging discussion under the assumption
that all of the students in the class had, or wanted to have, heterosexual relation-
ships. His actions forced gay and lesbian students to choose between announcing
or remaining silent about their status. Had he assumed that students would be
involved only with others of the same race, he would have created a similar situ-
ation for those in interracial relationships. Thus, assumptions about others’ private
lives—for example, by asking whether someone is married—may have the effect
of making them choose between a lie or an announcement of something they may
consider private.
Since most heterosexuals assume that everyone is heterosexual, many social
encounters either put gay people in the closet or require that they announce their
status. For example, in the fi rst class session of one course, a student opened his
remarks by saying, “Well, you all know I am a gay man, and as a gay man
I  think.  . . .” The buzz of conversation stopped, other students stared at him, and
one asked, “How would we know you were gay?” The student pointed to a pink
triangle he had pinned to his book bag and explained that he thought they knew
that someone wearing it would be gay. (Pink triangles were assigned to gay men
during the Nazi era. Still, his logic was questionable: Anyone supportive of gay
rights might wear the triangle.) This announcement—which moved the student
from a discreditable to a discredited status—may have been intended to keep his
classmates from making overtly antigay comments in his presence. His strategy
was designed to counter the negative consequences of passing.
Every encounter with a new classful of students, to say nothing of a new boss, social worker,
loan offi cer, landlord, doctor, erects new closets [that] . . . exact from at least gay people
new surveys, new calculations, new draughts and requisitions of secrecy or disclosure. Even
an out gay person deals daily with interlocutors about whom she doesn’t know whether they
know or not [or whether they would care]. . . . The gay closet is not a feature only of the
lives of gay people. But for many gay people it is still the fundamental feature of social
life; there can be few gay people . . . in whose lives the closet is not a shaping presence.
41

Inadvertent passing is also experienced by those whose racial status is not
immediately apparent. An African American acquaintance of ours who looks white
is often in settings in which others do not know that she is African American—or
in which she does not know if they know. Thus, she must regularly decide how
and when to convey that information. This is important to her as a way to discour-
age racist remarks, since whites sometimes assume it is acceptable to make racist
remarks to one another (as men may assume it is acceptable to make sexist
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208 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
remarks to other men, or as straights presume it acceptable to make antigay
remarks to those they think are also straight). It is also important to her that oth-
ers know she is black so that they understand the meaning of her words—so that
they will hear her words through her status as an African American woman. Those
whose stigma is not apparent must go to some lengths to avoid being in the closet
by virtue of others’ assumptions.
Those with relatively invisible disabilities also face the tension of inadvertent
passing. Beth Omansky, in Reading 36, describes the experiences of those who are
legally, rather than totally, blind. Observers who assume the person is totally blind
can react with disbelief or even anger when they learn otherwise; some may insist
that the person behave as if they were totally blind, to avoid confusing observers.
Either way, the person suffers the consequence of inadvertent passing.
Still, passing may be an intentional choice. For example, one of our students,
who was in the process of deciding that he was gay, had worked for many years
at a local library, where he became friends with several of his co-workers. Much
of the banter at work, however, involved disparaging gay, or presumably gay,
library patrons. As he grappled with a decision about his own sexual identity, his
social environment reminded him that being gay is still a stigmatized status in
American society. This student did not so much face prejudice personally (since
he was not “out” to his work friends) as he faced an “unwilling acceptance of
himself by individuals who are prejudiced against persons of the kind he can be
revealed to be.”
42
Thus, he was not the person his friends took him to be. While
survey data indicate that those who personally know a gay man hold more posi-
tive feelings about gays in general,
43
the decision to publicly reveal a stigma that
others have gone on record as opposing is not made lightly.
Revealing stigma changes one’s interactions, even with those who are not
particularly prejudiced. Such revelations are likely to alter important relation-
ships. Parents sometimes disown gay children, just as they do children involved
in interracial relationships. For the discreditable, “information management” is
at the core of one’s life. “To tell or not to tell; to let on or not to let on; to lie
or not to lie; and in each case, to whom, how, when, and where.”
44
Such choices
are faced daily by those who are discreditable—not just by those who are gay
and lesbian, but also by those who are poor, have been imprisoned, attempted
suicide, terminated a pregnancy through abortion, are HIV-positive, are drug or
alcohol dependent, or who have been the victims of incest or rape. By contrast,
those who do not occupy stigmatized statuses don’t have to invest emotional
energy in monitoring information about themselves; they can choose to talk
openly about their personal history.
Passing has both positive and negative aspects. On the positive side, passing lets
the stigmatized person exert some power over the situation; the person controls the
information, the fl ow of events, and their privacy. By withholding his or her true
identity until choosing to reveal it, the person may create a situation in which oth-
ers’ prejudices are challenged. Passing also limits one’s exposure to verbal and
physical abuse, allows for the development of otherwise forbidden relationships, and
improves employment security by minimizing one’s exposure to discrimination.
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Framework Essay 209
On the negative side, passing consumes a good deal of time, energy, and emo-
tion. It introduces deception and secrecy even into close relationships. Passing
also denies others the opportunity to prove themselves unprejudiced, and it makes
one vulnerable to blackmail by those who do know about one’s stigma.
The Discredited: The Problems of Visibility
While the discreditable face problems of invisibility, visibility is the problem for
those who are discredited. Those who are discredited suffer from undue attention
and are subject to being stereotyped.
Being discredited means that one’s stigma is immediately apparent to others.
As essayist bell hooks describes, those who are discredited often have little
patience for those who at least have the option of passing.
Many of us have been in discussions where a non-white person—a black person—struggles
to explain to white folks that while we can acknowledge that gay people of all colors are
harassed and suffer exploitation and domination, we also recognize that there is a signifi cant
difference that arises because of the visibility of dark skin. . . . While it in no way lessens
the severity of such suffering for gay people, or the fear that it causes, it does mean that in
a given situation the apparatus of protection and survival may be simply not identifying as
gay. In contrast, most people of color have no choice. No one can hide, change, or mask
dark skin color. White people, gay and straight, could show greater understanding of the
impact of racial oppression on people of color by not attempting to make these oppressions
synonymous, but rather by showing the ways they are linked and yet differ.
45

For the discredited, stigma is likely to always shape interaction even though
its effect may not play out in ways one can easily determine. Florynce Kennedy,
a black activist in the civil rights and women’s movements, once commented that
the problem with being black in America was that you never knew whether what
happened to you, good or bad, was because of your talents or because you were
black.
46
This situation was described in 1903 by sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois as
the double consciousness of being black in America. The concept was key to Du
Bois’s classic, The Souls of Black Folk, for which he was rightfully judged “the
father of serious black thought as we know it today.”
47
Du Bois described double
consciousness this way:
[T]he Negro . . . [is] gifted with a second-sight in this American world—a world which
yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revela-
tion of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense
of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul
by  the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his
twoness. . . .
48

This is the sense of seeing oneself through the eyes of a harshly critical other,
and it relates to our discussion of objectifi cation in the fi rst Framework Essay.
When those who are stigmatized view themselves from the perspective of the
nonstigmatized, they have reduced themselves to objects. This theme of double or
“fractured” consciousness can also be found in contemporary analyses of women’s
experience.
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210 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
The greatest effect of being visibly stigmatized is on one’s life chances—
literally, one’s chances for living. Thus, the readings in this book detail differences
in income, employment, health, life span, education, targeting for violence, and
the likelihood of arrest and imprisonment. But the other end of the spectrum—
affecting your life but not necessarily your chance of living—is also important.
In 2013, Rosalind Wiseman wrote about the lives of preteen and adolescent
boys. (Wiseman’s earlier volume on girls was the basis of the 2004 movie, Mean
Girls .) Her description of the prevalence of race and ethnic taunts in boys’ lives,
even among friends, is memorable:
Here’s what I hear most often in schools throughout the country:
Muslims and Sikhs (whose religions are completely different) are constantly referred to as
terrorists.
Jews are confronted with boys throwing money at them and making jokes about ashes and
ovens.
Asians are said to have small penises, to not need calculators, and to have parents who drive
them 24/7 and beat them if they don’t become music or math prodigies.
Hispanics are the butt of jokes about being deported, uneducated, and lazy. White kids in
private schools commonly joke about their Hispanic friends having gotten into their school
or getting a scholarship only because the school needed to increase its diversity.
Black guys are greeted with forced, wannabe black slang or the use of the N-word. 49
Taunts like these certainly affect the quality of young boys’ lives. Similarly,
it is worth considering the more mundane diffi culties created by stigmatization,
especially the sense of being “on stage.” The discredited often have the feeling
of being watched or on display when they are in settings dominated by nonstig-
matized people. For example, when women walk through male-dominated set-
tings, they often feel they are on display in terms of their physical appearance.
Recently, the term microaggression 50 has been used to describe the verbal slights
experienced by those in visibly stigmatized statuses. College students have been
documenting these experiences in blogs, plays, and on Facebook pages. Exam-
ples of microaggressions—such as “Where are you from? Your English is per-
fect,” to an Asian American student or “It’s almost like you’re not black” to an
African American—reveal how much people who are visibly stigmatized are “on
stage” in terms of their master status.
51
In such cases, the discredited are likely
to feel that others are judging them in terms of their stigma.
As sociologist Rosabeth Moss Kanter
52
has shown, this impression is probably
true. When Kanter studied corporate settings in which one person was visibly
different from the others, that person was likely to get a disproportionate share
of attention. In fact, people in the setting were likely to closely monitor what the
minority person did, which meant his or her mistakes were more likely to be
noticed—and the mistakes of those in the rest of the group were more likely to
be overlooked because everyone was busy watching the minority person. Even in
after-work socializing, the minority person was still subject to disproportionate
attention.
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Framework Essay 211
Kanter also found that the minority person’s behavior was likely to be inter-
preted in terms of the prevailing stereotypes about the members of that category.
For example, when there were only a few men in a setting dominated by women,
the men were subject to intense observation, and their behavior was fi ltered
through the stereotypes about men. Perceptions were distorted to fi t the preexist-
ing beliefs.
Without the presence of a visibly different person, members of a setting are likely
to see themselves as different from one another in various ways. Through contrast
with the visibly different person, however, they notice their own similarities. In this
way, majority group members may construct dichotomies—“us” and “them”—out
of settings in which there are a few who are different. It is not surprising that those
who are visibly different sometimes isolate themselves in response.
Still, none of this is inevitable. Kanter argued that once minority membership
in a setting reaches 15 percent, these processes abate. Until that point, however,
those who are in the minority (or visibly stigmatized) are the subject of a good
deal of attention. As a consequence, they are often accused of fl aunting their
difference, of being “so” black, Latino, gay, and so on—of making a show of
their status.
This is a charge that the nonstigmatized often level at those who are stigma-
tized. Although there are certainly occasions in which the discredited may delib-
erately make a show of their status, Kanter’s work indicates that when their
numbers are few, the discredited are likely to be charged with being too visible
no matter what they do. When they are subjected to a disproportionate amount of
attention and viewed through the lenses of stereotypes, almost anything the
discredited do is likely to be noticed and attributed to the category to which they
belong.
Those who are visibly stigmatized react to this excess of attention in various
ways. Some are careful to behave in ways contrary to expectations. At other times,
however, people may deliberately make reference to their stigmatized status. For
example, in adolescence, light-skinned black men are often derided by their black
and white peers as not “really” black, and so they may go to great lengths to
counter that charge.
Overt displays of one’s stigmatized status may also have an entertaining side.
For example, many bilingual Latino students talk about how much they enjoy a
loud display of Spanish when Anglos are present; some Asian American students
have described their pleasure in pursuing extended no-English-used card games
in public spaces on campus. Black and gay adolescents sometimes entertain them-
selves by loudly affecting stereotypical behavior and then watching the disapprov-
ing looks from observers. Those who do not occupy stigmatized statuses may
better appreciate these displays by remembering their experience of deliberately
acting like “obnoxious teenagers” in public settings. Thus, for some, fl aunting
their difference may also be fun.
In all, those who are visibly stigmatized—who cannot or will not hide their
identity—generate a variety of mechanisms to try to neutralize that stigma and
the undue attention that follows.
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212 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
The Expectations of Those Who Share One’s Stigma
The shame associated with stigma may keep people from affi liating with one
another, or it might be the grounds for coming together in collective pride. For
those stigmatized by color, sex, or social class, family members often provide the
lessons about what to expect from those in and outside the category, as well as
the “lessons” about how “people like us” are supposed to behave.
c
For those who
are gay and lesbian, the lessons are usually provided later in life by members of
the gay community.
Particularly for those with visible stigma, there are also frequent reminders
that one will be seen as representative of all members of the category. Thus,
many in stigmatized categories must factor in virtually everyone’s opinion: What
will others in my category think? What will those who are not stigmatized think?
Indeed, they may even be criticized for failing to deal with themselves as
stigmatized—“After all, who do you think you are?” In a sense, members of
stigmatized categories may monitor one another much as they are policed by
those outside the category, with the difference that those within their category
can at least claim to be defending them.
This point is illustrated in a story by the late tennis champion Arthur Ashe.
(Ashe was the fi rst African American male to win tennis’s Grand Slam singles
title.) Ashe
53
described watching his daughter play with a gift she had just
received—a white doll—as they sat in the audience of a televised match in his
honor. When the cameras panned his section of seats, he realized that he needed
to get the doll away from his daughter or risk the anger of some black viewers
who would argue that by letting his child play with a white doll, he appeared to
be a bad role model for the black community.
A different example is provided by a Mexican American acquaintance who
worked in an offi ce with only a few other Hispanics, most of whom felt that the
routes to upward mobility were closed to them. Together they drafted a letter to the
fi rm’s president detailing their concerns and seeking some corrective action. Although
he had qualms about signing the letter, our acquaintance felt there was no alterna-
tive. Because he worked for management, he was then called in to explain his
behavior, which his supervisor saw as disloyal. Thus, he was put in the position of
having to explain that, as a Chicano, he could not have refused to sign the letter.
Codes of conduct for those in stigmatized categories often require loyalty to the
group. Indeed, the operating rule for many in stigmatized categories is to avoid
public disagreement with one another or public airing of the group’s “dirty laun-
dry.” Such codes are not trivial, because when the codes are violated, members of
stigmatized categories risk ostracism from a critical support network. The reality
of discrimination makes it foolhardy to reject those who share one’s stigma. What
would it have meant to Arthur Ashe to lose the support of other African Americans?
To whom would our acquaintance have turned in that organization had he refused
c
People Like Us (2001) is a well-known PBS documentary about social class in America. One mes-
sage it describes is “don’t get above your raising.”
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Framework Essay 213
to sign the letter? When they are unaware of these pressures, those in privileged
categories may make impossible demands of those who are stigmatized; if they
are aware of these pressures, however, such requests are clear tests of loyalty.
Complexities in the Experience of Privilege and Stigma
Separating out the discussion of privileged and stigmatized statuses, as we have
done here, has the benefi t of allowing us to focus on these processes, but it carries
multiple risks, especially that of making people’s experience appear less compli-
cated than it is. There are several of these complexities to consider.
First, stigma doesn’t always produce disadvantage; it can sometimes yield a
benefi t, but not as frequently as the benefi ts that follow from privilege. For exam-
ple, discrimination is sometimes measured through what are called “audit studies.”
In this case, researchers select, match, and train people (called testers) to play the
part of an applicant for a job or apartment. “By presenting equally qualifi ed indi-
viduals who differ only by race or ethnicity, researchers can assess the degree to
which racial considerations affect access to opportunities.”
54
While audit studies
have found evidence of racial discrimination in a variety of arenas (for example,
in housing rental and purchase and in call-backs on job résumés),
55
minority testers
will still sometimes advance further than their white counterparts in a process.
Thus, minority testers will sometimes experience preferential treatment, but they
will not experience as much preferential treatment as their white counterparts.
Thus, concerns about “reverse discrimination” can often miss the mark. While
blacks, Latinos, Asian Americans, or white women are sometimes favored—for
example, in employment—they are not favored as frequently as white males. In her
study of black and white graduates of a Baltimore technical school, Diedre Royster
offers an example of how this complexity can be ignored. One of her white infor-
mants described being turned down for a job with the state police. He was standing
with a group of other white applicants, when an offi cer approached them to say, “I’m
sorry, fellas. Unfortunately, if you were black you would have had the job.”
For the whites involved in these sorts of interchanges, this is a win/win situation. The white
applicant wins; he (or sometimes she) is reinforced in his (or her) belief that on merits he
or she would have succeeded. . . . The white trooper (or other employing agency offi cial
dispensing bad advice) wins because he has found a way to deliver the news such that he
and his agency will not encounter any hostility, despite the fact that they are rejecting
applicants. [The trooper didn’t say], “I’m sorry, fellas. We only had twenty-fi ve places; two
of them went to the sons of troopers, three went to cousins and neighbors, one went to a
political connection, four were reserved for minority or female applicants (and frankly,
those applicants had really strong records), and we had tons of great applicants for the
remaining fi fteen positions. In fact, we had three hundred applicants with scores higher
than any of you.”
56

Thus, advantages may follow from stigma as well as privilege, though in
different proportions and with different levels of visibility. This point is made by
the dissenting justices in the Supreme Court’s 2009 decision in Ricci v. DeStefano
(Reading 37).
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214 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
Second, analyzing stigma and privilege separately risks ignoring that those
with privilege are nonetheless affected by stigma, even though they are not them-
selves stigmatized. For example, homophobia and sexism shape interaction
between straight men and racism affects how white men and women interact, such
as in the expectation that white men need to be the protectors of white women.
Likewise, the stigma of disability affects the friends and relatives of those who
are disabled and people’s response to their own bodies. In all, privilege exists in
interaction with stigma.
Third, as we mentioned in the fi rst Framework Essay, although it may appear that
people can be easily separated into two categories—stigmatized and privileged—
every individual occupies several master statuses. The privilege or stigma that
might be associated with one status emerges in the context of all of one’s other
statuses. For example, a middle-class, heterosexual, Mexican American male may
be privileged in terms of class, sex, and sexual orientation, but stigmatized by
virtue of being Hispanic. Given the invisibility of privilege, he is more likely to
notice the ways in which his ethnic status stigmatizes him than to notice all the
privileges that follow from his other statuses. Nevertheless, he is simultaneously
all of his statuses; the privileges and disadvantages of each emerge in the context
of all the others. Whereas an Anglo male and a Latino male may both be said to
experience the privilege of sex, they do not experience the same privilege.
This gets us to the idea of intersectionality —also called the “matrix of domina-
tion” or “complex inequality”—which was articulated in the early 1990s by law
professor Kimberlé Crenshaw as she sought to convey how the experience of
black women in America was about the interaction of race and sex. 57 Crenshaw
pointed to the inadequacy of thinking about black women’s experiences as about
either race or sex, or even about both race and sex additively. Rather—using the
analogy of standing at the intersection of the streets of racism and sexism—she
argued that the intersection was itself a unique place and process, not one in which
forms of discrimination were just added together or even multiplied, but in which
they interacted with one another.
In some ways, intersectionality can be compared to the idea of “interaction
effect” in statistics. In statistics, a “main effect” is the effect of an independent
variable on a dependent variable, for example, the effect of race on income, or
the effect of sex on income. An “interaction effect,” however, occurs when the
effect of one variable depends on the level or presence of other variables, for
example, when the effect of race on income depends on sex. In the analysis of
multiple variables, theoretically one could fi nd only direct (i.e., main) effects, only
interaction effects, some mix of those, or no effects at all. In a statistical analysis,
these outcomes would also be affected by which variable was loaded into the
calculation fi rst, that is, which status was given priority. A similar concern emerges
in intersectional analyses in terms of whether some forms of inequality should be
treated as taking priority over others.
Crenshaw was not the fi rst to notice how the intersection of the “streets” of
race and sex had been ignored. A well-known anthology released in the 1980s
had been entitled All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, but Some of
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Framework Essay 215
Us Are Brave, 58 to convey that black women were both invisible as women in the
women’s movement and invisible as blacks in the civil rights movement. By vir-
tue of standing at the intersection, black women were marginalized within both
movements, even though they were doubly discriminated.
Since then, the study of intersectionality has stood as a unique contribution
of feminist social science methodology. For example, Patricia Hill Collins—one
of the preeminent sociological theorists of intersectionality—uses the concept
to understand how gender, race, class, and nation are mutually constituted within
and through the domain of “family.” Similarly, in Reading 29, “Gendered Sex-
uality in Young Adulthood,” Laura Hamilton and Elizabeth Armstrong examine
the interaction of social class and gender on sexuality in college. Though schol-
ars taking an intersectional approach have usually focused on the confl uence of
racism and sexism, the intersection of other dichotomies can also have important
ramifi cations for people’s lives, for example, being gay and a practicing Catho-
lic would involve living at an “intersection” that encompasses a unique set of
confl icts.
Responding to the experience of those at the intersection requires thinking dif-
ferently about public policy, law, resource allocation, and political organization.
For example, “Despite the commonsense notion that the more ‘different’ a worker
is, the more likely she will encounter bias, empirical evidence shows that multiple
claims—which may account for more than 50 percent of federal court discrimina-
tion actions—have even less chance of success than single claims. . . . [T]he more
complex the claimant’s identity, the wider must be cast the evidentiary net to fi nd
relevant comparative, statistical, and anecdotal evidence.”
59

Similarly, intersectional thinking would ask if women of different races would
need different kinds of support in higher education or following domestic vio-
lence, or how black women voters would respond to a political contest between
a white woman and a black man, as for example, in the 2007 primary contest
between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Were black women assumed to sup-
port Obama because they were black or to support Clinton because they were
women? Would one status be treated as primary (the main effect), would black
women’s location be understood to be complicated and unique, or would both
campaigns simply ignore them?
More prosaically, in its thirty-eight-year history Saturday Night Live has hired
only four black female cast members, the latest in 2013 after a six-year hiatus.
If they defended themselves by saying, “We have white women and black men
on the show (not to mention black men who have played black women), so
what’s the problem?” that would be the equivalent of saying “Black women are
‘sort of’ black and ‘sort of’ women, and so we haven’t worried about them very
much over thirty-eight years!”
Still, intersectionality is a diffi cult concept and method. Understanding the com-
plexity of lives at the intersection moves us away from the usual, and relatively
easier, social science goal of fi nding generalizable knowledge, that is, knowledge
that holds true for broad categories of people, for example “all” women or men.
At the same time, intersectionality offers a thoroughgoing critique of essentialism,
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216 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
because it questions how much is really shared by those in a master status. After
all, how much of our knowledge holds true for both black and white women? How
much holds true for both black women and black men? Capturing that complexity
requires a narrower research focus and more limited claims about knowledge—
with the risk that the categories for analysis will endlessly proliferate—but the
payoff is a better understanding of the real complexities of people’s lives.
Fourth, while individuals may experience both privilege and stigma, some stig-
mas are so strong that they can cancel out the privileges other statuses might
provide . This is often the case for people who are disabled. For example, the
student quoted below describes how using a wheelchair “canceled out” expecta-
tions that she was intelligent.
I fi nd that people automatically assume your intelligence level is lower. They sort of talk
maybe slower to you or in a patronizing way. . . . They don’t speak right at you or act like
you know anything. And they’re always surprised to fi nd out that I’m a college student. . . .
They think “How could you go to U of M?” Sometimes they’ll even say that.
60

There is much evidence that the stigma of being black in America cancels
privileges that might be expected to follow from being middle class. For example,
A large body of published research reveals that racial and ethnic minorities experience a
lower quality of health services and are less likely to receive even routine medical procedures
than are white Americans. Relative to whites, African Americans—and in some cases,
Hispanics—are less likely to receive hemodialysis and kidney transplantation, and are likely
to receive a lower quality of basic clinical services such as intensive care, even when vari-
ations in such factors as insurance status, income, age, co-morbid conditions, and symptom
expression are taken into account. . . . The majority of studies . . . fi nd that racial and
ethnic disparities remain even after adjustment for socioeconomic differences and other
healthcare access-related factors.
61

Fifth, separating out discussions of privilege and stigma can mistakenly con-
note that they are equivalent. For example, when Latino students in one class
talked about their pleasure in speaking Spanish, their Anglo friend immediately
described how excluded she felt on those occasions. While they understood her
reaction, the Latino students made it clear that they were not willing to forgo the
opportunity to speak Spanish: their friend would just have to understand it wasn’t
anything personal. The question that emerged for the students listening to this
exchange was about equivalent “rights.” Isn’t the Latino exclusion of Anglos the
same as the Anglo exclusion of Latinos?
As a way to approach this, consider the following two statements about gays
and straights. In what ways are the statements similar, and in what ways different?
A heterosexual says, “I can’t stand gays. I don’t want to be anywhere around them.”
A gay says, “I can’t stand straights. I don’t want to be anywhere around them.”
Although the statements are almost identical, the speakers come from very
different positions of power. A heterosexual could probably structure his or her
life so as to rarely interact with anyone gay, or at least anyone self-identifi ed as
gay. Most important, however, at least until very recently the heterosexual’s
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Framework Essay 217
attitude has been consistent with major social, political, legal, and religious
practices. Thus, the heterosexual in this example speaks from a position of some
power, if only that derived from alignment with dominant cultural practices.
This is not the case for the gay person in this example, who is unlikely to be
able to avoid contact with straights—and who would probably pay a considerable
economic cost for self-segregation if that were attempted. There are no powerful
institutional supports for hatred of heterosexuals. Similarly, whatever pleasure
there might be in exclusiveness, it would exist against a backdrop of relative
powerlessness, discrimination, and stigmatization. The same might be said of
men’s disparagement of women compared with women’s disparagement of men.
As a student once wrote,
As a male I have at times been on the receiving end of comments like, “Oh, you’re just like
all men,” or “Why can’t men show more emotion?” but these comments or the sentiments
behind them do not carry any power to affect my status. Even in the instance of a black who
sees me as a representative of all whites, his vision of me does not change my privileged status.
Thus, when those in privileged statuses exclude others, that takes place in a
context of relative powerfulness, a sense of entitlement, infrequent discrimination
based on master status, and a general ability to avoid those who might be prejudiced
against people like themselves. The forms of exclusion available to stigmatized
people are unlikely to tangibly affect the lives of those in privileged statuses.
Being able to exclude someone from a dance or a club is not as signifi cant as
being able to exclude that person from a job or residence. This is what is meant
when it is said that members of stigmatized categories may be prejudiced but not
discriminatory; they do not have access to the institutional power by which to
signifi cantly affect the lives of those in nonstigmatized groups.
Similarly, the term racist carries different connotations for blacks and whites.
Among whites, being color conscious is often considered to be a sign of being
racist. If, as the civil rights movement taught, color should not make a difference
in the way people are treated, whites who make a point of not noticing race argue
that they are being polite and not racist.
But given America’s historical focus on race, it seems unrealistic for any of us
to claim that we are oblivious to it. Although many consider it impolite to mention
race, differential treatment does not disappear as a consequence. Further, a refusal
to notice race conveys that being black, Asian, or Latino is a “defect” and that
is  indelicate (for whites) to mention. Thus, it can be argued that colorblindness
is not really a strategy of politeness; rather, it is a strategy of power evasion.
Because race, sex, sexual orientation, or disability clearly make a difference in
people’s lives, pretending not to see those statuses is a way to avoid noticing their
effect. The alternative would be a strategy of awareness, that is, of paying sys-
tematic attention to the impact of these statuses on oneself and others.
Finally, the understanding of what it means to be stigmatized or privileged
changes in the course of a person’s identity development. A composite overview
of the changes in race and ethnic identity development
62
helps make this point.
These stages might also be applied to sex, class, and sexual orientation identities.
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218 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
One important caution is necessary, however: Not everyone necessarily goes
through each of these stages. For example, it is argued that African Americans
are rarely found in the fi rst of the stages we detail below.
For those in stigmatized statuses, the fi rst stage of identity development involves
an internalization of the culture’s negative imagery. This stage may include the
disparagement of others in one’s group and a strong desire to be accepted by
dominant group members. For women, this might mean being highly critical of
other women. For people who are low income or gay, this stage might entail feel-
ings of shame. For people of color, it might involve efforts to lighten one’s skin,
straighten one’s hair, or have an eye tuck.
In the next stage, anger at the dominant culture emerges, usually as the result
of specifi c encounters with discrimination. Philosopher Sandra Bartky,
63
focusing
on women’s discovery of the extent of sexism, describes this as a period in which
sexism seems to be everywhere. Events and objects that previously had been
neutral are discovered to be sexist; it becomes impossible to get through the day
without becoming enraged—and the injustices one discovers are communicated
to everyone within earshot. One’s own behavior is also subject to increased scru-
tiny: “Am I being sexist to buy a doll for my niece?” Situations that used to be
straightforward become moral tests.
This may be followed by what is sometimes called an immersion stage, because
it involves deep involvement in one’s own culture. In the previous stage, the
individual is focused on evaluating and reacting to the dominant culture. In this
stage, however, the focus shifts to one’s own group. Dominant group members
and the dominant group culture become less relevant to one’s pursuits. This is
often a period of participation in segregated activities and organizations as one
seeks distance from dominant group members. Although anger is somewhat less-
ened here, the process of reevaluating one’s old identity continues.
The fi nal stage is described as a period of integration, as one’s stigmatized status
becomes integrated with the other aspects of one’s life rather than taking precedence
over them. Still, an opposition to prejudice and discrimination continues. At this
point, one can distinguish between supportive and unsupportive dominant group
members, and thus one is more likely to establish satisfying relations with them.
For those who do not occupy stigmatized statuses, the fi rst stage of race or
ethnic identity development is described as an unquestioning acceptance of dom-
inant group values. This acceptance might take shape as being oblivious to dis-
crimination or as espousing supremacist ideologies.
In the next stage, one becomes aware of others’ stigmatization, often through
an eye-opening encounter with discrimination. Such an experience may produce
a commitment to social change or a sense of powerlessness. As is the case for
those in stigmatized statuses, in this stage those in privileged statuses also fi nd
themselves overwhelmed by all the forms of discrimination they see, often accom-
panied by a sense of personal guilt. In an attempt to affi liate and offer assistance,
they may seek alliances with those in stigmatized statuses. On college campuses,
this timing may not be promising, since many of those in stigmatized statuses are
at a high level of anger at those in privileged groups.
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Framework Essay 219
We have sometimes had white students of European ancestry describe a kind
of envy that emerges at this point. As one said, black and Latino/a ethnic identity
made him feel like “I just don’t have anything.” Even though his own ancestry
was a mix of Russian Jew, Italian Catholic, and Scotch Irish Protestant, none of
these seemed as compelling as the black, Asian, and Hispanic identities he saw
around him.
This student’s reaction refl ects the transformed ethnic identity of the grand-
children and great-grandchildren of people who arrived in the peak immigration
period of 1880 to 1920. At that time, Hungarians, Bohemians, Slovaks, Czechs,
Poles, Russians, and Italians differed culturally and linguistically from one
another and from the Irish, German, Scandinavian, and English immigrants who
preceded them. Over the generations—and through intermarriage—this ethnic
distinctiveness has been replaced by a socioeconomic “convergence.”
64
Among
non-Hispanic whites, ethnic ancestry no longer shapes occupation, residence, or
political interest, nor is it the basis of the creation of communities of interest.
d

Whereas many enjoy ethnic food and celebrations or have strong feelings attached
to stories of immigration, the attachment is likely to be symbolic rather than
meaningful. Ethnic identifi cations are also more likely to be situational and
self-selected—for example, highlighting the Russian but ignoring the Irish and
German sides of the family.
Eventually, however, those in privileged statuses focus less on trying to win
the approval of those in stigmatized groups and instead explore the history of
privileged and stigmatized statuses. Learning how privilege has affected one’s own
life is often a central question in this period.
The fi nal stage involves integrating one’s privileged statuses with all the other
aspects of one’s life, recognizing those in stigmatized categorizations as distinctive
individuals rather than romanticizing them as a category (“just because oppressors
are bad, doesn’t mean that the oppressed are good”),
65
and understanding that
many with privilege have worked effectively against discrimination.
Passage through the stages of ethnic or racial identity is positively related to
self-esteem for all American race and ethnic groups, but the relationship is stron-
ger for those who are Asian American, African American, and Latino than for
those who are white.
66
Indeed, on various measures of self-esteem, African
Americans score signifi cantly higher than those in other race or ethnic groups.
67

d
An exception to the process of convergence among European-originated groups may be white,
urban, Catholic ethnics. Throughout the nineteenth century, American Catholic churches were
established as specifi cally ethnic churches (called “nationality churches”). These mostly urban
churches were tailored to serve a particular ethnic group, which often included sending a priest
from the home country who spoke the immigrants’ native language. Thus, within a single urban
area one might fi nd separate Irish, Italian, and Polish Catholic churches, as well as effectively
separate Catholic schools. The formation of ethnic churches meant that parishes also became
ethnically segregated. On occasion, those parishes came to constitute stable, distinctive, working-
class ethnic enclaves, for example, such as those found in Chicago. In these cases, ethnic identity
continues as an active, viable reality.
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220 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
CONCLUSION
In all, focusing on stigma and privilege uncovers social processes that might
otherwise be invisible, but also risks understating the complexity of people’s expe-
riences. Indeed, building an analysis around stigma highlights victim status, as if
the entire experience of a group could be characterized by stigma rather than
coping and resistance. This point is illustrated in a classroom conversation we
once observed, in which an African American student explained to his white
classmates that he and his sister both self-identifi ed as black, even though their
mother was white. At that point a white student asked why he didn’t call himself
white since he looked white and that status would yield him more privilege. In
response, he detailed all the qualities he prized in the black community and said
he would never give up that status to be white. Much of what he said was new
to the white students; many had never thought there was anything positive about
being black in America.
This classroom discussion refl ected the common assumption that those who
are stigmatized wish they belonged to the privileged group. Yet the student who
had asked the question was clear that she never wanted to be a male, which was
equally surprising to the men in the class. Thus, many men presume there is
nothing positive about being female, many straights assume there is nothing
positive about being gay, many nondisabled people assume that disability ensures
misery and loneliness, and many in the middle and upper classes assume there
is nothing positive in life for those who are poor. But most people value and
appreciate the statuses they occupy. We may wish those statuses weren’t stigma-
tized or overprivileged, but that does not mean we would want to be other than
who we are.
Our goal in this essay was to provide you with a framework by which to make
sense of people’s experience of privilege and stigma. Because there is a great deal
of material that illustrates privilege and stigma, for this section’s readings we have
tried to select those with broad applicability.
KEY CONCEPTS
discredited and discreditable The discredited are those
whose stigma is known or apparent to others. The dis-
creditable are those whose stigma is unknown or invis-
ible to others; they are not yet discredited. (page 206)
double consciousness A concept fi rst offered by
W.E.B. Du Bois to describe seeing oneself (or mem-
bers of one’s group) through the eyes of a
critical, dominant group member. (page 209)
entitlement The belief that one has the right to
respect, protection, reward, and other privileges.
(page 204)
intersectionality A focus on the interaction of sta-
tuses, especially stigmatized statuses. (page 214)
looping or rereading Interpreting (and usually
dismissing) someone’s words or actions
because of the status that the person occupies.
(page 205)
marked and unmarked statuses A marked status is
one identifi ed as “special” in some way, for exam-
ple, a blind musician or a woman doctor. Unmarked
statuses, such as musician or doctor, do not have
such qualifi ers. (page 205)
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Framework Essay 221
microaggression Commonplace interpersonal behav-
ior communicating negative race- or sex-based atti-
tudes; subtle personal insults. (page 210)
passing Not revealing a stigmatized identity. (page 206)
privilege The advantages provided by some statuses.
(page 195)
NOTES
1. Cary, 1991:83–84.
2. Kimmel and Messner, 1989:3; emphasis added.
3. McIntosh, 1989.
4. Smith, 2001.
5. Capehart, 2013
6. Williams, 1991:56–57.
7. New York State Task Force on Police-on-Police
Shootings, 2010.
8. Ibid., iii.
9. Dixon and Linz, 2000; Entman and Rojeck, 2000;
Entman, 1990, 1994.
10. Stabile, 2006:178.
11. Ibid., 172–3.
12. Reinarman and Levine, 2004:182.
13. Western, 2006:46.
14. Johnson et al., 2004.
15. Western, 2006.
16. Klein and Soltas, 2013.
17. Western, 2006:13.
18. Tsai and Scommegna, 2012.
19. Ibid.
20. Tierney, 2013.
21. Kocieniewski, 2002.
22. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 2010;
U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2011.
23. Tehranian, 2009.
24. Apuzzo and Goldstein, 2014.
25. Atencia, 1999; Richards 2003.
26. Human Rights Watch, 2007.
27. Stevens, 2008; Amnesty International, 2009.
28. Lopez, Morin, and Taylor, 2010.
29. Harris, 2003:77.
30. Carter, 2002:12.
31. Lester, 1994:56–7.
32. Herek, 1992:95–6, emphasis added.
33. Gallup, 2010
34. Associated Press, 2003
35. Tokarczyk, 2004:163.
36. Ibid.
37. Ettinger, 1994:51.
38. For example, Rosenhan, 1973; Schur, 1984; Goffman,
1961, 1963.
39. Davis, 1991:51.
40. Davis, 1991:56–57.
41. Sedgwick, 1990:68.
42. Goffman, 1963:42.
43. Herek and Glunt, 1993.
44. Goffman, 1963:42.
45. hooks, 1989:125.
46. Kennedy, 1976.
47. Hare, 1982:xiii.
48. DuBois 1982:45.
49. Wiseman, 2013:215–216.
50. Sue, 2010.
51. Vega, 2014.
52. Kanter, 1980, 1993.
53. Ashe, 1993.
54. Pager and Shepherd, 2008:185.
55. Ibid.
56. Royster, 2003:170–71.
57. Crenshaw, 1991.
58. Hull, Scott, and Smith, 1982.
59. Kotkin, 2009: 1440.
60. McCune, 2001:7.
61. Institute of Medicine, 2003:1, 2.
62. Cross, 1971, 1978; Hazen, 1992, 1994; Helms, 1990;
Morton and Atkinson, 1983; Thomas, 1970; Thomas
and Thomas, 1971.
63. Bartkey, 1990.
64. Alba, 1990.
65. Spivak, 1994.
66. Hazen, 1994:55.
67. Hazen, 1992.
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222 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
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Framework Essay 223
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224 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
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READING 21: Formulating Identity in a Globalized World 225
many more individuals are involved in the task of
negotiating a new identity that synthesizes ele-
ments of the culture of origin with those of the re-
ceiving culture.
The ever increasing fl ows of individuals from
myriad backgrounds provide a number of aesthetic,
cognitive, social, and marketplace opportunities.
The ability to code-switch—to move fl uidly be-
tween languages and cultures—has obvious social
advantages. Bicultural and bilingual competence
enables individuals to fl uidly adapt themselves to
evolving situations (Titone 1989). This skill has
advantages for entering many professions in the
business, diplomatic, and social service sectors.
Sommer argues that bilingualism is essential for
democracy as it “depends on constructing those mi-
raculous and precarious points of contact from mis-
matches among codes and people” (Sommer 2004).
Indeed, shortly after the last large wave of migra-
tion at the turn of the twentieth century, Stonequist
argued that the marginality afforded to those indi-
viduals in between cultures could lead to indivi-
duals who play the essential role of cultural
ambassadors adept at interpreting and bridging dif-
ference (Stonequist 1937). The cognitive fl exibility
that this multiple perspective taking requires is be-
coming an ever more essential trait for the global
citizen (Gardner, this volume; Suárez-Orozco and
Qin-Hilliard, this volume).
IMMIGRANT STRESS
Multiple pathways structure immigrants’ journeys
into their new homes. Immigrants and refugees are
motivated by a variety of factors—relief from politi-
cal, religious, or ethnic persecution (in the case of
refugees); economic incentives; as well as the oppor-
tunity to be reunited with family members. Although
for many immigrant families, migration results in
substantial gains, it provides many challenges to the
individuals involved. It removes individuals from
many of their relationships and predictable contexts—
extended families and friends, community ties, jobs,
R E A D I N G 2 1
Formulating Identity in
a Globalized World
Carola Suárez-Orozco
Increasing globalization has stimulated an unpre-
cedented fl ow of immigrants worldwide. These
newcomers—from many national origins and a
wide range of cultural, religious, linguistic, racial,
and ethnic backgrounds—challenge a nation’s sense
of unity. Globalization threatens both the identities
of the original residents of the areas in which new-
comers settle and those of the immigrants and their
children. Integrating immigrants and the subsequent
generations into the receiving society is a primary
challenge of globalization; failing to do so, how-
ever, will have long-term social implications. The
ability to formulate an identity that allows comfort-
able movement between worlds will be at the very
heart of achieving a truly “global soul” (Iyer 2000).
At the beginning of the new millennium, there
are over 175 million immigrants and refugees
worldwide. In the United States alone, 32.5 million,
or approximately 11.5 percent of the population,
are immigrants (U.S. Bureau of the Census 2000).
This is not simply a U.S. phenomenon, however. In
2000, 4.2 percent of the population in the United
Kingdom and 5.6 percent of the population in
France, was foreign-born. In other nations the per-
centage of foreign-born is greater than in the United
States: 11.8 percent in Sweden, 17.4  percent in
Canada, and 23.6 percent in Australia (Migration
Information 2003). In almost all these countries,
this trend has been steadily increasing. It is impor-
tant to note that these fi gures refl ect only the fi rst
generation. If one considers the children of these
immigrants—the second generation—clearly,
RACE AND ETHNICITY
Carola Suárez-Orozco is a professor of education at the Univer-
sity of California, Los Angeles.
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226 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
can compare their current situation with that left
behind often allows them to feel relatively advan-
taged in the new context (C. Suárez-Orozco and
M.  Suárez-Orozco 1995). Optimism is at the very
heart of the immigrant experience: the possibility of
a better tomorrow acts as both a tremendous motiva-
tor as well as a form of inoculation against encoun-
tered frustrations and barriers. Further, fi rst-generation
immigrants are often energized by the desire to sup-
port loved ones—by sending remittances home to
those left behind, as well as by building the best pos-
sible life for their children. While not an easy road, it
is one with a clear identity. Immigrants who arrive as
adults maintain a sense of identity rooted deeply in
their birthplaces. Many expatriates are, of course,
quite comfortable in their new homeland. Neverthe-
less they tend to retain an outsider status as the cul-
tural and linguistic hurdles are simply too high to
be  surmounted within one generation (C. Suárez-
Orozco and M. Suárez-Orozco 2001).
The path for their children, the second genera-
tion, is less straightforward, offering a variety of
pathways. For these youth, forging a sense of iden-
tity may be their single greatest challenge. Do they
feel comfortable in their homeland? Do they feel
accepted by the “native-born” of the host country?
What relationship do they have with their parents’
country of origin? Is their sense of identity rooted
“here,” “there,” everywhere, or nowhere?
THE ARCHITECTURE OF
CULTURAL IDENTITY
Stage versus Context
Erik Erikson (1968) argued that in the developmen-
tal stage of adolescence, identity is the critical mat-
urational task. In forming an identity, youth attempt
to create a self-identity that is consistent with how
others view them. Identity is less challenging when
there is continuity among the various social milieus
youth encounter—home, school, neighborhood,
and country. In the era of globalization, however,
social spaces are more discontinuous and fractured
than ever before.
living situations, customs, and often languages.
Immigrants are stripped of many of their sustaining
social relationships as well as the social roles that
provide them with culturally scripted notions of
how they fi t into the world, resulting in accultura-
tive stress (Berry 1997; C. Suárez-Orozco and
M. Suárez-Orozco 2001).
Immigrant youth face particular challenges.
They often immigrate not just to new homes but
also to new family structures (C. Suárez-Orozco,
Todorova, and Louie 2002). In our study of four
hundred immigrant youth who came to the United
States from a variety of origins, including Central
America, China, the Dominican Republic, Mexico,
and Haiti, we found that fully 85 percent of the
youth in this project had been separated from one
or both parents for periods of several months to sev-
eral years (C. Suárez-Orozco et al. 2002). To com-
pound this form of parental unavailability, many
immigrant parents work long hours, rendering them
relatively physically absent in the lives of their chil-
dren. Further, depression and anger that may be as-
sociated with the migratory experience may make
many immigrant parents psychologically unavail-
able to their children (Athey and Ahearn 1991).
These forms of absence all too frequently leave im-
migrant children to their own devices long before it
is developmentally ideal. Although in some cases it
can lead to hyperresponsible children, in other
cases it leads to depressed youth who are drawn to
the lure of alternative family structures such as
gangs—a particular risk for boys (Vigil 1988).
THE SECOND GENERATION
The challenges of the fi rst generation are consi-
derably different from those of the second genera-
tion. The fi rst generation is largely concerned with
surviving and adjusting to the new context. These
immigrants may go through a variety of normative
adverse reactions following the multiple losses
of  migration, including anxiety and depression.
However, the fi rst generation is protected from
these psychological sequelae by several factors.
The dual frame of reference by which immigrants
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READING 21: Formulating Identity in a Globalized World 227
For some groups the imposed or ascribed iden-
tity is considerably stronger than for others. In the
United States, for example, African identity is
fi rmly ascribed, whereas Italian identity can be as-
sumed at will. The degree to which ascribed origins
are imposed may also evolve over time. At the turn
of the twentieth century in Boston, having Irish ori-
gins had signifi cant negative implications, whereas
at the turn of the twenty-fi rst century, being from
Ireland merits little notice and can be articulated at
will (for St. Patrick’s Day events but not necessarily
in a job interview).
Phenotypic racial features have considerable im-
plications for the ease of assimilation. Historically,
immigrants coming from Europe to the United
States could more easily assimilate once they lost
their accents and changed their names. The ability
to join the mainstream unnoticed is more challeng-
ing when one is racially marked. Questions as to
where one is “really from” or compliments made to
Asian Americans who have been in the United
States many generations on their English fl uency
lead to what law professor Frank H. Wu (2002) re-
fers to as “perpetual foreigner syndrome.” In this
era of globalization, the fact that many immigrants
of color originate in the developing world (Africa,
Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America) and enter
postindustrial regions traditionally populated by
Europeans (Europe, North America, Australia)
makes “passing,” or fully assimilating unnoticed,
no longer possible for most new arrivals.
Contact with Cultures
Culture provides one with generally shared under-
standings and models for making meaning of one’s
experiences. Cultural beliefs present standards of
behavior that are internalized over time, and cul-
tural traditions offer a soothing sense of social
safety. At the heart of these shared understandings
are the interpersonal networks of relations in which
one is embedded.
In order to maintain a sense of affi nity with
one’s culture of origin, sustained contact is re-
quired. Regular visits back to the homeland—in
A number of psychologists have claimed that
identity goes through a variety of permutations dur-
ing adolescence as the individual experiments with
different identity strategies. Some argue that all
youth move steadily from a stage of ethnic or
“racial unawareness,” to one of “exploration,” to a
fi nal stage of an “achieved” sense of racial or ethnic
identity (Marcia 1966). Others point out that the
process of identity formation is, rather than being
linear, more accurately described as “spiraling”
back to revisit previous stages, each time from a
different vantage point (Parham 1989).
Achieved and Ascribed Identities
Identity formation, I would argue, is not simply a
process by which one passes through a variety of
stages on the way to achieving a stable identity.
Rather it is a process that is fl uid and contextually
driven. If raised in Beijing and immigrating as an
adult, one may “discover” that one is “Asian” for the
fi rst time at age thirty. Prior to immigrating, that
same individual in Beijing may never have consid-
ered her racial or ethnic identity (or if she did, it
would be a neighborhood identity). In the Chinatown
of the host society, the identity will be one of
northern mainland Chinese origin (in contrast to
Cantonese speakers from Hong Kong or Canton);
but in the heartland of the host country the identity
may become a more complex, “pan-Asian” con-
struct. The social context is essential in predicting
which identity is constructed (Suárez-Orozco 2000).
The tension between the dominant culture and
minority newcomers lies at the heart of the ethnic
and cultural identity formation drama of immi-
grants and their children (DeVos 1980). Youth are
challenged to navigate between achieved identi-
ties and ascribed or imposed identities (C. Suárez-
Orozco and M. Suárez-Orozco 2001). Achieved
identity is the extent to which an individual
achieves a sense of belonging—“I am a member
of this group.” An ascribed identity is imposed
either by coethnics—“You are a member of our
group”—or by members of the dominant culture—
“You are a member of that group.”
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228 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
more challenges than the children of Canadian
immigrants in New England.
The fact that many immigrants enter highly seg-
regated neighborhoods with large coethnic or mi-
nority populations complicates the potential for
identifi cation with mainstream culture. If there is
little contact with the mainstream middle class in
any form other than media representations encoun-
tered on television or in movies, identifying with the
host culture becomes something of an abstraction.
Performing Identity
How does an individual demonstrate his ethnic af-
fi liation? At the most basic level, the ethnic label an
individual chooses signifi es his identity (Maestes
2000; Waters 1996). Sociological research has used
the self-selected label as a way of examining
identity. Whether a second-generation person of
Mexican origin calls herself Mexican or Mexican
American, or Latina, or Chicana seems to be linked
to quite different patterns of incorporation and en-
gagement in schooling (Matute-Bianchi 1991;
Portes and Rumbaut 2001; Waters 1996). Individu-
als who adopt a self-referential label that includes
their parents’ country of origin seem to do better in
school than their counterparts who select a paneth-
nicity (such as Hispanic or Latino) or who refer only
to their country of residence (such as American).
The same is true with self-selected labels adhered to
by persons of Caribbean origin: Waters (1997) has
demonstrated that Caribbean-origin youth who call
themselves Jamaican American, for example, appear
to have different perceptions of discrimination
and  opportunities than those who call themselves
African American.
Feelings of belonging to rather than alienation
from the various cultural groups an individual may be
part of also has important implications (DeVos and
Suárez-Orozco 1990). Whether or not one feels affi li-
ation with and acceptance in the groups under consid-
eration may be related to one’s ability to incorporate
elements of the culture into one’s sense of self. Does
the individual value his culture of origin? Does he
feel accepted by other members of that culture? Is he
what is described as a transnational existence—
facilitates maintenance of the parent culture (Levitt
1996). Living in an ethnic enclave limits the opportu-
nity for regular interaction with members of the
mainstream culture. Ethnic communities, such as
Chinatown in San Francisco, Mexican barrios in Los
Angeles, the Dominican neighborhood in Washington
Heights (in Manhattan), the Cuban enclave in Miami,
and the like, nurture a sense of culture of origin with-
out requiring return visits to the homeland. The
strength of the effect of these ethnic neighborhoods
and enclaves is determined by the density of the local
ethnic population, the strength of the collective coe-
thnic identity, the community’s cohesiveness, and the
availability of cultural role models.
If there is little contact with the culture of origin,
however, then all of the “cultural lessons” fall upon
the shoulders of the parents to teach. Parents are, no
doubt, a critical source of information in the quest
to form an identity. Immigration, however, under-
mines parents’ ability to act as guides, by removing
the “map of experience” necessary to successfully
escort children in the new culture (Hoffman 1989).
Without effortless profi ciency in the new cultural
expectations and practices, immigrant parents are
less able to provide guidance in the ways of negoti-
ating the currents of a complex society; in addition,
they must rely on their children for cultural inter-
pretations. As a seasoned immigrant comments to a
prospective migrant in the novel Accordion Crimes ,
“the natural order of the world is reversed. The old
learn from the children” (Proulx 1996).
The ease with which elements of the parent cul-
ture can be incorporated into the new culture will to
some extent be affected by the “cultural distance”
between the parent and new culture (Berry 1997).
Youth growing up within dual contexts character-
ized by great degrees of dissimilarity between cul-
tural beliefs and social practices are likely to suffer
from greater identity confusion than those coming
from more convergent cultural backgrounds (Arnett
2002). This would suggest that in the United States
the children of rural Hmong in northern California
(Fadiman 1998; Portes and Rumbaut 2001) or
Yemeni immigrants in the Midwest would face
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READING 21: Formulating Identity in a Globalized World 229
1996), the United States (Espenshade and Belanger
1998), and Japan (Tsuda 2003). As today’s immi-
grants are more diverse than ever before in ethnic-
ity, skin color, and religion, they are particularly
subject to the pervasive social trauma of prejudice
and social exclusion (Tatum 1997).
The exclusion can take a structural form (when
individuals are excluded from the opportunity struc-
ture) as well as an attitudinal form (in the form of
disparagement and public hostility). These structural
barriers and the social ethos of intolerance and racism
encountered by many immigrants of color intensify
the stresses of immigration. Although the structural
exclusion suffered by immigrants and their children
is tangibly detrimental to their ability to participate in
the opportunity structure, prejudicial attitudes and
psychological violence also play a toxic role. Philos-
opher Charles Taylor argues that “our identity is
partly shaped by recognition or its absence, often by
the misrecognition of others, and so a person or group
of people can suffer real damage, real distortion, if
the people or society around them mirrors back to
them a confi ning or demeaning or contemptible pic-
ture of themselves” (Taylor 1994). How can youth of
immigrant origin incorporate the notion that they are
unwanted “aliens” who do not warrant the most basic
rights of education and health care?
The Social Mirror
Child psychoanalyst D. W. Winicott suggests that a
child’s sense of self is profoundly shaped by the
refl ections mirrored back to him by signifi cant oth-
ers (Winicott 1971). Indeed, all human beings are
dependent upon the refl ection of themselves mir-
rored by others. “Others” include not just the
mother (which was Winicott’s principal concern)
but also relatives, adult caretakers, siblings, teach-
ers, peers, employers, people on the street, and even
the media (C. Suárez-Orozco 2000). When the re-
fl ected image is generally positive, the individual
(adult or child) is able to feel that she is worthwhile
and competent. When the refl ection is generally
negative, it is extremely diffi cult to maintain an un-
blemished sense of self-worth.
drawn to the new culture (or cultures)? Does he feel
welcome and incorporated into the new culture (or
cultures)? Does he wish to be incorporated into the
new culture, or does he fi nd it alienating? These atti-
tudes will have much to do with the fusion of culture
that the individual internalizes (Maestes 2000).
Participation in a series of ethnic activities, as
well as the dominant culture’s activities and social
practices, is one of the clearest ways in which cul-
tural identity is performed (Maestes 2000). What
language does the individual report feeling most
comfortable using (Maestes 2000)? In what cir-
cumstances does she use the language of origin—
spontaneously or under duress? What is the culture
of the friends to whom she is drawn? Are
these friends mostly persons of the individual’s cul-
ture of origin, of the dominant culture, or of a
range  of origins? What religious practices are im-
portant, and to what degree? Do these practices
occur on a daily basis, or are they more occasional,
with a primarily social function? What foods does
the individual most enjoy, particularly in social set-
tings? What holidays does she celebrate? Are they
largely those of the culture of origin, of the host
society, or some combination? What entertainment
choices does she make? Selections made in sports
participation (baseball versus basketball versus
soccer, for example), music (salsa versus rap versus
pop), radio or television (ethnic versus main-
stream), movies and videos (country of origin ver-
sus Hollywood versus an eclectic selection) can
provide insight into relative comfort and affi liation
with the points of cultural contact (Louie 2003).
The Ethos of Reception
The general social climate, or ethos of reception,
plays a critical role in the adaptation of immi-
grants and their children (C. Suárez-Orozco and
M.  Suárez-Orozco 2001). Unfortunately, intoler-
ance for newcomers is an all-too-common response
all over the world. Discrimination against immi-
grants of color is particularly widespread and in-
tense in many areas receiving large numbers of new
immigrants, including Europe (Suárez-Orozco
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230 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
asked to complete the sentence “Most Americans
think that [Chinese, Dominicans, Central Americans,
Haitians, Mexicans—depending on the child’s
country of origin] are______.” Disturbingly, fully
65 percent of the respondents provided a nega-
tive  response to the sentence-completion task. The
modal response was “bad”; others—even more
disconcerting—included “stupid,” “useless,” “gar-
bage,” “gang members,” “lazy,” and “we don’t exist”
(C. Suárez-Orozco 2000).
What meanings do youth construct from and
how do they respond to this negative social mirror?
One possible pathway is for youth to become re-
signed to the negative refl ections, leading to hope-
lessness and self-depreciation that may in turn
result in low aspirations and self-defeating behav-
iors. The general affect associated with this path-
way is depression and passivity. In this scenario,
the child is likely to respond with self-doubt and
shame, setting low aspirations in a kind of self-
fulfi lling prophecy: “They are probably right. I’ll
never be able to do anything.” Other youth may mo-
bilize to resist the mirrors and injustices they en-
counter. I  differentiate between two types of
resistance. The fi rst is a project infused with hope,
a sense of justice, and faith in a better tomorrow.
The other form of resistance is eventually over-
come by alienation leading to anomie, hopeless-
ness, and a nihilistic view of the future. In this latter
case, youth may actively resist the refl ections they
encounter but are unable to maintain hope for
change or a better future. Without hope, the result-
ing anger and compensatory self-aggrandizement
may lead to acting-out behaviors including the
kinds of dystopic cultural practices typically asso-
ciated with gang membership. For these youth, the
response is “If you think I’m bad, let me show you
just how bad I can be” (C. Suárez-Orozco and
M. Suárez-Orozco 2001).
The social trajectories of youth are more prom-
ising for those who are able to actively maintain
and cultivate a sense of hope for the future. Whether
they are resigned, oblivious, or resistant to the re-
fl ections in the social mirror, those who are able to
maintain hope are in fundamental ways partially
These refl ections can be accurate or inaccurate.
When the refl ection is a positive distortion, the re-
sponse to the individual may be out of proportion to
his actual contribution or achievement. In the most
benign case, positive expectations can be an asset.
In the classic “Pygmalion in the Classroom” study,
teachers who believed that certain children were
brighter than others (based on the experimenter ran-
domly assigning some children that designation,
unsubstantiated in fact) treated the children more
positively and assigned them higher grades
( Rosenthal and Feldman 1991). It is possible that
some immigrant students, such as Asians, benefi t
somewhat from positive expectations of their com-
petence as a result of being members of a “model
minority”—though no doubt at a cost (Takaki 1993).
It is the negative distortions, however, that are
most worrisome. What is the effect for children
who receive mirroring from society that is predom-
inantly negative and hostile? Such is the case with
many immigrant and minority children (see Maira
2004). Commenting on the negative social mirror-
ing toward Muslim students after September  11,
Iraqi American Nuar Alsadir eloquently stated:
“The world shouldn’t be a funhouse in which we’re
forced to stand before the distorting mirror, beg-
ging for our lives” (Alsadir 2002). W. E. B. Du Bois
famously articulated the challenge of what he
termed “double-consciousness”—a “sense of al-
ways looking at one’s self through the eyes of oth-
ers, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world
that looks on in amused contempt and pity” (Du
Bois 1903/1989). When the expectations are of
sloth, irresponsibility, low intelligence, and even
danger, the outcome can be toxic. When these re-
fl ections are received in a number of mirrors, in-
cluding the media, classroom, and street, the
outcome is devastating (Adams 1990).
Research from the Harvard Immigration Project,
a study of youth immigrating to the United States
from China, Central America, the Dominican
Republic, Haiti, and Mexico, suggests that immigrant
children are keenly aware of the prevailing ethos of
hostility in the dominant culture (C. Suárez-Orozco
2000). A sample of four hundred children were
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READING 21: Formulating Identity in a Globalized World 231
saturated with psychological disparagement and
racist stereotypes has profound implications for the
identity formation of minority and immigrant chil-
dren, as well as for their schooling experiences.
In cases in which racial and ethnic inequalities
are highly structured, such as for Algerians in
France, Koreans in Japan, or Mexicans in
California, “psychological disparagement” and
“symbolic violence” may permeate the experience
of many minority youth. Members of these groups
not only are effectively locked out of the opportu-
nity structure (through segregated and inferior
schools and work opportunities in the least desir-
able sectors of the economy) but also commonly
become the objects of cultural violence. The stereo-
types of inferiority, sloth, and violence justify the
sense that they are less deserving of full participa-
tion in the dominant society’s opportunity struc-
ture. Facing such charged attitudes, which assault
and undermine their sense of self, minority children
may come to  experience the institutions of the
dominant society—especially its schools—as alien
terrain reproducing an order of inequality (DeVos
and M. Suárez-Orozco 1990). While all groups face
structural obstacles, not all groups elicit and
experience the same attitudes from the dominant
culture. Some immigrant groups elicit more nega-
tive attitudes, encountering a more negative social
mirror than others do. In U.S. public opinion polls,
for example, Asians are seen more favorably than
Latinos (Espenshade and Belanger 1998).
In past generations, assimilationist trajectories
demonstrated a correlation between length of resi-
dence in the United States and better schooling,
health, and income outcomes (Gordon 1964;
M. Suárez-Orozco and Paez 2002). While assimila-
tion was a goal and a possibility for immigrants of
European origin, resulting in a generally upwardly
mobile journey (Child 1943; Higham 1975), this
alternative is more challenging for immigrants of
color today. Further, increasing “segmentation” in
the American economy and society is shaping new
patterns of immigrant adaptation (Gans 1992;
Portes and Rumbaut 2001; Rumbaut 1997; Waters
1999; Zhou 1997).
inoculated to the toxicity they may encounter.
These youth are better able to maintain pride and
preserve their self-esteem. In these circumstances,
their energies are mobilized in the service of day-
to-day coping. Some may not only focus on their
own advancement but also harness their energies in
the service of their communities by volunteering to
help others, acting as role models, or advocating
and mobilizing for social change. In this scenario,
youth respond to the negative social mirror as a
goad toward “I’ll show you I can make it in spite of
what you think of me” (C. Suárez-Orozco and
M. Suárez-Orozco 2001).
Social Disparagement and
Academic Outcomes
Children of color are particularly subject to nega-
tive expectations that have profound implications
for their academic performance (Weinstein 2002).
Cross-cultural data from research focused on a va-
riety of disparaged minorities in a number of con-
texts all over the world suggest that exposure to a
negative social mirror adversely affects academic
engagement. This research provides insight into a
number of critical questions: In ethnically diverse
and increasingly transnational societies, how does
schooling relate to hierarchies of inequality (Freire
1995)? Does the educational system reproduce in-
equalities by replicating the existing social order?
Or does schooling help to overcome social inequal-
ities by emerging as an avenue for status mobility?
What is the experience of self in cultures where
patterned inequality shapes social interactions? An-
thropological cross-cultural evidence from a vari-
ety of regions suggests that the social context and
ethos of reception plays an important role in immi-
grant adaptation. Ogbu (1978) has argued that mi-
norities who were originally incorporated against
their will through conquest and enslavement are
more likely to give up on educational avenues as a
route to social mobility than are those of immigrant
origin who enter a new society voluntarily. DeVos
and M. Suárez-Orozco (1990) have demonstrated
that a cultural and symbolic ethos of reception
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232 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
explain only part of the variance; when these factors
are controlled for, differences become evident. On
one hand, immigrants tend to develop cultural mod-
els and social practices that serve them well in terms
of educational adaptations and outcomes. On the
other hand, “involuntary minorities,” after genera-
tions of living with structural inequities and symbolic
violence, tend to develop social practices and cultural
models that remove them from investing in schooling
as the dominant strategy for status mobility.
A number of theorists of the new immigration
have begun to examine how race and color compli-
cate the process of immigrant adaptation. Waters
(1999) claims that in this “race conscious society a
person becomes defi ned racially and identity is
imposed upon [him or her] by outsiders” (p. 6). She
reports that her black West Indian immigrant infor-
mants are shocked by the level of racism against
blacks in the United States. Though they arrive
expecting structural obstacles (such as discrimination
in housing and promotions), what they fi nd most dis-
tressing is the level of both overt and covert prejudice
and discrimination. Black immigrants tend to bring
with them a number of characteristics that contribute
to their relative success in the new setting. For their
children, however, “over the course of one generation
the structural realities of American race relations and
the American economy undermine the cultures of the
West Indian immigrants and create responses among
the immigrants, and especially their children, that
resemble the cultural responses of African Americans
to long histories of exclusion and discrimination”
(Waters 1999, p. 6). While cross-sectional data have
been used to identify this transgenerational pattern,
preliminary data from the Harvard Longitudinal Im-
migrant Student Adaptation study suggest that among
many immigrant youth of color, this process unfolds
at a rapid pace within a few years of migration.
In response to marginalization they encounter
in  their ethnic homeland, for example, Japanese
Brazilians resist assimilationist cultural pressures
by  strengthening their Brazilian national identity.
Similar trends found among Haitians in Miami
(Stepick 1997), Dominicans in Providence, Rhode
Island (Bailey 2001), and Caribbean American youth
Certainly, a preponderance of evidence suggests
that structural factors such as neighborhood segre-
gation and poverty (see Massey and Denton 1993;
Orfi eld and Yun 1999), as well as family-level
factors (including parents’ education and socio-
economic status), are signifi cant predictors of long-
term educational outcomes for children (Coleman
et  al. 1966). In a society powerfully structured by
“the color line” (Du Bois 1903/1989), however, race
and color are signifi cant vectors for understanding
the adaptations of immigrant youth of color.
Stanford University social psychologist Claude
Steele has led new theoretical and empirical work on
how “identity threats,” based on group membership,
can profoundly shape academic achievement. In a
series of ingenious experimental studies, Steele and
his colleagues have demonstrated that under the
stress of a stereotype threat, performance goes down
on a variety of academic tasks. For example, when
high-achieving African American university students
are told before taking an exam that the test has
proven to differentiate between blacks and whites, in
favor of whites, their performance was signifi cantly
worse than when they were not told that the test dif-
ferentiated between groups (Steele 1997). Steele
maintains that when negative stereotypes about one’s
group prevail, “members of these groups can fear
being reduced to the stereotype” (Steele 1997,
p.  614). He notes that in these situations, self-
handicapping goes up. This “threat in the air” has not
only an immediate effect on the specifi c situation
that evokes the stereotype threat but also a cumula-
tive erosive effect when events that evoke the
threat  continually occur. He argues that stereotype
threat shapes both intellectual performance and
intellectual identity.
How are identity and agency implicated in educa-
tional processes and outcomes? John Ogbu and his
colleagues have done seminal work in the area of im-
migration, minority status, and schooling in plural
societies (Matute-Bianchi 1991; Ogbu 1978, 1987).
Inspired by George DeVos’s comparative studies of
social stratifi cation and status inequality (DeVos
1973; DeVos and M. Suárez-Orozco 1990), Ogbu ar-
gued that parental and other socioeconomic factors
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READING 21: Formulating Identity in a Globalized World 233
Coethnic Identities
Some immigrant-origin youth maintain a largely co-
ethnic focus. Some may do so because they have lim-
ited opportunity to make meaningful contact with
other groups in the host culture. Others may be re-
sponding to an understanding that a group with which
they may have extensive contact is even more dispar-
aged than they are as immigrants. Hence, Caribbean-
origin individuals may distinguish themselves from
African Americans in an attempt to ward off further
disparagement (Waters 1999; Zéphir 2001).
Other youth of immigrant origin may develop
an adversarial stance, constructing identities
around rejecting—after having been rejected by—
the institutions of the dominant culture. Princeton
sociologist Alejandro Portes observes, “As
second-generation youth fi nd their aspirations for
wealth and social status blocked, they may join
native minorities in the inner city, adopting an
adversarial stance toward middle-class white
society, and adding to the present urban patholo-
gies” (Portes 1993).
Immigrant children who fi nd themselves struc-
turally marginalized and culturally disparaged are
more likely to respond to the challenges to their
identities by developing an adversarial style of ad-
aptation (Vigil 2002). These children of immigrants
are responding in ways similar to those of other
marginalized youth in the United States—such as
many inner-city poor African Americans and Puerto
Ricans (and elsewhere, such as Koreans in Japan or
Algerians in France). Likewise, many of the dispar-
aged and disenfranchised second-generation Italian
American, Irish American, and Polish American
adolescents of previous waves of immigration dem-
onstrated a similar profi le.
Today, some youth of immigrant origin respond
to marginalization and the poisoned mirror by de-
veloping adversarial identities. Among children of
immigrants who gravitate toward adversarial styles,
embracing aspects of the culture of the dominant
group is equated with giving up one’s own ethnic
identity (Fordham and Ogbu 1986). Like other dis-
enfranchised youth, children of immigrants who
in New York (López 2002,) suggest that for many of
today’s new arrivals, the journey is a process of ra-
cial and ethnic self-discovery and self-authoring.
New identities are crafted in the process of immi-
grant uprooting and resettlement through continuous
feedback between the subjective sense of self and
what is mirrored by the social milieu (Erikson 1968;
C. Suárez-Orozco and M. Suárez-Orozco 2001).
Given that today nearly 80 percent of the new im-
migrants are of color, emigrating from the “develop-
ing world”—Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia
(Edmonston and Passel 1994; Fix and Passel
1994)—a pattern of racialization and adversarial
identity formation within the school context is deeply
concerning. In our increasingly globalized world,
education becomes ever more crucial for functioning
(Bloom, 2004; Suárez-Orozco and Qin-Hilliard,
2004). Formulating identities that allow individuals
to move fl uidly from context to context becomes
critical to future functioning as global citizens.
IDENTITY PATHWAYS
Identities and styles of adaptation are highly con-
text dependent and fl uid. An immigrant youth might
fi rst gravitate toward one style of adaptation. Over
time, as she matures and as her context changes,
she may be drawn into new attitudes and social
behaviors.
In some cases the identity that is forged is highly
focused upon the culture of origin, with coethnics
as the primary point of reference. In some of these
cases, an identity that is adversarial to the dominant
culture may emerge. In other cases youth of immi-
grant origin may embrace total assimilation and
complete identifi cation with mainstream American
culture. In still other cases a new ethnic identity
that incorporates selected aspects of both the cul-
ture of origin and mainstream American culture is
forged. All of these identity styles have clear impli-
cations for adaptation to the new society, including
the schooling experiences of immigrant youth.
Within the same family, each child may adopt his or
her own style, resulting in various siblings occupy-
ing very different sectors of the identity spectrum.
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234 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
shame, doubt, and self-hatred. While passing may
have been a common style of adaptation among those
who phenotypically looked like the mainstream, it is
not easily available to today’s immigrants of color,
who visibly look like the “other.” Further, while ethnic
fl ight is a form of adaptation that can be adaptive in
terms of “making it” by the mainstream society’s stan-
dards, it frequently comes at a signifi cant social and
emotional cost.
Transcultural Identities
Between the coethnic and ethnic fl ight gravitational
fi elds, we fi nd the large majority of children of im-
migrants. The task of immigration for these children
is crafting a transcultural identity. These youth must
creatively fuse aspects of two or more cultures—the
parental tradition and the new culture or cultures. In
so doing, they synthesize an identity that does not
require them to choose between cultures but rather
allows them to incorporate traits of  both cultures
while fusing additive elements (Falicov 2002).
For Latinos, this state is what Ed Morales refers to
as “living in Spanglish.” He defi nes “the root of
Spanglish [as] a very universal state of being. It is
displacement from one place, home, to another place,
home, in which one feels at home in both places, yet
at home in neither place. . . . Spanglish is the state of
belonging to at least two identities at the same time,
and not being confused or hurt by it” (Morales 2002,
pp. 7–8). Such is the identity challenge of youth of
immigrant origin—their developmental task requires
crafting new cultural formations out of two systems
that are at once their own and foreign. These children
achieve bicultural and bilingual competencies that
become an integral part of their sense of self.
Among youth engaged in bicultural styles, the cul-
turally constructed social strictures and patterns of
social control of their immigrant parents and elders
maintain a degree of legitimacy. Learning standard
English and doing well in school are viewed as com-
petencies that do not compromise their sense of who
they are. These youth network, with similar ease,
among members of their own ethnic group as well as
with students, teachers, employers, colleagues, and
friends of other backgrounds. A number of studies in
develop adversarial identities tend to encounter
problems in school and drop out, and consequently
face unemployment in the formal economy. . . .
Ethnic Flight
The children of immigrants who shed their cultures
structure their identities most strongly around the
dominant mainstream culture (Berry 1997). Taking
ethnic fl ight, these youth may feel most comfort-
able spending time with peers from the mainstream
culture rather than with their less acculturated
peers. For these youth, learning to speak standard
English not only serves an instrumental function of
communicating but also becomes an important
symbolic act of identifying with the dominant cul-
ture. Among these youth, success in school may be
seen not only as a route for individualistic self-
advancement but also as a way to symbolically and
psychologically move away from the world of the
family and the ethnic group.
Often this identifi cation with the mainstream cul-
ture results in a weakening of ties to members of one’s
own ethnic group. These young people all too fre-
quently are alienated from their less acculturated peers,
having little in common with them or even feeling su-
perior to them. While they may gain access to privi-
leged positions within mainstream culture, they must
still deal with issues of marginalization and exclusion.
Even when immigrant-origin youth do not feel
haughty toward their ethnic peers, they may fi nd
the peer group unforgiving of any behaviors that
could be interpreted as “ethnic betrayal.” It is not
necessary for the child of an immigrant to con-
sciously decide to distance himself from his cul-
ture. Among some ethnic groups, merely being a
good student will result in peer sanctions. Accusa-
tions of “acting white” or being a “coconut,” “ba-
nana,” or “Oreo” (brown, yellow, or black on the
outside and white on the inside) are frequent
(Fordham and Ogbu 1986).
In an earlier era of scholarship, this style of adap-
tation was termed “passing” (DeVos 1992). While
there were gains for the children of immigrants who
“disappeared” into the mainstream culture, there were
also hidden costs—primarily in terms of unresolved
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READING 21: Formulating Identity in a Globalized World 235
authority. Furthermore, lack of group connected-
ness results in anomie and alienation. The key to a
successful adaptation involves acquiring competen-
cies that are relevant to the global economy while
maintaining the social networks and connectedness
essential to the human condition. Those who are at
ease in multiple social and cultural contexts will be
most successful and will be able to achieve higher
levels of maturity and happiness.
Gendered Differences
An emerging body of literature reveals that boys
from disparaged minority backgrounds seem to be
particularly at risk of being marginalized, begin-
ning in the educational system (Brandon 1991;
Gibson 1988; J. Lee 2002; Portes and Rumbaut
2001; Qin-Hilliard 2003; Waters 1996). Consistent
with this literature, data from the Harvard Immigra-
tion Project suggest that immigrant boys tend to
demonstrate lower academic achievement (as mea-
sured by report card outcomes) and encounter more
challenges in school than immigrant girls. Boys re-
port feeling less support from teachers and staff and
are more likely to perceive school as a  negative,
hostile, and racist environment (Qin-Hilliard 2003;
Suárez-Orozco and Qin-Hilliard 2004). . . .
Several factors may contribute to this pattern. The
negative social mirror that boys of color encounter
appears to be signifi cantly more distorting than that
encountered by girls (López 2002). Boys of color are
consistently viewed by members of the mainstream
society they encounter as more threatening than are
girls. Another factor that may help to explain boys’
poorer school performance is peer pressure. Many
researchers have noted that peer pressure to reject
school is quite strong among boys (Gibson 1993;
C.  Suárez-Orozco and M. Suárez-Orozco 2001;
Waters 1996). Furthermore, behaviors that gain boys
respect with their peers often bring them into confl ict
with their teachers. Some researchers point out that
immigrant boys are more pressured by their peers to
reject school than immigrant girls from the same eth-
nic background (Gibson 1993; C. Suárez-Orozco
and M. Suárez-Orozco 2001; Waters 1996). Gender
differences in family responsibilities at home may
the past two decades have demonstrated a link
between racial and ethnic identity pathways and
academic outcomes (Gibson 1988; Ogbu and Her-
bert 1998). These studies suggest that those who
forge transcultural identities are more successful
academically.
Many who successfully “make it” clearly perceive
and appreciate the sacrifi ces loved ones have made to
enable them to thrive in a new country. Rather than
wishing to distance themselves from parents, these
youth come to experience success as a way to “pay
back” their parents for their sacrifi ces. At times, they
experience a form of “survivor guilt” as a result of the
deprivation their parents and other family members
have suffered in order to move to the new land.
Among many such adolescents, success in school
serves not only the instrumental function of achiev-
ing self-advancement and independence but also,
perhaps even more important, the expressive func-
tion of making the parental sacrifi ces worthwhile
through the son or daughter’s “becoming a some-
body.” For such youth, “making it” may involve res-
titution by “giving back” to parents, siblings, peers,
and other less fortunate members of the community.
A transcultural identity is the most adaptive of the
three styles. It blends the preservation of the affec-
tive ties of the home culture with the acquisition of
instrumental competencies required to cope success-
fully in the mainstream culture. This identity style
not only serves the individual well but also benefi ts
the society at large. It is precisely such transcultural
individuals whom Stonequist identifi ed as being best
suited to become the “creative agents” who might
“contribute to the solution of the confl ict of races and
cultures” (Stonequist 1937, p. 15).
Transcultural identities are particularly adaptive
in this era of globalism and multiculturalism. By
acquiring competencies that enable them to operate
within more than one cultural code, immigrant
youth are at an advantage. The unilinear assimila-
tionist model, which results in styles of adaptation
I term ethnic fl ight, is no longer feasible. Today’s
immigrants are not unambivalently invited to join
the mainstream society. The rapid abandonment of
the home culture implied in ethnic fl ight almost al-
ways results in the collapse of the parental voice of
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236 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
dominate the cultural scene among adolescents liv-
ing in urban centers in Europe, Latin America, and
Asia (C. Suárez-Orozco and M. Suárez-Orozco
2001). This pattern seems to be driven in large part
by global media, including movies, television,
music videos and recordings, and the Internet, as
well as global marketing of such brands as Coca-
Cola, McDonald’s, and Nike (Arnett 2002). Whether
this attraction to global brands translates into inter-
nalized cultural practices remains to be seen. . . .
Psychologist Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, however, ar-
gues that globalization has clear implications for
identity development among youth. He maintains
that “most people in the world now develop a
bicultural identity,” which incorporates elements of
also play a role in explaining differences in academic
outcomes between girls and boys. Research fi ndings
consistently suggest that, compared with their broth-
ers, immigrant girls have many more responsibilities
at home (S. Lee 2001; Olsen 1997; Sarroub 2001;
Smith 2002, Valenzuela 1999; Waters 1996). While
these factors may account for this gendered pattern
of academic engagement, more research is required
to unpack the source of this trend.
EDUCATING THE GLOBAL
CITIZEN
. . . Is there such a thing as a global identity? In re-
cent decades, American youth culture has come to
P E R S O N A L A C C O U N T
Hair
I never hated my hair until I moved to America. My par-
ents always told me that I was beautiful and that my full
head of hair and thick curls were unique. I used to think
so too, until we moved. In Egypt, other girls had curly
hair, and it was commonplace for curly hair to be left wild
and untamed. But in the States, words like “frizzy,”
“nappy,” “poufy,” and “interesting” were used to describe
my hair. I have been approached many times by people
wanting to touch my hair, and often it has been compared
to dogs or carpet. This was hurtful, because I wanted so
badly to be accepted as a beautiful person. I wanted to
be acknowledged for characteristics like being intelligent
and committed to my education, not my carpet-dog hair.
School pictures were a nightmare; I am still taunted by
boys from my elementary school about how my hair used
to look, with threats that they will show my pictures to
other people.
I began to think that beautiful hair was straight and
shiny, like all the white girls had. That is when I began to
straighten my hair. Enormous time and effort went into
finding the latest “best way to make hair flat.” Money was
spent on hair products, hair irons, and blow dryers, all for
the satisfaction of going to school the next day and finally
being told that my hair looked pretty. When I went to the
hair salon, I was charged extra for having curly hair and
had to listen to unbearable comments from the stylists,
not to mention their body language. Since my hair was
curly, stylists knew no other way to straighten it than by
blow-drying it into a “fro” and then using the hair iron af-
terwards. I was subject to many stares, grunts, and
groans as the stylists expressed that my hair was not just
a burden for me, but for them as well. All the while, I de-
ceived myself into thinking that straight hair was more
manageable and less of a burden than outrageously
curly hair.
It has taken me more than ten years to realize that all
this is wrong, and that I should go back to loving my hair
for what it is and not wishing I had someone else’s. Now,
I am going through the slow process of growing it out and
letting myself go back to my natural hair—wild, free, and
untamed curliness.
My hair has played a huge part in establishing my
feelings as a minority in the United States. Although the
United States Census defines Egyptians as white, I cer-
tainly don’t feel white. The words used to describe my
hair are often used to describe black hair. I believe that
my hair has caused much confusion for other people in
terms of racial categorization. While my features and skin
color might categorize me as white, my hair is black.
Likewise, I’m not sure what race most people perceive
me to be. I have been told I look Hispanic, Dominican,
and half-black. This used to confuse me when I was
younger. Am I one of the black, white, or Hispanic kids?
Today, I don’t describe myself as Arab or Middle Eastern.
Rather, I’m Sarah, from Egypt, plain and simple.
Sarah Faragalla
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READING 21: Formulating Identity in a Globalized World 237
Bloom, David E. (2004) Globalization and Education: An
Economic Perspective. In Globalization: Culture and ed-
ucation in the new millennium . M. M. Suárez-Orozco and
Desireé Baolian Qin-Hilliard, eds. Berkeley: University
of California Press.
Brandon, P. (1991). Gender differences in young Asian
Americans’ educational attainment. Sex Roles 25(1–2): 45–61.
Child, I. L. (1943). Italian or American? The second genera-
tion in confl ict. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Coleman, J., et al. (1966). Equality and educational opportunity.
Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Offi ce.
DeVos, G. (1973). Socialization for achievement: Essays on
the cultural psychology of the Japanese. Berkeley: Uni-
versity of California Press.
DeVos, G. (1980). Ethnic adaptation and minority status.
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 11(1): 101–125.
______ (1992). The passing of passing. In Social cohesion
and alienation: Minorities in the United States and Japan.
G. DeVos, ed. Boulder, CO: West-view Press.
DeVos, G., and M. Suárez-Orozco (1990). Status inequality:
The self in culture. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1989). The souls of black folks. New
York: Bantam. (Original work published 1903).
Edmonston, B., and J. Passel, eds. (1994). Immigration and
ethnicity: The integration of America’s newest arrivals.
Washington, DC: Urban Institute.
Erikson, E. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. New York:
W. W. Norton.
Espenshade, T., and M. Belanger (1998). Immigration and
public opinion. In Crossings: Mexican immigration in
interdisciplinary perspective. M. M. Suárez-Orozco, ed.
Cambridge, MA: David Rockefeller Center for Latin
American Studies.
Fadiman, A. (1998). The spirit catches you and you fall
down: A Hmong child, her American doctors, and the col-
lision of two cultures. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Falicov, C. J. (2002). The family migration experience: Loss
and resilience. In Latinos: Remaking America. M. M.
Suarez-Orozco and M. M. Paez, eds. Berkeley: University
of California Press.
Fix, M., and J. Passel (1994). Immigration and immigrants:
Setting the record straight. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.
Fordham, S., and J. U. Ogbu (1986). Black students’ school
success: Coping with the burden of “acting white.” Urban
Review 18(3): 176–206.
Freire, P. (1995). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York:
Continuum.
Gans, H. (1992). Second-generation decline: Scenarios for
the economic and ethnic futures of the post-1965
American immigrants. Ethnic and Racial Studies 15(April):
173–192.
Gardner, Howard. (2004). How education changes: Consid-
erations of history, science, and values.
Gates, H. L., Jr. (2003) Both sides now. New York Times
Book Review, April 4, p. 31.
the local culture with an awareness of a relation to the
global culture (Arnett 2002, p. 777). As a result,
he and others maintain that identity confusion may be
increasing among youth (Nsamenang 2002). For
many, however, the identity is less bi cultural than a
“complex hybrid   ” (Arnett 2000, p. 778) or trans-
cultural (C. Suárez-Orozco and M. Suárez-Orozco
2001). Indeed, ethnic identity options may involve
more than simply two cultures. For those who remain
in the land of birth with a legacy of colonization, the
challenge is to reconcile local traditions with the im-
ported practices and globalized culture (Nsamenang
2002). In the words of Henry Louis Gates Jr.: “Today
the ideal of wholeness has largely been retired. And
cultural multiplicity is no longer seen as the problem
but as a solution—a solution to the confi nes of iden-
tity itself. Double consciousness, once a disorder, is
now a cure. Indeed, the only complaint we moderns
have is that Du Bois was too cautious in his account-
ing. He’d conjured ‘two souls, two thoughts, two un-
reconciled strivings.’ Just two, Dr. Du Bois? Keep
counting” (Gates 2003, p. 31). . . .
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. In what ways are the experiences of fi rst and
second-generation immigrants likely to differ?
2. What factors shape the identities of immigrant
youth? To improve the outcome for immigrant
youth, what would you recommend?
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READING 21: Formulating Identity in a Globalized World 239
P E R S O N A L A C C O U N T
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In life, I am certain of one thing: I am Vietnamese. My
identity as a Vietnamese, to borrow President Obama’s
words, began “with the fact of my race.” I was born in
Vietnam—to Vietnamese parents—and lived in Vietnam
for the first eight years of my life. As soon as I could
speak, I learned Quốc Ngũ,, the Vietnamese national
language, and was inculcated to the Vietnamese culture.
My parents taught me to use chopsticks when I was two
or three years old, when I started to sample Vietnamese
fare such as Pho, (Vietnamese noodle soup), Cha giò (egg
rolls), and Bún Thi
˙
t Nu,ó,ng (vermicelli with grilled pork and
vegetables). As good Vietnamese parents, they instructed
me on Vietnamese etiquette, such as bowing to my elders
as a sign of respect. My parents impressed upon me the
virtue of emotional restraint—to never raise my voice or
speak with too many gestures. I learned early in life that my
behavior is a reflection not only of myself but also of my
family and lineage.
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240 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
Born and raised in a country plagued by a civil war, I
was taught to value freedom before I knew its meaning.
Because death was a commonplace in my village, I under-
stood the fragility of life at an early age. The civil war that
began after the French withdrew in 1954 robbed my gen-
eration of our innocence—certainly we didn’t grow up lis-
tening to “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” or “If You’re Happy and
You Know It.” Rather, we were exposed to songs about the
despair of war and its horrendous consequences.
Under the remnant of French colonialism and amid
the violence, cruelty, and betrayal of a nation at war with
itself, I formed my Vietnamese identity—an identity that
had been influenced and shaped by the Vietnam War. By
the time my family and I escaped Vietnam in 1975, my
identity as a Vietnamese had been firmly established
and cemented. Or so I thought.
In America, we were sponsored by a Presbyterian
Church from Victoria, Texas, and once we were settled in
Victoria, my Vietnamese identity was immediately chal-
lenged in this new environment. Located 30 miles from
the Gulf of Mexico on the coastal plains of Texas, Victoria
had a population of 25,000 people in 1975. My family had
been the only nonwhite members at the First Presbyte-
rian Church; in fact, we had been the first Vietnamese
family in Victoria. Our life in Victoria revolved around our
church, and because our congregation was all white, I
came to believe that Victoria was predominantly a white
town. It was only years later that I learned that Victoria,
even in 1975, had a sizable Hispanic population.
For the first two years in Victoria, I clung to my
Vietnamese identity. As soon as I learned English, however,
I was immediately struck by the differences in self-identities
between my white and nonwhite peers. While my white
peers identified themselves as “just Americans,” my
nonwhite peers used the hyphenated identity of African-
American, Mexican-American, or Asian-American.
After a couple of years living in the United States, I, too,
began using a hyphenated identity, that of Vietnamese-
American. I no longer felt completely “Vietnamese,” yet I
didn’t feel “American” either. The hyphenated identity
allowed me to express the uniqueness of my Vietnamese
identity within the American context. In a sense, the
hyphenated identity represented my struggles between
the Vietnamese and American cultures. I maintained this
hyphenated identity until college, when I was exposed to
other constructs of identity.
At 17 years of age, I left home to attend the University
of Texas at Austin, a state university with one of the largest
student enrollments in the United States. I had never lived
away from home, so my first year at UT was both exciting
and exhilarating. I encountered people from different walks
of life, and as my world broadened and expanded, I began
to question my hyphenated identity. What did it mean to be
“Vietnamese-American?” For that matter, what did it mean
to be “just Vietnamese” or “just American?” When I chose
my hyphenated identity in my early teens, it made sense;
however, at the age of 18, I felt more restricted and con-
fined by it. Eventually, I decided to embrace the humanitar-
ian ideology and broadened my identity to be a “citizen of
the world.” With my newfound identity, I sought to incorpo-
rate multiple worldviews and perspectives in my life. My
new identity impelled me to form friendships and relation-
ships with people of different nationalities, religions, and
socioeconomic backgrounds. As a “citizen of the world,” I
had no national identity and knew no national boundary. In
short, I held no allegiance to any country.
After graduate school, I took a job as an assistant
professor in the Department of Asian American Studies
at San Francisco State University (SFSU). There, I
experienced another shift in my self-identity. Given my
profession, it’s likely that I would have reclaimed my
“blended bi-cultural identity” eventually.
1
But the racially
charged environment at SFSU prompted me to question
whether a “citizen of the world” identity, while an admirable
goal, was attainable. We are the product of our family,
culture, and society, and I didn’t grow up as a “citizen of
the world” but as a Vietnamese living in America. Toward
the end of my first semester at SFSU, I assumed the
identity of “Vietnamese American” or “Asian American.”
Unlike the previous hyphenated identity, I omitted the
hyphen between “Vietnamese” and “American.” Looking
back, I am not sure if I knew precisely why I had omitted
the hyphen from “Vietnamese American.” Certainly, the
difference between a hyphenated or nonhyphenated
identity is nuanced and subtle. For me, the hyphenated
identity signaled my struggles between the Vietnamese
and American cultures, while the nonhyphenated identity
indicated a more fluid and dynamic interaction between
the two often conflicting cultures. The hyphen had called
attention to my “Vietnameseness” set against the
American context; the omission of the hyphen eliminated
this distinction. Depending on the context, I could be
more American or more Vietnamese, and while others
may have perceived me to be more of one or the other, I
made no such distinction for myself.
In 2004, my parents passed away, and this gave rise
to  another shift in my self-identity. Each year, on the
anniversary of their passing, I hold a ceremony at a
Buddhist temple in Houston, Texas, to commemorate
them. As I sit cross-legged on the floor in the main part of
the temple where service is held, the scene always seems
unreal (especially to me as a Presbyterian). I sit facing the
five-platform structure that is arranged in the shape of a
pyramid and serves as an altar. The larger-than-life statue
of Buddha sits in the center of the shrine on the upper-
most platform while two smaller Buddha statues flank the
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The Americanization of a Reluctant Vietnamese-American 241
main Buddha figure. The service begins, and I struggle to
follow the chanting—although the chanting along with the
beating of the drum sends me into an almost dreamlike
state. After the metaphorical offering of food to my parents,
I set off for the airport and fly home to Seattle.
This very act has confounded my relatives in both
America and Vietnam. In their eyes, I am an “Americanized
Vietnamese,” so it befuddles them that I would embrace the
Vietnamese tradition/ritual of ancestral worship. How could
I be so “Vietnamese” yet so “American?” I didn’t attempt to
explain to my relatives on both sides of the pond that my
Vietnamese parents believed in ancestral worship, and I
chose to adhere to their belief system to honor them. Even
if I could explain, would they accept that I have no vested
interest in following the Vietnamese tradition or ritual for the
sake of tradition? For me, it has been a means to an end.
In the years after my parents’ passing, I began to travel
extensively, and my travels took me to different places
around the world and allowed me to explore my American
identity. In some instances, I found myself rigorously
asserting and defending it. No other place has made as
significant and profound an impact on my American iden-
tity as Paris, where I spent the month of June in 2009.
Instead of clinging to Vietnam and its legacy, especially
with its history with France, I chose to cut my ties with it
and embrace my American experience. When the
French asked about my nationality, I just replied that “I’m
American.” I found that my American identity afforded me
freedom from the history of oppression and domination
that my people had endured under the French empire. In
fact, by the time I landed at Newark Liberty International
Airport on June 30, 2009, my identity had shifted from
“Vietnamese American” to “just American.” By chance,
I had planned to spend the July 4th weekend in New York
City before flying back to Seattle, and as I watched our
nation celebrate our independence day that Saturday,
I silently celebrated mine.
Since my return from France more than two years
ago, I have assumed the identity of an American—an
American of Vietnamese descent, but nevertheless an
American. Unless asked, I haven’t shared or volunteered
this information. To be honest, I still would not if it weren’t
for the rise in vitriolic rhetoric in our national conversation
about race/ethnicity and national identity.
1
Citrin, Jack and David O. Sears. “Balancing National and
Ethnic Identities: The Psychology of E Pluribus Unum.”
econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/citrin2 .
2
Mong, Adrienne. August 15, 2011. “The ‘ABCs’ of Being
Ambassador to China.” http://behindthewall.msnbc.msn.
com/_news/2011/08/15/7371518-the-abcs-of-being-
ambassador-to-china.
When I am often asked by other Americans about my
nationality, I often reply, with tongue in cheek, “I’m from
Texas.” Taken aback, they try to clarify. “No, I mean, where
are you really from?” While I’m amused by their need to
place me outside the American context because of my
Asian features and skin color, in truth, I’m as American as
they are (albeit a naturalized citizen of the United States).
In fact, I could argue that I may even be more American
because I have consciously chosen my national identity
and allegiance to the United States of America.
Perhaps it was merely serendipitous that I woke up
on August 15, 2011, to see Gary Locke, our new American
ambassador to China, making headlines. The ruckus be-
gan when Tang Chaohui, a Chinese tech entrepreneur
and blogger, snapped a photo of Ambassador Locke with
a backpack, standing with his daughter at a Sea-Tac
Starbucks, buying his own coffee. According to the blog-
ger, Ambassador Locke even attempted to use a voucher.
The post went viral, and the Chinese reacted with
admiration, surprise, and confusion that Ambassador
Locke “wore a backpack and bought his own coffee.” In
the meantime, we in America looked at the reaction of
the Chinese and asked: “What’s the big deal? We all
have to buy our own coffee and carry our own backpack.”
Perhaps one Chinese commentator summed it up best
when he wrote about Locke on iFeng.com: “In China,
even a low-level official uses police to open up the road
for them when they go out.” Another further explained,
“We are so used to Chinese officials’ privileges that we’re
now not used to Gary Locke’s normal behavior.”
Given that I spent the weekend writing about the
various shifts in my self-identity, I found the buzz around
Ambassador Locke quite interesting. Certainly, I found it
fascinating that both Chinese and Americans assigned the
hyphenated identity of “Chinese-American” to Ambassador
Locke even though he was born in the United States.
Moreover, it was how Ambassador Locke identified himself
that I found most interesting. In his statement, Ambassador
Locke said: “I am both humbled and honored to stand here
before you as a child of Chinese immigrants representing
America, the land of my birth, and the American values my
family holds dear. I can only imagine just how proud my
dad, Jimmy, who passed away in January, would be for his
son to be the first Chinese-American to represent the
United States in the land of his and my mother’s birth. My
parents, my wife, our children—we all personally represent
America and America’s promise as a land of freedom,
equality, and opportunity.”
2
Ambassador Locke, I couldn’t agree with you more. I,
too, may be ethnically Vietnamese; however, I’m all
American (backpack, discount voucher, and buying my
own coffee and all).
Hoai Huong Tran
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242 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
As I grew older, I came to see that many of these
cues or clues to status—skin color, physical fea-
tures, accents, surnames, residence, and other class
characteristics—changed according to place or sit-
uation. For example, a natural “tan” in my South
Bronx neighborhood was attractive, whereas down-
town, in the business area, it was “otherizing.” I
also recall that the same color was perceived differ-
ently in different areas. Even in Latino contexts,
I saw some people as lighter or darker, depending
on certain factors, such as their clothes, occupa-
tions, and families.
2
I suspect that others saw me
similarly, so that in some contexts, I was very light,
in others darker, and in still others about the same
as everyone else. Even though my color stayed the
same, the perception and sometimes its valuation
changed.
I also realize now that some Latinos’ experi-
ences were different from mine and that our experi-
ences affect the way we view the world. I know that
not all Latinos have multiple or fl uctuating identi-
ties. For a few, social context is irrelevant. Regard-
less of the context, they see themselves, and/or are
seen, in only one way. They are what the Census
Bureau refers to as consistent; that is, they consis-
tently answer in the same way when asked about
their “race.” Often, but not always, they are at one
or the other end of the color spectrum.
My everyday experiences as a Latina, supple-
mented by years of scholarly work, have taught me
that certain dimensions of race are fundamental to
Latino life in the United States and raise questions
about the nature of “race” in this country. This does
not mean that all Latinos have the same experi-
ences, but that for most, these experiences are not
surprising. For example, although some Latinos are
consistently seen as having the same color or
“race,” many Latinos are assigned a multiplicity of
“racial” classifi cations, sometimes in one day! I am
reminded of the student who told me after class one
day, “When people fi rst meet me, they think I’m
Italian, then when they fi nd out my last name is
Mendez, they think I’m Spanish, then when I tell
them my mother is Puerto Rican, they think I’m
nonwhite or Black.” Although he had not changed
R E A D I N G 2 2
Latinos and the U.S. Race
Structure
Clara E. Rodríguez
According to defi nitions common in the United
States, I am a light-skinned Latina, with European
features and hair texture. I was born and raised in
New York City; my fi rst language was Spanish, and
I am today bilingual. I cannot remember when I
fi rst realized how the color of one’s skin, the texture
of one’s hair, or the cast of one’s features deter-
mined how one was treated in both my Spanish-
language and English-language worlds. I do know
that it was before I understood that accents, sur-
names, residence, class, and clothing also deter-
mined how one was treated.
Looking back on my childhood, I recall many
instances when the lighter skin color and European
features of some persons were admired and terms
such as “pelo malo” (bad hair) were commonly
used to refer to “tightly curled” hair. It was much
later that I came to see that this Eurocentric bias,
which favors European characteristics above all
others, was part of our history and cultures. In both
Americas and the Caribbean, we have inherited and
continue to favor this Eurocentrism, which grew
out of our history of indigenous conquest and slav-
ery (Shohat and Stam 1994).
I also remember a richer, more complex sense of
color than this simple color dichotomy of black and
white would suggest, a genuine esthetic apprecia-
tion of people with some color and an equally gen-
uine valuation of people as people, regardless of
color. Also, people sometimes disagreed about an
individual’s color and “racial” classifi cation, espe-
cially if the person in question was in the middle
range, not just with regard to color, but also with
regard to class or political position.
1

Clara E. Rodríguez is a professor of sociology at Fordham
University’s College at Lincoln Center.
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READING 22: Latinos and the U.S. Race Structure 243
to be ‘had,’ controlled.” (p. 460) Also prevalent in
the upper classes is the hegemonic view that rejects
or denies “mixture” and claims a “pure” European
ancestry. This view also is common among middle-
and upper-class Latinos, regardless of their skin
color or place of origin. In some areas, people
rarely claim a European ancestry, such as in indig-
enous sectors of Latin America, in parts of Brazil
and in some coastal areas in Colombia, Venezuela,
Honduras, and Panama (see, e.g., Arocha 1998; De
la Fuente 1998). Recently, some Latinos have en-
couraged another view in which those historical
components that were previously denied and deni-
grated, such as indigenous and African ancestry,
were privileged (see, e.g., Moro; La Revista de
Nuestra Vida [Bogota, Colombia, September 1998];
La Voz del Pueblo Taino [The Voice of the Taino
People], offi cial newsletter of the United Confed-
eration of Taino People, U.S. regional chapter, New
York, January 1998).
Many people, however—mostly non-Latinos—
are not acquainted with these basic elements of
Latino life. They do not think much about them;
and when they do, they tend to see race as a “given,”
an ascribed characteristic that does not change for
anyone, at any time. One is either white or not
white. They also believe that “race” is based on ge-
netic inheritance, a perspective that is just another
construct of race.
Whereas many Latinos regard their “race” as
primarily cultural, others, when asked about their
race, offer standard U.S. race terms, saying that
they are White, Black, or Indian. Still others see
themselves as Latinos, Hispanics, or members of a
particular national-origin group and as belonging
to a particular race group.
3
For example, they
may  identify themselves as Afro-Latinos or white
Hispanics. In some cases, these identities vary ac-
cording to context, but in others they do not.
I have therefore come to see that the concept of
“race” can be constructed in several ways and that
the Latino experience in the United States provides
many illustrations of this. My personal experiences
have suggested to me that for many Latinos,
“racial” classifi cation is immediate, provisional,
his identity, the perception of it changed with each
additional bit of information.
Latino students have also told me that non-
Latinos sometimes assume they are African
American. When they assert they are not “Black” but
Latino, they are either reproved for denying their
“race” or told they are out of touch with reality. Other
Latinos, who see Whites as Other-than-me are told by
non-Latinos, “But you’re white.” Although not all
Latinos have such dramatic experiences, almost all
know (and are often related to) others who have.
In addition to being reclassifi ed by others (with-
out their consent), some Latinos shift their own
self-classifi cations during their lifetime. I have
known Latinos, who became “black,” then “white,”
then “human beings,” and fi nally “Latino”—all in a
relatively short time. I have also known Latinos for
whom the sequence was quite different and the time
period longer. Some Latinos who altered their iden-
tities came to be viewed by others as legitimate
members of their new identity group. I also saw the
simultaneously tricultural, sometimes trilingual,
abilities of many Latinos who manifested or pro-
jected a different self as they acclimated themselves
to a Latino, African American, or White context
(Rodríguez 1989:77).
I have come to understand that this shifting, con-
text-dependent experience is at the core of many
Latinos’ life in the United States. Even in the nu-
clear family, parents, children, and siblings often
have a wide range of physical types. For many
Latinos race is primarily cultural; multiple identi-
ties are a normal state of affairs; and “racial mix-
ture” is subject to many different, sometimes
fl uctuating, defi nitions.
Some regard racial mixture as an unfortunate or
embarrassing term, but others consider the affi rma-
tion of mixture to be empowering. Lugones (1994)
subscribes to this latter view and affi rms “mixture,”
mestizaje, as a way of resisting a world in which
purity and separation are emphasized, and one’s
identities are controlled: “Mestizaje defi es control
through simultaneously asserting the impure, cur-
dled multiple state and rejecting fragmentation into
pure parts . . . [T]he mestiza . . . . has no pure parts
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244 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
The  fact that these Latino referents were usually
cultural or national-origin terms, such as Dominican,
Honduran, or Boricua (i.e., Puerto Rican) under-
scores the fact that many Latinos viewed the ques-
tion of race as a question of culture, national origin,
and socialization rather than simply biological or
genetic ancestry or color. Indeed, recent studies
have found that many Latinos understand “race” to
mean national origin, nationality, ethnicity, culture
(Kissam, Herrera, and Nakamoto 1993), or a combi-
nation of these and skin color (Bates et al. 1994:109;
Rodríguez 1991, 1992, 1994; Rodríguez and Cordero-
Guzmán 1992). For many Latinos, the term race or
raza is a refl ection of these understandings and not
of those often associated with “race” in the United
States, e.g., defi ned by hypodescent.
5
Studies have
found that Latinos also tend to see race along a
continuum and not as a dichotomous variable in
which individuals are either white or black (Bracken
and de Bango 1992; Rodríguez and Hagan 1991;
Romero 1992).
This does not mean that there is one Latino view
of race. Rather, there are different views of race
within different countries, classes, and even fami-
lies. Latinos’ views of race are dependent on a
complex array of factors, one of which is the racial
formation process in their country of origin. Other
variables also infl uence their views of race, for ex-
ample, generational differences, phenotype, class,
age, and education. But even though there is not
just one paradigm of Latin American race, there are
some basic differences between the way that
Latinos view race and the way that race is viewed
overall in the United States.
In the United States, rules of hypodescent
and  categories based on presumed genealogical-
biological criteria have generally dominated think-
ing about race. Racial categories have been few,
discrete, and mutually exclusive, with skin color a
prominent element. Categories for mixtures—for
example, mulatto—have been transitory. In con-
trast, in Latin America, racial constructions have
tended to be more fl uid and based on many vari-
ables, like social class and phenotype. There also
have been many, often overlapping, categories, and
contextually dependent, and sometimes contested.
But because these experiences apply to many non-
Latinos as well, it is evident to me that the Latino
construction of race and the racial reading of Lati-
nos are not isolated phenomena. Rather, the gov-
ernment’s recent deliberations on racial and ethnic
classifi cation standards refl ect the experiences and
complexities of many groups and individuals who
are similarly involved in issues pertaining to how
they see themselves and one another (U.S. Dept. of
Commerce 1995; U.S. Offi ce of Management and
Budget 1995, 1997a, 1997b, 1999).
Throughout my life, I have considered racism to
be evil and I oppose it with every fi ber of my being.
I study race to understand its infl uence on the lives
of individuals and nations because I hope that hon-
est, open, and well-meaning discussions of race and
ethnicity and their social dynamics can help us ap-
preciate diversity and value all people, not for their
appearance, but for their character.
It was because of my personal experiences that
I  fi rst began to write in this area and that I was
particularly sensitive to Latinos’ responses to the
census’ question about race. The U.S. Census Bu-
reau’s offi cial position has been that race and eth-
nicity are two separate concepts. Thus, in 1980 and
in 1990, the U.S. census asked people to indicate
their “race”—white, black, Asian or Pacifi c
Islander, American Indian or “other race”—and
also whether or not they were Hispanic. Latinos
responded to the 1990 census’ question about race
quite differently than did non-Latinos. Whereas
less than 1% of the non-Hispanic population
reported they were “other race,” more than 40% of
Hispanics chose this category. Latinos responded
similarly in the previous decennial census (Denton
and Massey 1989; Martin, DeMaio, and Campanelli
1990; Rodríguez 1989, 1990, 1991; Tienda and
Ortiz 1986). Although the percentages of different
Hispanic groups choosing this category varied, all
chose it more than did non-Hispanics.
In addition, the many Hispanics who chose this
category wrote—in the box explicitly asking for
race—the name of their “home” Latino country or
group, to “explain” their race—or “otherness.”
4

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READING 22: Latinos and the U.S. Race Structure 245
with Blacks and Whites through a simultaneous
process of valorization and ostracism. This racial
triangulation continued to reinforce White racial
power and insulate it from minority encroachment
or challenge.
Some immigrants discriminated against Blacks
and/or other depreciated minorities, by not living
with “them,” not hiring “them” in enclave econo-
mies, or articulating prejudices against “them.”
Institutionalized discrimination and normative be-
havior aided racialization so that, for example, it
became diffi cult to rent or sell to members of cer-
tain groups because of exclusionary practices.
Nearly all immigrant groups experienced this
seldom-mentioned, but indisputable dimension of
the Americanization process. Critical to the racial-
ization process was the belief that there is always
some “other” group to which one is superior. In-
deed, this process has been an effective means of
protecting the status quo because it made it diffi cult
to understand and pursue areas of common interest
and resulted in divide-and-conquer outcomes.
Latinos—and many other groups—come to the
United States with different views on race and with
their own racial hierarchies. The relation of these
people’s racialization to their hierarchies in the
United States has not been widely studied. But it is
clear that when they arrive, they too become part of
a racialization process in which they are differenti-
ated according to the offi cial perception of their
race, which may or may not be the same as their
own perception. This racial reclassifi cation im-
merses immigrants in a social education process in
which they fi rst learn—and then may ignore, resist,
or accept—the state-defi ned categories and the
popular conventions about race (particularly one’s
own) (Rodríguez 1994).
The racialization process also includes contra-
dictory views of the way that Hispanics are gener-
ally regarded. At one extreme, Hispanics are a
Spanish-speaking white ethnic group, who are sim-
ply the most recent in the continuum of immigrant
groups and are expected to follow the traditional
path of assimilation. Another view holds that the
term Hispanic —which has generally not been
mixtures have been consistently acknowledged and
have had their own terminology. These general dif-
ferences are what Latinos bring with them to the
United States, and they infl uence how they view
their own and others’ “identity.”
Although Latinos may use or approach “race”
differently, this does not mean that “race” as under-
stood by Latinos does not have overtones of racism
or implications of power and privilege—in either
Latin America or the United States. The deprecia-
tion and denial of African and Amerindian charac-
teristics are widespread.
6
Everywhere in Latin
America can be found “. . . a pyramidal class struc-
ture, cut variously by ethnic lines, but with a local,
regional and nation-state elite characterized as
‘white.’ And white rules over color within the same
class; those who are lighter have differential access
to some dimensions of the market” (Torres and
Whitten 1998:23).
Suffi ce it to say at this point that in my many
years of research in this area, I have noticed in my
and others’ work that “race” is a recurring, some-
times amusing and benign, and sometimes confl ic-
tual issue.
7
For Latinos’ responses to questions of
race are seldom as simple and straightforward
as  they tend to be for most non-Hispanic Whites
(Rodríguez et al. 1991).
In the past, new immigrants immediately under-
went a racialization process, which conveyed an
implicit hierarchy of color and power. The two ele-
ments of this racialization process were (1) the ac-
ceptance of and participation in discrimination
against people of color (Bell 1992; Du Bois
1962:700 ff; Morrison 1993) and (2) negotiations
regarding the group’s placement in the U.S. racial-
ethnic queue (Jacobson 1998; Rodríguez 1974;
Smith 1997; Takaki 1994). Immigrants undergoing
this racialization process discriminated implicitly
or explicitly against others because of their color
and status. Indeed, some immigrants realized that
one way to become “White,” or more acceptable
to  Whites, was to discriminate against others
seen  as “nonwhite” (Ignatiev 1995; Kim 1999;
Loewen 1971). Kim (1999) reviewed the historical
experience of Asian Americans being triangulated
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246 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
national-origin group, as well as the relative size of
other groups,  all affect how individual Latinos
identify themselves.
My own life experiences have demonstrated the
social constructedness of race, and subsequent re-
search has shown that “race” is not fi xed, is imper-
fectly measured, is at variance with scientifi c
principles, is often confl ated with the concept of
“ethnicity,” and is under increasing scientifi c criti-
cism and popular interrogation. Nonetheless, race
is still real; it still exists.
8
We may question its ne-
cessity, the right of anyone to establish such mark-
ers, and its validity as a scientifi c concept. We may
see it as unjust and want to change it. But we must
acknowledge its signifi cance in our lives. It can be
deconstructed, but it cannot be dismissed.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What do you think Rodríguez means when she
says that for Latinos, race is “cultural”?
2. What do you think is the impact of American
racial constructions on immigrant Latino
Americans?
NOTES
1. In her study of Spanish speaking Caribbeans, Dominguez
states that “An individual may be identifi ed as indio,
trigueno, blanco, prieto, or whatever in different con-
texts by different people or even by the same person”
(1986:275).
2. Except when specifi cally referring to women, I use the
word Latino to refer to both women and men. At the de-
scriptive level, my analyses of how Latinas and Latinos
classify themselves racially have not revealed signifi cant
differences. But under more controlled conditions, some
labor market differences by race and gender have been
noted (Gómez n.d.; Rodríguez 1991).
3. I use both Hispanic and Latino, in part because both
terms are used in the literature and I’ve tried to use those
of the authors I cite when discussing their work. Works
based on census material, for example, tend to use the
term Hispanic, mainly because this is the category under
which the data were collected. Other works refer to sur-
veys employing the term Latino. See the following for
different arguments concerning the preferred term:
Gimenez 1989; Hayes-Bautista and Chapa 1987; Oboler
1995; Treviño 1987.
unknown to new immigrants from Latin America—
is subtly “colored” by negative and racial associa-
tions. For example, the stereotyped image (for both
Hispanics and non-Hispanics) of a Hispanic is “tan.”
Within this perspective, Hispanics are often referred
to as “light skinned,” not as white. Yet, many
Hispanics would be seen as White, Black, or Asian
if it were not known that they were Hispanic. But
seeing Hispanics/Latinos as “light” clearly restricts
their “Whiteness” and thus makes them nonwhite
by default, but not a member of other race groups.
Thus, many Hispanics entering this country become
generically “nonwhite” to themselves, or to others,
regardless of their actual phenotype or ancestry.
The United States’ racialization process affects
all groups’ sense of who they are, and how they are
seen, in regard to color and race. There are few
studies of this concerning Latinos, but some autobi-
ographies suggest that the racialization process has
had a signifi cant impact (see, e.g., Rivera 1983;
Rodríguez 1992; Santiago 1995; Thomas 1967).
Whether this has been a dissonant impact and has
affected Latinos’ mobility and the quality of life
has not yet been determined.
Some Latinos, infl uenced by movements such as
the Black Power movement, Afrocentrism, pan-
Africanism and African diaspora philosophies, and
the celebration of negritude, have come to see
themselves, and sometimes their group, as Black.
Terms like Afro-Latino, black Cuban, and black
Panamanian are now common, and some Latinos
celebrate their African roots. Others focus on their
Amerindian or indigenous component, while still
others see themselves only as white or mixed or
identify themselves only ethnically.
A Dominican student of mine told me that each
of her and her husband’s children claimed a differ-
ent identity. So they had one Black child, one
White child, and one Dominican child. Each of the
children had different friends and tastes. Many
variables contribute to and interact with the racial-
ization process to determine how individuals
decide on their group affi liation. Generation, phe-
notype, previous and current class position, and
the size and accessibility of one’s cultural or
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READING 22: Latinos and the U.S. Race Structure 247
De La Fuente, Alejandro. 1998. “Race, National Discourse,
and Politics in Cuba: An Overview.” Latin American Per-
spectives 25 (3) (May): 43–69. Issue 100 entitled “Race
and National Identity in the Americas” and edited by
Helen Safa.
Denton, N. A., and D. S. Massey. 1989. “Racial Identity
among Caribbean Hispanics: The Effect of Double
Minority Status on Residential Segregation.” American
Sociological Review 54:790–808.
Domínguez, Virginia R. 1986. White by Defi nition: Social
Classifi cation in Creole Louisiana. New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press.
Du Bois, W. E. B. 1962. Black Reconstruction in America,
1860–1880. Cleveland: World Publishing.
Gimenez, Martha. 1989. “Latino/‘Hispanic’—Who Needs a
Name? The Case against a Standardized Terminology.”
International Journal of Health Services 19 (3): 557–571.
Gómez, Christina. n.d. “The Continual Signifi cance of Skin
Color: An Exploratory Study of Latinos in the Northeast.”
Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, currently under
review.
Hayes-Bautista, D. E., and J. Chapa. 1987. “Latino Termi-
nology: Conceptual Basis for Standardized Terminology.”
American Journal of Public Health 77: 61–68.
Ignatiev, Noel. 1995. How the Irish Became White. New
York: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Jacobson, Mathew. 1998. Becoming Caucasian: Whiteness
and the Alchemy of the American Melting Pot. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Kim, Claire Jean. 1999. “The Racial Triangulation of
Asian  Americans.” Politics and Society 27(1)(March):
105–138.
Kissam, Edward, Enrique Herrera, and Jorge M. Nakamoto.
1993. “Hispanic Response to Census Enumeration Forms
and Procedures.” Task order no. 46-YABC-2-0001, contract
no. 50-YABC-2-66027, submitted by Aguirre International,
411 Borel Ave., Suite 402, San Mateo, CA 94402, to U.S.
Bureau of the Census, Center for Survey Methods Re-
search, March.
Lugones, María. 1994. “Purity, Impurity, and Separation.”
Signs 19 (2) (Winter): 459–479.
Marks, Jonathan. 1994. “Black, White, Other: Racial Cate-
gories Are Cultural Constructs Masquerading as Biology.”
Natural History, December, pp. 32–35.
Martin, E., T. J. DeMaio, and P. C. Campanelli. 1990. “Con-
text Effects for Census Measures of Race and Hispanic
Origin.” Public Opinion Quarterly 54 (4): 551–566.
Morrison, Toni. 1993. “On the Backs of Blacks.” Time, spe-
cial issue (Fall), p. 57.
Oboler, Suzanne. 1995. Ethnic Labels/Latino Lives: Identity
and the Politics of (Re) Presentation in the United States.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Rivera, Edward. 1983. Family Installments: Memories of
Growing up Hispanic. New York: Penguin Books.
4. According to Jorge del Pinal, 42.7% of the Hispanics
who chose the “other race” category in the 1990 census
gave a Latino referent. However, 94.3% of “other race”
persons who provided a write-in gave a Latino referent.
(Personal communication, July 30, 1999.) In addition,
two-thirds of all those who did not specify their race
wrote in their Hispanic ethnicity (U.S. Offi ce of Man-
agement and Budget 1995:44689).
5. Hypodescent is also referred to as the “one-drop rule,” in
which “one drop” of “nonwhite or Black blood” deter-
mines a person’s “race.”
6. The degree to which racism is perceived and experi-
enced within the Latino framework may be related to
phenotype. Consequently, those farthest from either the
local mean or the ideal European model may be those
most subject to, and therefore most aware of, racism and
discrimination. In the dominant United States frame-
work, those farthest from the stereotype “Latin look”
may be those who are most acutely aware of, or in the
best position to observe, discrimination.
7. See Davis et al. (1998a:III-22-23) for light and humor-
ous discussions of skin color in cognitive interviews.
8. Marks (1994) maintains that folk concepts of race—
fl awed and scientifi cally defi cient as they may be—are
passed down from generation to generation, just as ge-
netic material is inherited. This is part of what keeps the
concept of “race” real.
REFERENCES
Arocha, Jaime. 1998. “Inclusion of Afro-Colombians: Un-
reachable National Goal?” Latin American Perspectives
25 (3) (May):70–89.
Bates, Nancy A., Manuel de la Puente, Theresa J. DeMaio,
and Elizabeth A. Martin. 1994. “Research on Race and
Ethnicity: Results from Questionnaire Design Tests.” Pa-
per presented at the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual research
conference, March 20–23, Rosslyn, VA.
Bell, Derrick. 1992. Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The
Permanence of Racism. New York: Basic Books.
Bracken, Karen, and Guillermo de Bango. 1992. “Hispanics
in a Racially and Ethnically Mixed Neighborhood in the
Greater Metropolitan New Orleans Area.” Ethnographic
Evaluation of the 1990 Decennial Census Report 16. Pre-
pared under Joint Statistical Agreement 89–45 with His-
panidad ’87, Inc. Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the
Census.
Davis, Diana K., Johnny Blair, Howard Fleischman, and
Margaret S. Boone. 1998a. Cognitive Interviews on the
Race and Hispanic Origin Questions on the Census 2000
Dress Rehearsal Form. Report prepared by Development
Associates, Inc., Arlington, VA, under contract from the
U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division, May 29.
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248 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
Torres, Arlene, and Norman E. Whitten Jr., eds. 1998. Black-
ness in Latin America and the Caribbean. Vol. 2.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Treviño, F. M. 1987. “Standardized Terminology for Stan-
dardized Populations.” American Journal of Public Health
77: 69–72.
U.S. Department of Commerce. 1995. “1996 Race and Eth-
nic Targeted Test; Notice.” Federal Register, 60:231:
62010-62014. December 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Gov-
ernment Printing Offi ce.
U.S. Offi ce of Management and Budget (OMB). 1995.
“Standards for the Classifi cation of Federal Data on Race
and Ethnicity; Notice.” Federal Register, part 6, vol. 60,
no. 166, pp. 44674–44693, August 28.
———. 1997a. “Recommendations from the Interagency
Committee for the Review of the Racial and Ethnic Stan-
dards to the Offi ce of Management and Budget Concern-
ing Changes to the Standards for the Classifi cation of
Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity; Notice.” Federal
Register, 62:131:36874–36946, July 9.
———. 1997b. “Revisions to the Standards for the Classifi –
cation of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity; Notices.”
Federal Register, 62:210:58782-58790, October 30.
———. 1999. “Provisional Guidance on the Implementa-
tion of the 1997 Standards for the Collection of Federal
Data on Race and Ethnicity.” Prepared by Tabulation
Working Group, Interagency Committee for the Review
of Standards for Data on Race and Ethnicity, Washington,
DC, February 17.
R E A D I N G 2 3
Everybody’s Ethnic Enigma
Jelita McLeod
The forty-something black man I was sharing an
elevator with looked at me for a while before he
asked the question I had been expecting. He wanted
to know my ethnicity.
“I’m mixed,” I told him. “Half-Caucasian, half-
Asian.”
“Oh,” he said, disappointed. “I thought you were
one of us.”
I knew what the question would be because peo-
ple have been asking me the same thing as long
Rodríguez, Clara. 1974. “Puerto Ricans: Between Black and
White.” Journal of New York Affairs 1 (4): 92–101.
———. 1989. Puerto Ricans: Born in the USA. Boston:
Unwin Hyman.
———. 1990. “Racial Identifi cation among Puerto Ricans
in New York.” Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences
12 (4) (November): 366–79.
———. 1991. “The Effect of Race on Puerto Rican Wages.”
In Hispanics in the Labor Force: Issues and Policies, ed.
Edwin Melíndez, Clara Rodríguez, and Janice Barry
Figueroa. New York: Plenum Press.
———. 1992. “Race, Culture and Latino ‘Otherness’ in the
1980 Census.” Social Science Quarterly 73 (4) (Decem-
ber): 930–937.
———. 1994. “Challenging Racial Hegemony. Puerto
Ricans in the United States.” In Race, ed. R. Sanjek and
S. Gregory. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University
Press.
Rodríguez, Clara, Aida Castro, Oscar García, and Analisa
Torres. 1991. “Latino Racial Identity: In the Eye of the
Beholder?” Latino Studies Journal 2 (3) (December):
33–48.
Rodríguez, Clara, and Hector Cordero-Guzmán. 1992.
“Placing Race in Context.” Ethnic and Racial Studies
15  (4): 523–542.
Rodríguez, Nestor, and Jacqueline Hagan. 1991. Investigat-
ing Census Coverage and Content among the Undocu-
mented: An Ethnographic Study of Latino Immigrant
Tenants in Houston. Ethnographic Evaluation of the 1990
Decennial Census Report 3. Prepared under Joint Statisti-
cal Agreement 89-34 with the University of Houston, U.S.
Bureau of the Census, Washington, DC.
Romero, Mary. 1992. Ethnographic Evaluation of Behavioral
Causes of Census Undercount of Undocumented Immigrants
and Salvadorans in the Mission District of San Francisco,
California. Ethnographic Evaluation of the 1990 Decennial
Census Report 18. Prepared under Joint Statistical Agree-
ment 89-41 with the San Francisco State University Founda-
tion, U.S. Bureau of the Census, Washington, DC.
Santiago, Roberto. 1995. “Black and Latino.” In Boricuas:
Infl uential Puerto Rican Writings, an Anthology, ed.
Roberto Santiago. New York: Ballantine Books.
Shohat, Ella, and Robert Stam. 1994. Unthinking Eurocen-
trism: Multiculturalism and the Media. New York: Rout-
ledge & Kegan Paul.
Smith, Rogers M. 1997. Civic Ideals: Confl icting Visions in
U.S. History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Takaki, Ronald. 1994. From Different Shores: Perspectives
on Race and Ethnicity in America. 2d ed. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Thomas, Piri. 1967. Down These Mean Streets. New York:
Knopf.
Tienda, M., and V. Ortiz. 1986. “‘Hispanicity’ and the 1980
Census.” Social Science Quarterly 67 (March): 3–20.
Jelita McLeod is an award-winning writer who works in educa-
tion and public relations.
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READING 23: Everybody’s Ethnic Enigma 249
P E R S O N A L A C C O U N T
My Strategies
I speak differently around different people. When I am
with white people I use my vocabulary, sharp wit, and
smooth, concise statements. I try to keep my grammar in
line and use acceptable slang and swearing. When I am
in a formal setting, court, school, work, etc., I do the
above, but I also change my inflection. I also use no
slang or swearing. My white voice has gotten me loans,
jobs, and makes my life easier. On the flip side when I am
around black people, my speech is totally different. Black
people, mostly, talk in a manner that is all inclusive. They
don’t want to talk down to anyone, or over anyone’s head.
Using a large vocabulary for no reason is considered
rude and frowned upon. You are considered a snob.
Black people worry about everyone understanding, see-
ing if you are on the level, and creating a relaxed environ-
ment. We are probably tired of talking in a fake manner all
day, so the manner we choose has to be more relaxed.
White people size you up by the way you talk plus
other things. If I were to use slang or talk in the manner I
do around black people, I would be considered stupid
and faking it. Yet when I talk with a high vocabulary and
diction that is taken as the way I talk and assumed to be
natural. Since it is the most comfortable for whites, and
matches their own manner of speaking, they don’t con-
test its authenticity. So when speaking I have to remem-
ber who I am talking to; context is, again, everything. I slip
around my close friends often though, and they stare at
me. “What it do Liz?” This will get no response beyond,
“. . . what?” This isn’t to say anything about all white
people; these are general statements from my life. I know
plenty of white people who have learned or always knew
how to talk in the manner that black people do, but they
are the exceptions. The same goes for black people. It
stands to reason that if we can talk in a different manner,
that white people can also learn.
There are other things I have to remember when
moving between groups. Eye contact is a big one, be-
cause most black people don’t like it, yet white people
think you are distracted if you don’t use it. I also don’t like
eye contact, but have learned to use it as needed. Hand-
shakes are another issue, which factors in age, sex,
race, etc. I won’t go into the differences because it would
be another paper. Needless to say, a lot of effort goes in
to small tasks. I have to keep my ghetto pass and still not
be thought silly and stupid.
Usually when someone figures out I am biracial, I’ll
have to pass some stupid test. It is usually a series of
questions displaying their limited understanding. Here is
a transcript:
Person A: I don’t mean to be racist, but . . . (This
means that they are going to say something very rac-
ist, always.)
Eric: Sigh, I am biracial. (To try and stop them before
they offend me.)
Person A: No, you’re not, really?
Eric: Father is a large black man.
Person A: NO WAY, laughter. You look so white.
Eric: Yep.
Person A: Is he like all the way black, or like really
light?
Eric: Nope, as black as you think black is.
Person A: (Now apologizes for their racist comment
that started this.) Yeah, but aren’t you like still white,
you look white? Do you have siblings? Which parent
did you live with?
Eric: Happy to meet such a race expert. Yes, my older
brother, Gene, and I have the same parents and he
looks black. I lived with my mother, but saw my father
whenever I wished.
Person A: But you look white, phhhh, look at you,
you’re white.
Eric: Thank you. I needed someone to tell me my
race, thus saving all that time I would have spent al-
ready knowing.
Person A: Don’t get mad or anything. I’m just saying,
you look white, you act white.
Eric: How is it that black people act?
This could continue, but by now I usually end it by
going to do something, or they start to get uncomfortable
and change the subject. Things in italics are usually omit-
ted if I have to work with the person at a job or in a class.
No reason to be hostile if I am going to see them often.
When I was very young I had to get used to people
openly laughing at me. I still don’t know why they laugh,
but they always do. As if I said my father was a polar bear,
thus making me half polar bear. That example is the only
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250 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
way I can try to make sense of it. I am so used to the tests
that I can usually answer their questions before they ask.
Often the test is to prove you are black. My name is
easy because Eric Michael Jackson is easy to pass as a
black name. Most people will buy this right away. Then
everything they knew about me gets converted to stigma
mode, unless they are black, then it gets un-stigmatized.
I also have to use stereotypes to prove who I am at times.
I feel this is wrong, but it is better than punching some-
one in the face. Thus, all my actions for a limited time
become black. I like chicken. This wasn’t an issue when I
was white, now it is. I can’t say I know anyone, other than
people who don’t eat meat, who don’t love chicken.
I enjoy seeing the looping and re-reading upon my
newly discovered blackness. Before when I had an opin-
ion on matters regarding race I was thought a tad ex-
treme, but they could see my point. Now they either don’t
want to talk about it because any discussion of race out-
side one’s own group is no longer “pc”, or because they
feel I’ll get all black on them. As if I’ll stand up and shout,
“Free Mumia and H. Rap Brown!” then curse them for
years of oppression. In reality they just disregard what
I  say because I am “biased.” They are not biased be-
cause being white apparently gives you this supreme
understanding of how things work. I remind them I am
also white, something they like to remind me of as well,
and then I get a “not really.” So I am only white when it
suits them, and then I am black the rest of the time.
Where I am from, I was white enough to go in your home,
but I won’t be dating your daughter. I have often had
people boast I was the first black man in their home. This
usually makes me want to leave right away. Looking back
on it, my entire life has been a sociological study and
I just never knew it. I knew what ethnocentrism was when
I was ten.
P. S. teachers hate it when you call them that, like
twenty times a day.
Eric Jackson
a time when doing so has resulted in a pleasant en-
counter or a meaningful conversation. Yet I’ve never
quite found the strength to meet such inquiries with
“It’s none of your business” or, better yet, silence.
What’s quite strange is that people often feel the
need to comment, as if what I’ve told them is an
opinion they can’t quite agree with. Comedian
Margaret Cho tells a story about a TV producer who
asked her to act “a little more Chinese,” to which
she replied, “But I’m Korean.” “Whatever,” the pro-
ducer said. I had a similar experience with a man in
a bookstore, who crept out from behind a shelf of
cookbooks to ask me where I was from. Before
I had a chance to say anything, he guessed: “Japan?”
I could have said Oregon, where my father is
from, but I knew he wouldn’t go for that, so I said,
“Indonesia.” “Ah,” he said. “Close.” It’s not close.
Not really. Not unless you consider London close to
Djibouti. The distances are similar.
In the game of “Name that Ethnicity,” I am the
trick question. I have been mistaken for almost
every Asian nationality, but also as Hispanic, Native
American, Arab and, of course, African American.
There’s something in being a chameleon. It’s
as I can remember. I’ve found that curiosity easily
overrides courtesy. I am asked in stores, on the bus,
on the street, in line at McDonald’s, even in public
bathrooms. Almost always the inquirers are total
strangers, as if not knowing me allows them to
abandon social graces they might otherwise feel the
need to display. Sometimes they will ask me straight
out, but very often they use coded language, as in
“What’s your background?” Then there’s “Where
are you from?” which is really a two-part question,
to be followed by “Where are you really from?”
Why is it that people feel they can approach
me for this personal information? Would they ask
total strangers their age or marital status? What
do they need the information for? Are they cen-
sus takers? Once, in a truly surreal episode, a ca-
sino dealer stopped in the middle of a hand of
poker to ask me, as if he couldn’t stand to wait a
second longer. After I offered my usual answer,
he shook his fi nger in my face and said he wasn’t
convinced, that I didn’t look white enough. He
was Asian.
I wonder why, after having been subjected to this
treatment for years, I still respond. I can’t remember
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READING 24: From Friendly Foreigner to Enemy Race 251
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Does an ambiguous appearance lead to stereo-
typic assumptions?
2. If you don’t identify with the questioner, what
are the likely consequences?
R E A D I N G 2 4
From Friendly Foreigner
to Enemy Race
John Tehranian
The term Middle East likely emerged in the 1850s
from Britain’s India Offi ce.
1
It did not enjoy wide-
spread usage in policy circles, however, until the
early twentieth century, when it was used in the
work of famed American naval strategist Admiral
Alfred Thayer Mahan. In an article fi rst published
in September 1902, Mahan used the term Middle
East to refer to a region of growing strategic impor-
tance in the emerging confl ict pitting Britain and
the United States against Germany and Russia.
2

Mahan appeared to defi ne that region as ranging, on
a north-south axis, from Turkey to the Arabian Pen-
insula and, on an east-west axis, from Iran to Egypt.
Thus, the designation was borne of geopolitical
considerations and its construction wrought with
semiotic meaning. . . .
The term Middle East therefore appears to
eschew the typical hallmarks of regional defi ni-
tions, which are often based on continental, lin-
guistic, or perceived ethnic boundaries. Observes
Sedat Laciner,
This so-called region neighbors two oceans (Indian
and Atlantic) and six seas (Mediterranean, Red Sea,
Persian Gulf, Black Sea, Aegean Sea and the Caspian
Sea). It extends to three continents (Africa, Asia and
Europe). It consists of ten sub-regions (Southern and
human nature to look for unifying bonds. When
people think that they have something in common
with you, particularly something so personal as
identity, they feel they know you and they imagine
that you have an innate understanding of them, too.
They will speak to you in a certain unguarded way.
The idea that any person can be truly “colorblind”
is a fallacy. As long as the human eye can detect
differences in skin tone, eye shape, hair texture,
these differences will play a role in how we interact
with one another. Because of my ambiguous ap-
pearance, I have experienced from people the kind
of familiarity they would normally reserve for one
of their “own.”
The unfortunate consequence of this ambiguity
is the misunderstanding I frequently encounter
from those who haven’t gotten the full story. The
Mexican immigration offi cial who looks disgusted
when I can’t understand Spanish, as I surely should.
The kindly Vietnamese waiter who helps me “re-
member” how to pronounce the names of dishes.
This puts me in the slightly ridiculous position of
being apologetic for not being what people expect
me to be, however unreasonable.
When I think back to the man in the elevator, I
feel disappointed, too. The way he said “I thought
you were one of us” made me feel as if we might
have bonded but now couldn’t, as if I’d been re-
fused entry into a club because I didn’t have the
right password. My immediate reaction was that I
was missing out on something. But I see the artifi –
ciality of this classifi cation mentality. If the oppor-
tunity for bonding existed before he knew my
ethnic makeup, wasn’t it still there after he found
out? After all, I was still the same person.
When my parents were married, my grandfather
was against the union. His objection was that the
children of mixed marriages had no foothold in any
one community but instead were doomed to a life-
time of identity crises and disorientation.
If my grandfather were still alive, I’d tell him
that the crisis comes not from within, but from
without.
I know who I am. It’s everyone else that’s having
trouble.
John Tehranian is a professor of law at Chapman University
School of Law.
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252 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
In a time-honored process, the racialization of
individuals from Turkey, Iran, and the Arab states
as “Middle Eastern” came to serve broader eco-
nomic and political needs. In their infl uential work
on the formation of race, Michael Omi and Howard
Winant highlight the “sociohistorical process by
which racial categories are created, inhabited,
transformed, and destroyed.”
8
In prior eras, the ra-
cialization and stereotyping of various groups has
taken on a distinctly utilitarian fl avor.
Take the typecasting of African Americans
through the course of history. . . . The demands of
the plantation economy helped give rise to the
Southern hierarchy and its black-white divide
based  on skin color (which supplanted the ear-
lier  hierarchy based on religious affi liation). As
Richard Delgado reminds us, antiblack “prejudice
sprang up with slavery. Previously, educated
Europeans held generally positive attitudes toward
Africans, recognizing the African civilization was
highly advanced.”
9
As slavery emerged, infan-
tilization became commonplace in media portray-
als, as blacks were stereotyped as buffoons unable
to survive without the guidance of their masters.
Blackface minstrelsy rose to popularity, in the
guise of Sambo and other characters, conveying
images of blacks as either “inept urban dandies or
happy childlike slaves.”
10
Following emancipation
and the end of the Civil War, however, images be-
came more ominous, with black men portrayed as
rapists preying on white women and black women
reduced to pliable domestic servants.
11
Stereotypes
followed function, fi rst legitimating slavery and
later rationalizing lynching, segregation, imperial-
ism, and Jim Crow.
Since “conquering nations generally demonize
their subjects in order to rationalize exploiting
them,”
12
Latino and Asian stereotypes have under-
gone a similar trajectory. As Delgado notes, “Anglo
settlers in California and the Southwest began to
circulate notions of Mexican inferiority only when
the settlers came to covet Mexican lands and min-
ing claims.”
13
Similarly, early portraits of the
Chinese and Japanese cast them as comical and
hapless, though they were happily tolerated for
Northern Caucasus, Northern Africa, Arabia, Greater
Palestine and Syria, Mesopotamia, the Caspian Basin,
Central Asia (Turkistan), and the Indian Peninsula).
Three monotheistic religions (Islam, Christianity and
Judaism), with their numerous sects and schools of
thought, exist in this region. Thousands of religious
and moral faiths, including atheism and paganism, are
practiced in this wide geography and thus, it is one of
the largest laboratories of the world. Although viewed
by the West as all-Arab, the region consists of tens of
different ethnic-linguistic communities, with Turks,
Arabs and Persians as the main ones.
3

At the same time, the term is riddled in ambigu-
ity, sometimes encompassing the entire North
African coast, from Morocco to Egypt, and other
parts of Africa, including the Sudan and Somalia,
the former Soviet, Caucasus Republics of Georgia,
Azerbaijan, and Armenia, and occasionally
Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkistan. The Middle
East is therefore a malleable geopolitical construct
of relatively recent vintage. . . .
A search of all reported federal and state court
opinions reveals that there was not a single refer-
ence to the terms Middle East or Middle Eastern
until 1946, when a New York court referred to a
“European Middle Eastern Service Medal and Vic-
tory Medal” given to veterans.
4
Other than scat-
tered references to similar medals, the next mention
of the Middle East or Middle Eastern came in a
1955 IRS dispute involving the taxation of an oil
worker who had taken employment in numerous
countries, including Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria,
and Iraq. The court synoptically referred to the
work as having resided in “Near or Middle Eastern
countries.”
5
The term was also used in a 1956
breach-of-contract suit in which the U.S. govern-
ment failed to deliver certain airplane technology to
“the Middle East” lest it be used in regional con-
fl icts contrary to American foreign-policy inter-
ests.
6
Finally, several federal suits in 1957 linked
the term to its most precious commodity, referring
on numerous occasions to “Middle Eastern oil.”
7

As these cases make clear, in the beginning, the
Middle Eastern designation arose in a geopolitical
and oil-related context.
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READING 24: From Friendly Foreigner to Enemy Race 253
unfriendly foreign land imagined to contain noth-
ing but terrorists, obstreperous mobs chanting
“Death to America,” unabashed misogynistic po-
lygamists, and religious fundamentalists; and they
seem to represent a wholly different civilization
from our own—one with which the inevitable and
apocalyptic clash of civilizations is unfolding.
17

Thus, they are the quintessential Other, and the
Middle Easterner category, imposed on them by so-
ciety at large, has become their appellation.
In popular perception, in which the notion of as-
similability constitutes the sine qua non of the ma-
jority’s acceptance of an immigrant group, it is not
surprising that Middle Easterners have fared poorly.
As Karen Engle has noted, the past century has wit-
nessed a radical transformation in majority percep-
tions of Middle Eastern individuals: they are, in
short, no longer thought capable of assimilation.
18

The changing religious composition of Middle
Eastern immigrants to the United States has played
a key role in this transformation. As the naturaliza-
tion cases make clear, perceptions of race are fre-
quently confl ated with perceptions of religion. In
1924, about two hundred thousand Arabs resided in
the United States. Of these, 80 percent were from
Syria and Lebanon, of which group a startling
90  percent were Christian.
19
Many of these immi-
grants had fl ed oppression and persecution under
the Ottoman Empire.
20
Indeed, an early study of the
emerging Syrian and Lebanese community at the
turn of the century in New York City found that
only 2 of 2,482 residents were Muslim.
21
As the
author of the study noted, “The Moslems, Druses
and Metâwely are not found in suffi cient numbers
to warrant more than passing mention.”
22

Given the tendency to confl ate race with reli-
gious affi liation, and Christianity with assimilabil-
ity, it is not surprising that, at the beginning of the
twentieth century, courts declared Armenians and
even some Arabs white by law, thereby entitling
them to the privileges of whiteness, including
naturalization. However, the composition of the
Middle Eastern American population has under-
gone a dramatic change in recent years, especially
in the public imagination. Contrary to popular
their contribution to the American workforce. As
economic and assimilatory fears related to these
groups heightened, however, Charlie Chan–like
stereotypes transformed and gave rise to the clichéd
image of the wily, scheming, and menacing “Orien-
tal” criminal mastermind.
14

Quite simply, concludes Delgado, “Depictions
vary depending on society’s needs.”
15
What then are
we to make of the dramatic change in the status of
Middle Easterners? It is hardly coincidence that it has
occurred over the past generation—a time that has
seen the Middle East rise to the forefront of global
politics and economic importance due to its ample
reserves of the great engine of industrialization: oil.
THE MIDDLE EASTERNER AS
THE OTHER: THE SLIPPERY
SLOPE FROM FRIENDLY
FOREIGNER TO ENEMY
ALIEN, ENEMY ALIEN TO
ENEMY RACE
Inextricably intertwined with the rising tide of
discrimination facing persons of Middle Eastern
descent is the mythology surrounding racial con-
struction and related religious and sociocultural
perceptions. For prior generations, Middle Eastern
Americans came closer to matching our constructed
notions of whiteness. They were largely Christian;
they came from an exotic but friendly, romantic,
and halcyon foreign land imagined to contain magic
lanterns, genies, fl ying carpets, and belly dancers;
and they served as a chief vessel of the philosophi-
cal and cultural heritage of the West.
16
Thus, in pre-
vious generations, people of (what we now call)
Middle Eastern descent were, more often than not,
blended into the white category. . . .
[Now] in an era when we view the most immedi-
ate threat to our national security as emanating
from the Middle East, it is not surprising that mono-
lithic images of the Middle East and the Middle
Easterner have leaped into existence. Middle
Easterners have been irretrievably associated with
Islam; they appear to hail from a decidedly
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254 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
damned by their proximity to the white dividing line,
engage in persistent (and frequently effective) cover-
ing of their ethnic background. These two social
forces combine to create a pernicious stereotyping
feedback loop that enervates the political strength of
the Middle Eastern community, heightens its invisi-
bility, and leaves little effective resistance to the
growing assaults against its civil rights.
A Theory of Selective Racialization
. . . Specifi cally, in society at large, Middle Eastern-
ers are consistently subjected to a process of selec-
tive racialization. This largely undocumented and
predominantly subconscious mechanism has pro-
found ramifi cations. Systematically, famous indi-
viduals of Middle Eastern descent are usually
perceived as white. Meanwhile, infamous individu-
als of Middle Eastern descent are usually catego-
rized as Middle Eastern. When Middle Eastern
actors conform to social norms and advance positive
values and conduct, their racial identity as the Other
recedes to the background as they merge into the
great white abyss. By contrast, when Middle Eastern
actors engage in transgressive behavior, their racial
identity as the Other immediately becomes a central,
defi ning characteristic of who they are. The result is
an endless feedback loop that calcifi es popular preju-
dices. Wholesome and socially redeeming activities,
which might otherwise subvert public mispercep-
tions of the community, do not get associated with
Middle Eastern identity. By contrast, the image of
transgression is continually correlated with the Mid-
dle Eastern racial category, serving only to reinforce
negative connotations with the community.
Our country is fi lled with individuals of Middle
Eastern descent who have contributed construc-
tively to American society. Yet surprisingly few of
these Americans are actually perceived as Middle
Easterners. Instead, their ethnicity is frequently
whitewashed.
28
On one hand, this fact highlights the
assimilability of Middle Eastern immigrants in the
United States. On the other hand, it creates a prob-
lematic signposting of Middle Eastern identity when
it becomes associated with transgressive activities.
perceptions, only 23 percent of present-day Arab
Americans are Muslim.
23
However, about 60 per-
cent of Arab immigrants arriving in the United
States since 1965 identify themselves as Muslim.
24

As it has grown less Christian, the Middle Eastern
population in the United States is thought of as less
assimilable and, consequently, less white.
As faith in their assimilatory capacity has dimin-
ished, Middle Easterners have come to represent
enemy aliens, and even an enemy race, in the popu-
lar imagination. In the past, the paradigmatic non-
citizen was the “Mexican illegal alien, or the
inscrutable, clannish Asian.”
25
Today, it is the Arab
terrorist, and this vision has fi rmly taken hold of our
immigration policies. As Victor Romero argues,
“post-9/11, the age-old stereotype of the foreign,
Arab terrorist has been rekindled, and placing our
immigration functions under the auspices of an ex-
ecutive department charged with ‘homeland security’
reinforces the idea that immigrants are terrorists.”
26

The recent wave of registration and deportation poli-
cies aimed at individuals of Middle Eastern descent
also highlights this trend. Take, for example, the Na-
tional Security Entry-Exit Registration System
(NSEERS), which was formally announced by the
attorney general on June 6, 2002, and then supple-
mented with a special “call-in” registration in No-
vember 2002. The NSEERS singles out a limited
class of noncitizens—male, nonimmigrant visa
holders over the age of sixteen who are from one of
twenty-fi ve Muslim and Middle Eastern countries—
for special registration requirements.
27
. . .
THE NEGOTIATION OF MIDDLE
EASTERN IDENTITY: SELECTIVE
RACIALIZATION AND
COVERING
The negotiation of the Middle Eastern identity is me-
diated by a two-fold process that moves both from
the top down and from the bottom up. From the top
down, society at large engages in a practice that can
best be described as selective racialization. From the
bottom up, Middle Easterners, both privileged and
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READING 24: From Friendly Foreigner to Enemy Race 255
divorce from Prince Charles. The escapades of the
two, rumored to be engaged at the time of their
deaths, were the subject of extensive media cover-
age. Throughout their relationship, Al-Fayed was
repeatedly portrayed as an Arab businessman and
Middle Eastern playboy—not merely an English-
man or a businessman without reference to his race.
In other words, he was racialized. And the reason is
clear: he was engaging in transgressive behavior,
stealing away with the People’s princess.
Other examples abound. Recently, Zenadine
Zidane, a member of the French national soccer
team, viciously headbutted Italian player Marco
Materazzi in the fi nals of the 2006 World Cup.
Zidane’s violent outburst likely cost his team the
championship and has gone down as one of the
most infamous incidents in soccer history. While
the incident sullied Zidane’s previously untarnished
reputation, it also did something else: it racialized
Zidane in the United States. In the aftermath of the
incident, Zidane went from simply being an other-
wise ordinary native-born (white) Frenchman on
the Gallican national soccer team to becoming an
Arab. American media reports highlighted his
Algerian roots. The racial subtext was all too
clear—there was an implicit association of his ap-
parent predilection for violence with his Arab back-
ground. He had brazenly violated social norms with
his headbutt and, as such, had become a transgres-
sor. Simultaneously, he went from being white to
becoming the Other.
The process of selective racialization occurs
with regularity in the mass media, serving to bolster
and legitimize existing stereotypes. Although all
the characters in the Middle Eastern-themed Disney
fi lm Aladdin share Arab descent, they are only
selectively racialized. The chief wrongdoers—the
greedy bazaar merchants, the thief Kazim, and the
main antagonist, Jafar—all possess exaggerated
stereotypical features. Both Kazim and Jafar sport
thick Arab accents, facial hair, and prominent
hooked noses. By contrast, the movie’s sympathetic
protagonists—Aladdin, Princess Jasmine, and the
Sultan—possess few of the features traditionally
associated with Arabs. Instead, their physiognomy
The long list of Middle Eastern Americans in-
cludes individuals from virtually every aspect of
American life, including athletes such as tennis
player Andre Agassi (Persian/Armenian), Indy
500 champion Bobby Rahal (Lebanese), and NFL
quarterbacks Doug Flutie and Jeff George (both
Lebanese); entertainers such as actresses Cher
(Armenian), Kathy Najimi (Lebanese), Catherine
Bell (half Persian), and Gabrielle Anwar (half
Persian), actors Danny Thomas (Lebanese) and
Tony Shalhoub (Lebanese), radio deejay Casy
Kasem (Palestinian/Lebanese), and singer Paul
Anka (Lebanese); prominent entrepreneurs such as
hoteliers the Maloof family (Lebanese) and Apple
CEO Steve Jobs (half Syrian); and politicians and
activists such as former New Hampshire governor
and White House chief of staff John Sununu
( Lebanese), former senator George Mitchell (half
Lebanese), and prominent consumer advocate and
presidential candidate Ralph Nader (Lebanese/
Egyptian). Even “good” Middle Easterners who are
perceived as nonwhite are not racialized as Middle
Eastern. For example, although they are both half
Lebanese, neither Salma Hayek, a famous actress,
nor Shakira, an internationally renowned singer, is
identifi ed as Middle Eastern. Instead, they are
almost universally considered Latina.
Some observers might point to the whitewash-
ing of Americans of Middle Eastern descent as evi-
dence of our evolving colorblindness. But such an
argument is belied by the systematic racialization
of transgressive individuals. When individuals lie at
the cusp of the white/nonwhite divide, we uncon-
sciously categorize them as the Other when they
engage in wrongdoing but blend them into the
white when they behave within social norms. Andre
Agassi is a (white) tennis player, and Ralph Nader
is a (white) politician. But Osama bin Laden is la-
beled an Arab terrorist and the Ayatollah Khomeini
was a Middle Eastern Islamic fundamentalist. The
act of selective racialization is by no means limited
to geopolitical struggles. It occurs on a far more
pedestrian, but nevertheless important, level. Take
the case of Dodi Al-Fayed, the wealthy business-
man who was dating Princess Diana following her
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256 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
stereotypical image of the Middle Easterner is
much darker in skin, hair, and eye color than the
average Middle Easterner, those who naturally
possess lighter skin, hair, and eyes are particularly
nimble in their covering. Either way, with the sim-
ple change of a revealing fi rst or last name, many
Middle Easterners can become Italian, French,
Greek, Romanian, Indian, Mexican, Puerto Rican,
or Argentine.
33

The gravitation toward covering is often irresist-
ible, especially through its seductive illusion of
simplifying the lives of its purveyors. In the wake
of 9/11, Middle Easterners throughout the United
States felt under attack and responded with a series
of rational covering responses just to survive the
wave of hate surging throughout the country.
34

Lebanese and Persian restaurants conspicuously
displayed “Proud to be American” signs over their
entrances. Cab drivers from the Middle East and
South Asia decorated their vehicles with large
American fl ags.
35
A series of hate crimes prompted
many Muslim women and Sikh men to remove
their head coverings out of fear of being perceived
as Middle Eastern.
36

Four axes of covering—association, appearance,
affi liation, and activism
37
—are prevalent in the
Middle Eastern community. Consider the phenom-
enon of association. As one associates more with
recognized whites, one better performs whiteness
and is therefore perceived as more white. When I
fi rst moved to Newport Beach, California, the for-
mer hometown of John Wayne and an oceanside
hamlet renowned as a bastion of wealth and white
conservatism, a friend of mine joked, “Don’t
worry—I’ll be your white sponsor.” His wry com-
ment had historical antecedents. A decade after
Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of
1882 prohibiting any new immigration from China,
Chinese immigrants already residing in the United
States had to prove the legality of their presence by
providing the testimony of “one credible white wit-
ness.”
38
Mingling with the white is a powerful form
of obtaining white bona fi des.
In an illuminating passage from her essay I
Grew Up Thinking I Was White, Iranian American
is quintessentially European, and they speak with
no trace of a Middle Eastern accent.
29
In other
words, the transgressive characters are Arabized
and the wholesome characters are Anglicized,
thereby heightening negative stereotypes linked to
Middle Easterners while concurrently reinforcing
positive associations with whiteness. . . .
Negotiating Middle Eastern Racial
Status in the New America: Covering
and Its Implications
Drawing from the work of Erving Goffman,
30
who
once observed “that persons who are ready to admit
possession of a stigma . . . may nonetheless make a
great effort to keep the stigma from looming
large,”
31
Kenji Yoshino calls attention to a rampant,
yet relatively unappreciated, consequence of our
national impulse toward assimilation—the cover-
ing of disfavored identities. Based on pressures to
conform to social norms enforced by the dominant
culture, a rational distaste for ostracism and social
opprobrium can lead individuals to engage in the
purposeful act of toning down traits that identify
them with a stigmatized group. . . .
Applying Yoshino’s model in the Middle
Eastern context is both revealing and instructive:
what, after all, could be more coercively assimila-
tionist than forcibly designating an entire popula-
tion white de jure while simultaneously treating
that population as nonwhite de facto? Not surpris-
ingly, Middle Easterners have sought refuge in
covering as a strategic response to the discrimina-
tion they face. . . .
Largely due to the existence of distinctive phe-
notypic characteristics, many African Americans
cannot pretend to be anything but African
American and many Asian Americans cannot pre-
tend to be anything but Asian American.
32
Many
Middle Easterners, however, can realistically opt
out of their racial categorization. Middle Eastern-
ers are more prone to racial ambiguity because
successive waves of diverse populations have
passed through the Middle East, making it a veri-
table racial melting pot since antiquity. Since the
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READING 24: From Friendly Foreigner to Enemy Race 257
something,” he guffawed. Absent the “Mohammed”
stigma, Moe had become white. . . .
Many Iranians or Arabs of Jewish background
cover by rationally exploiting mainstream (mis)-
perceptions of “Jewishness” as both a religion and
an ethnicity. For example, although the Jewish
Iranian population is relatively large, especially in
Los Angeles, the very existence of a Jewish Iranian
population is a surprise to the many people who
view Iran as an Islamic monolith. By identifying
themselves to the world as Jewish, these Jewish
Iranians tend to avoid any further questions about
their ethnicity, as people assume their ethnicity is
Jewish and that they therefore are white (i.e.,
Ashkenazi Jewish) and not Middle Eastern. A  Jewish
Iranian poet I once knew demonstrated her profound
awareness of the way in which this popular misper-
ception could be exploited for assimilatory pur-
poses. Explaining the extent of her Persian pride,
she pointed out that she had embraced her Iranian
heritage despite the obvious covering tactics at her
disposal “Since I’m Jewish, I don’t have to be Ira-
nian,” she remarked. “Yet I choose to be.”
Finally, with respect to activism, we have wit-
nessed profound covering in the Middle Eastern com-
munity. As Kenji Yoshino argues, many minorities
are reticent to become involved in the fi ght to protect
their civil rights, lest they be associated with militant
ethnics and become racialized. In the Middle Eastern
American community, there is a profound wariness
of political involvement, a fact revealed by the dearth
of elected offi cials of Middle Eastern descent, even in
areas with large concentrations. For example, it is be-
lieved that the highest ranking Iranian American pub-
lic offi ceholder in the United States is Jimmy
Delshad, the mayor of Beverly Hills.
41
Delshad was
only elected to his post in 2007.
42
. . .
Beyond covering, Middle Eastern assimilation
also crosses into the realm of passing and even
conversion. As a matter of pride, many Middle
Easterners (especially those from older genera-
tions, for which the importance of whiteness was
perhaps more accentuated) insist on actually being
considered white. In this regard, they are no differ-
ent than prior immigrant groups. For example, in
writer Gelareh Asayesh describes the associational
covering that she undertakes to assimilate:
My National Public Radio accent takes me further
than my parents’ voices, laden with infl ections from a
faraway land. The options may be limited when it
comes to skin color, but it is possible to improve one’s
status in other ways. I think of it as race laundering:
the right clothes, the right car, the right neighborhood
can help compensate for that fundamental imperfec-
tion: nonwhiteness.
39

Asayesh’s refl ections help to explain why Iranian
Americans—like many others trying to earn their
white stripes—are so often concerned with projecting
images of success and wealth. Iranian Americans in
Los Angeles are well-known for making their homes
in Beverly Hills, driving only a BMW or Mercedes,
and dressing in the most high-priced designer fash-
ions. For example, 1995’s Alicia Silverstone vehicle
Clueless, set in Beverly Hills, had an incisive and
comical reference to the city’s Persian residents. At
one point, the lead character points away from the
camera and comments, “that’s the Persian mafi a. You
can’t hang with them unless you own a BMW.”
40

The camera then turns to reveal a throng of Iranian
American teenagers outfi tted stylishly in black, driv-
ing their German imports.
Throughout the Middle Eastern community, the
manipulation of appearance also emerges as a
quintessential form of covering. Middle Eastern
women frequently dye their hair blond or wear col-
ored contact lenses to downplay their more “eth-
nic” features. Middle Eastern men will go by the
name “Mike” for Mansour, “Mory” for Morteza,
“Al” for Ali, and “Moe” for Mohammed. Such tac-
tics may appear petty and even futile, but they can
be surprisingly effective. I was recently told a story
about an Iranian American attorney who went
by  the name “Moe” instead of his birth-name,
Mohammed. One day, he was selected for extra
screening at the airport. After showing his identifi –
cation to the TSA workers and undergoing the ad-
ditional security measures, he calmly protested,
wondering out loud if he had been targeted on the
basis of his ethnicity. The TSA guard looked puz-
zled “It’s not like your name is Mohammed or
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258 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
P E R S O N A L A C C O U N T
Master Status: Pride and Danger
I consider myself to be privileged in many things in life,
but my one master status that is a bit controversial is be-
ing Muslim. By controversial, I mean that to some it might
be a privilege to be Muslim, whereas to others, well . . .
not so much. Aside from dealing with those who are rac-
ist, ignorant, and cruel, I think being Muslim is a privilege
for me. For example, people will assume because I look
like I am a practicing Muslim, that I won’t be dishonest or
conniving. People assume that I will be honest. Take, for
example, the time I forgot my campus parking permit.
The ticketing officer was writing me a ticket, but when I
pled with him that I had just forgotten my parking pass,
he said, “Well, you seem like you are a practicing young
Muslim lady. I don’t think you would be lying to me, so I’ll
take that ticket back.”
I have actually tested this out. I once asked a non-
Muslim woman friend to wear the hijab (head scarf)
for  one day, so it would be assumed she was Muslim.
She went to the bookstore to buy a used textbook. When
she got there, however, there were no used books,
so she had to buy a new one, but she didn’t have enough
money. She explained to the clerk that she really needed
the book for class right away, and asked if she could
come back later to pay the rest. This is actually against
the school policy. But the lady working at the register said
to her, “Muslims usually don’t cheat people. I am going to
take your word for it,” and let her buy the book at a used
price (but put a hold on her account until the rest was
paid). My friend was amazed.
Even with these positive experiences, being Muslim
today can be very dangerous. I was in the 5th grade, sit-
ting in the library fixing the TV monitor to play a video,
when 9/11 happened. The flashing red news alert caught
my eye. I stopped and sat there watching the crazy scene
they were broadcasting. People were on fire and flying out
of windows. Women were screaming, blood was all over
the streets, and police and firefighters were everywhere. It
was like a horror movie to me. Soon the library staff and
administrators came to see what was going on. They
quickly rushed me out and put the school on a complete
shutdown. Parents were coming in to pick up their kids
and teachers were crying. School was dismissed.
When we came back two days later, everyone was
upset. We had classmates and teachers whose loved
ones had been killed or injured. However, school had to
continue, so everyone tried to have a normal day. During
recess, a boy from another classroom came up to me
and said, “I know I don’t know you, but I want to warn you.
My friend wants to kill you.” I thought it was a joke. I ig-
nored him and asked him to stay away. But he came back
to me three times, until I finally became so annoyed by
him that I complained to my teacher, asking if she could
ask him to stay away.
The teacher called the boy, and soon his friend, and
to her surprise and mine, the boy was right. His friend
was carrying a gun and told the teacher and me straight
up, “I am coming to kill her. She is Osama’s daughter,
and we have to kill these Muslims.” The kid had a real
gun, with a bullet. I was in shock. The teacher tried to
take it from him, but he ran away. The police found him a
few hours later, hiding somewhere in the forest right be-
hind our school. I really wanted to believe it was just a
joke, maybe just a nightmare, and I would wake up soon
and things would be totally fine. It could not be reality, I
thought . . . but it was reality.
It soon became the reality that I live every day. I get
threatened at school, made fun of in public, discrimi-
nated against during work, and humiliated in the comfort
of my home. I am reminded over and over again how my
people are the cause of all these wars, are violent terror-
ists, and that I have to pay the price. People judge and
discriminate against me on the basis of the acts of a few
followers of my religion. They seem to forget that Muslims
are humans just like they are. They forget that Islam is
not made up of ten terrorists, but 1.4 billion people striv-
ing to live a better life just like they are. But even with all
of this, as strong believers, we behold with patience, and
we keep our heads up high, ignoring the comments. We
are cautious about what we do and say, and every day
we pray that we come back home to our families safely.
Although today’s society portrays Muslims negatively,
I think I am still privileged to be a Muslim. It is my number
one identity. Before people even judge my gender/sex,
my social status, my educational status, or anything else,
they see “Muslim” written on my forehead. I am proud of
that identity and always will be.
Sumaya Al-Hajebi
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READING 24: From Friendly Foreigner to Enemy Race 259
all but one of the many reported racial-prerequisite
naturalization cases,
43
the petitioners claimed to be
white, despite the fact that it was much harder to
establish white, rather than black, status. At the
time, many states had laws on the books declaring
any individual with a single quantum of black blood
to be black by law.
44

In the continental United States, . . . white privi-
lege still reigns supreme, and, naturally, immigrant
groups still seek white recognition.
45
This is cer-
tainly true for the Iranian American population.
The United States has seen a huge wave of immi-
gration from Iran since the 1979 revolution. In
1996, it was estimated that almost 1.5 million
Iranians resided in the United States, a fi gure that
had grown from just a few thousand in the 1970s.
46

However, despite changes to the 2000 census,
which allowed Middle Eastern individuals such as
Iranian Americans to identify themselves as some-
thing other than just “white,” it appears that very
few Iranian Americans took the opportunity to do
so. In fact, only 338,266 individuals in the United
States identifi ed themselves as Iranian.
47
The ma-
jority of Iranians, it seems, chose conversion. Any
visitor to Los Angeles (often referred to as
Tehrangeles or Irangeles) can attest that there are
probably 338,266 individuals of Iranian descent
living in Southern California, let alone the rest of
the country.
The reason for this statistical discrepancy is not
too diffi cult to ascertain: having fl ed a severely re-
pressive government in their homeland, many
Iranians have a profound mistrust of government.
As a result, it is hardly surprising that they would
balk at the chance to single themselves out conve-
niently to the government for identifi cation and
tracking purposes. Additionally, there is a strong de-
sire within the Iranian community to assimilate. Ask
typical Iranian Americans if they are white, and they
will say, “Of course.” Then, inevitably, they will tell
you that the word Iran comes from the Sanskrit
word meaning “Land of the Aryans” and that they,
not the Germans, are the original Aryans. . . .
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. As oil has become more important, why has there
been a change in the image of the Middle East?
2. Describe the process of selective racialization
and its consequences.
NOTES
1. Clayton R. Koppes, Captain Mahan, General Gordon,
and the Origins of the Term “Middle East,” 12 Middle
Eastern Studies 95, 95–96 (1976).
2. Alfred T. Mahan, The Persian Gulf and International
Relations, in Retrospect and Prospect 209, 237, 244–45
(1903).
3. Sedat Laciner, Is There a Place Called “the Middle
East”? Journal of Turkish Weekly Opinion, June 2,
2006, available online at http://www.turkishweekly.net
/comments.php?id=2117#.
4. Fiore v. O’Connell, 66 N.Y.S.2d 173, 175 (N.Y. Sup.
Ct. 1946).
5. Larsen v. Comm’r of Internal Revenue, 23 T.C. 599, 601
(Tax Court 1955).
6. Miller v. United States, 140 F. Supp. 789, 790, 792
(Ct. Cl. 1956).
7. Waldron v. British Petroleum Co., 149 F. Supp. 830, 836
(S.D.N.Y. 1957); United States v. Standard Oil Co. of
California, 155 F. Supp. 121, 127 (S.D.N.Y. 1957).
8. Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in
the United States 55 (1994).
9. Richard Delgado, Two Ways to Think about Race: Re-
fl ections on the Id, the Ego, an Other Reformist Theories
of Equal Protection , 89 Geo. L.J. 2279, 2283 (2001)
(footnote omitted).
10. Richard Delgado & Jean Stefancic, Images of the Out-
sider in American Law and Culture: Can Free Expres-
sion Remedy Systemic Social Ills? 77 cornell L. Rev.
1258, 1262–63 (1992).
11. Id.
12. Delgado, supra , at 2285.
13. Id . at 2283.
14. Delgado & Stefancic, supra, at 1271–72.
15. Delgado, supra, at 2285–86.
16. Of course, these romantic images have often served less
than salutary ends, providing, as Edward Said has ar-
gued, implicit justifi cation for colonial and imperial am-
bitions by the West toward the Middle East. See Edward
Said, Orientalism (1978).
17. See, e.g., Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civiliza-
tions and The Remaking of World Order (1998).
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260 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
look them straight in the eye and say, ‘I’m Italian’. . .
We’re all named Tony now.”).
34. Sunita Patel, Performative Aspects of Race: “Arab,
Muslim, and South Asian” Racial Formation after Sep-
tember 11, 10 Asian Pac. Am. L.J. 61, 83-84 (2005) (de-
scribing many of the covering activities undertaken by
individuals of Middle Eastern descent in the wake of
9/11).
35. See, e.g., Muneer I. Ahmad, A Rage Shared by Law:
Post- September 11 Racial Violence as Crimes of Pas-
sion, 92 Cal. L. Rev. 1259, 1278–79 (2004); New Yorker,
Nov. 5, 2001 (depicting on the cover a Sikh taxi driver
whose cab is covered with American fl ags).
36. Patel, supra, at 84.
37. Kenji Yoshino, Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our
Civil Rights 125 (2006).
38. Geary Act of 1892, ch. 60, § 6, 27 Stat. 25 (1892)
( repealed) (emphasis added).
39. Gelareh Asayesh, I Grew Up Thinking I Was White, in
My Sister, Guard Your Veil; My Brother, Guard Your
Eyes: Uncensored Iranian Voices 12, 17 (Lila Azam
Zanganeh ed., 2006).
40. Clueless (Paramount Pictures 1995).
41. Prior to that, I would like to think that my uncle,
Mansour Kia, was in the running for the title of highest
ranking Iranian American elected offi cial. He served as
the mayor of the town of Stanton, Iowa (population:
714) at the turn of the century.
42. In re Cruz, 23 F. Supp. 774–75 (E.D.N.Y. 1938).
43. By the early 1900s, several Southern states had adopted
this “one-drop” rule. See Luther Wright, Jr., Who’s
Black, Who’s White, and Who Cares? Reconceptualizing
the United States’s Defi nition of Race and Racial Clas-
sifi cations, 48 Vand. L. Rev. 513, 524 (1995) (document-
ing the progression of states toward the one-drop rule);
Peter Wallenstein, Tell The Court I Love My Wife 142
(2002) (nothing that Georgia, Virginia, Alabama, and
Oklahoma all had laws defi ning as black anyone with
any drop of African ancestry); Plessy v. Ferguson, 163
U.S. 537 (1896) (assuming that the petitioner, who pos-
sessed only one-eighth African blood, was black for the
purposes of segregation laws). But see In re Cruz, 23 F.
Supp. at 775 (fi nding one-quarter African blood insuffi –
cient to gain someone recognition of African descent for
naturalization purposes).
44. This trend is, of course, not limited to recent immigrant
groups but has a long history. See, for example, the his-
tory of Irish, Greek, Italian, and Slavic assimilation in
the United States. See Noel Ignatiev, How The Irish Be-
came White 2–3 (1995).
45. See Worldwide Persian Outreach, The Persian Diaspora
Farsinet, http://www.farsinet.com/pwo/diaspora.html
(accessed Nov. 21, 2006). Another, more conservative,
18. See Karen Engle, Constructing Good Aliens and Good
Citizens; Legitimizing the War on Terror(ism), 75 U
Colo. L. Rev. 59, 75 (2004) (discussing the stereotyping
of Middle Eastern individuals as religious extremists
and terrorists incapable of assimilation in the
United States).
19. Louise Cainkar, The History of Arab Immigration to the
U.S.: An Introduction for High School Students, in Arab
American Encyclopedia (2000), available online at
http://www.adc.org/education/AAImmigration.htm (ac-
cessed Sept. 12, 2006).
20. Lucius Hopkins Miller, A Study of the Syrian Popula-
tion of Greater New York 5 (1904).
21. Id. at 22.
22. Id. at 25.
23. Joyce Howard Price, Census Counts 1.2 Million Arabs
in U.S.: Most of Them Are Christian, Washington Times,
Dec. 4, 2003, at A1.
24. Engle, supra , at 74.
25. Victor Romero, Race, Immigration and the Department
of Homeland Security, 19 ST. John’s J. Legal Comment.
51, 55 (2004).
26. Id . at 52.
27. See Nancy Murray, Profi led: Arabs, Muslims, and the
Post-9/11 Hunt for the “Enemy Within,” in Civil Rights
In Peril: The Targeting of Arabs and Muslims 27, 44
(Elaine C. Hagopian ed., 2004).
28. Such a tack might be acceptable if we truly lived in a
race-blind society in which racial perceptions were un-
important and all individuals were dissolved into a sin-
gle catch-all “human” category. The “selective” aspect
of the racialization process, however, belies the notion
of race blindness.
29. Scott J. Simon, Arabs in Hollywood: An Undeserved
Image, Latent Image (1996), available online at http://
pages.emerson.edu/organizations/fas/latent_imageis-
sues/ 1996-04/arabs.htm.
30. See Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes on The Manage-
ment of Spoiled Identity 12–13 (1963).
31. Kenji Yoshino, Covering, 111 Yale L. 169, 772–73.
32. There are certainly exceptions to this generalization, but
I think it is fair to say that a determined individual of
Middle Eastern descent would have a much easier time
passing him- or herself off as a member of a different
ethnic or racial group, or engaging in the act of covering,
than an individual of African or East Asian descent. It
should be noted that many Latinos, because of their in-
extricably mixed heritage, also “enjoy” the option of
passing—for better or worse.
33. See, e.g., Lorraine Ali, Laughter’s New Profi le, News-
week, Apr. 22, 2002, at 61 (quoting a line from a routine
performed by an Iranian American comedian: “Since
September 11, when people ask me about my ethnicity I
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READING 25: The Privilege of Teaching About Privilege 261
Iranian-American Community (2003), http://isg-mit
.org/projects-storage/census/Factsheet .
46. Iranian Studies Group at MIT, supra.
estimate suggests that the Iranian American popula-
tion  totaled approximately 540,000 by 2003. See
Iranian Studies Group at MIT, Factsheet on the
SEX AND GENDER
R E A D I N G 2 5
The Privilege of Teaching About
Privilege
Michael A. Messner
Arriving to my offi ce at 7:30 a.m., I observe that the
quiet halls are devoid of faculty, offi ce staff, or stu-
dents. I amble along the corridor and notice that
the lights are on in our Sociology Center. From the
hallway, I peek through the window and see one of
the janitors who works in our building, standing in
front of the chalkboard. A middle-aged mother of
Mexican descent for whom English is a second lan-
guage, she shows up for work fi ve days a week at
5:00 a.m., cleans our hallways, offi ces, and rest-
rooms. She empties our trashcans daily, and once
or twice a year she can be seen on her hands and
knees, scrubbing the black baseboards to a clean
sheen, all the way down the long stretch of our hall-
ways. She leaves the building by the early after-
noon; faculty or students who are not “morning
people” are unlikely to see her labor that keeps our
workplace spanking clean. On this morning I view
her through the Sociology Center window, and I
pause to wave a friendly greeting. But she doesn’t
see me; she’s standing perfectly still, her back to
me, a long mop poised upright in her hand. She
seems to be concentrating, reading the chalkboard,
which is covered, side-to-side and top-to-bottom,
with a professor’s scrawlings from yesterday’s
theory lecture on Marx. Feudalism became capital-
ism; new social classes emerged; capitalists ex-
tracted surplus value and accumulated profi ts; an
industrial labor class performed alienated labor. I
proceed to my offi ce, turn on my computer, and do a
fi rst sorting through today’s e-mails. A few minutes
later, I stroll to the restroom, and walking by the
now-empty Sociology Center, I see that the chalk-
board is now clean as a whistle, gleaming and
ready for the next professor’s lecture.
How do we, in our daily lives, make sense of
moments like this? In particular, how do sociology
professors square this sort of daily experience with
our work—our research and our teaching—that so
often focuses on social inequalities? For the mo-
ment, I want to leave these questions, and the image
from this story, as something for the reader to pon-
der. I will return to them later. And I promise, I
don’t have a clean and tidy answer.
TELLING PRIVILEGE STORIES
Teaching is what fi rst drew me to become a profes-
sor. When I attended my fi rst Pacifi c Sociological
Association meeting back in 1974 as a graduating
senior at Chico State University, it was the organiza-
tion’s clear support for students and for the mission
of teaching that I found most attractive. After a
quarter-century of teaching there is plenty to ponder,
but here I want to refl ect on one challenge to which I
have given a good deal of thought in recent years:
how do I, as a white, male, tenured professor teach in
a critical and self-refl exive way about privilege? . . .
I learned years ago as a new assistant professor,
team-teaching courses on gender with women
colleagues, that students tend to view and judge women
professors differently, applying a double-standard that
Michael Messner is a professor of sociology and gender studies
at the University of Southern California.
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262 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
also built into the fabric of institutions and organi-
zations. And privilege operates interpersonally—as
Cecilia Ridgeway (2009) has shown in her work,
gender is “framed before we know it,” serving as a
kind of background substructure that shapes our re-
actions to and interactions with others. One way I
convey this idea in the classroom is by telling sto-
ries from my own life, stories intended to illustrate
the less-than-fully visible scaffolding underlying
my own privilege. The following story about
my summer job when I was a college student illus-
trates how a patriarchal dividend sometimes just
“happens”—how men sometimes simply have to
show up to reap its benefi ts:
During my junior year in 1973, I took a course
at Chico State University on social stratifi cation
that focused mostly race and class inequality. There
was scant research available as yet on gender, but
my professor did include a short segment on the pay
gap, illustrating that in the United States, women
full-time workers earned about 59 cents to the male
worker’s dollar; even when doing the same jobs,
women were routinely paid less. I was surprised by
these data, and decided to write my term paper on
this topic. I concluded the paper with an impas-
sioned statement that, in America, everyone should
be given equal opportunity and equal pay for equal
work. I got an “A” on the paper. And I was proud of
the position I’d taken; I was now a liberal.
That summer, I was back in my hometown, work-
ing my usual summer job for the Salinas Recreation
and Park Department. Every summer, perhaps a
dozen college students like me were hired to run
programs for kids in the local parks. Most of my
colleagues were young women, and they were rou-
tinely given assignments at the smaller parks that
were only open 20–30 hours a week. Dave and I,
the two men, were given 40 hour per week jobs at
the larger parks. Frequently, at our weekly staff
meetings, our supervisor would invite Dave and I to
do extra work on a Saturday, so we’d routinely rack
up 42–46 hours of work a week, which was great
for saving money for September, when we’d head
back to college. One day during a staff meeting, the
supervisor said, “Mike, Dave, can you come down
worked to the benefi t of the male instructor. And
I learned during six years of serving as a department
chair, and reading many student evaluations of my col-
leagues’ classes, that students often impute “bias” to
faculty of color who are teaching courses on social in-
equality, especially race. White, heterosexual, male
professors, I learned, are usually assumed to be “objec-
tive” when teaching about social inequalities (Messner
2000; 2003). How do we use this privilege in the
classroom?
One starting point in thinking about this ques-
tion is to familiarize our students with the burgeon-
ing sociological research on inequalities and, in
particular, the recent development of what Goode
(1982) called a sociology of superordinates. There
is of course a long tradition of research on the upper
classes (e.g., Domhoff 1967; Marx 1867/1974;
Mills 1956). By the late 1980s, the feminist cre-
ation of women’s studies also germinated a critical
study of masculinities and male privilege (e.g.,
Connell 1987; Kaufman 1987; Kimmel 1987). So-
ciologists of race and ethnicity have contributed to
the more recent scholarship on white privilege
(e.g., Lipsitz 1998; O’Brien and Feagin 2004), and
to the burgeoning critical study of heterosexuality
and heteronormativity (e.g., Ingraham 2004). And
of course, sociologists have been in the forefront of
developing analyses of intersectional (race, class,
gender, sexual) privilege (e.g., Collins 1991; Ferber
1998; Kimmel and Ferber 2003).
How do we introduce this excellent research on
privilege to our classrooms? Many teachers have
utilized Peggy MacIntosh’s “Invisible Knapsack of
Privilege” as a point of entrée for classroom
consciousness-raising exercises that illuminate the
often-subtle interactional dynamics of privilege
(MacIntosh 1989). After an engaging discussion of
MacIntosh, a next logical question from students
who have just “discovered” privilege is, “What do I
do with my unearned privilege? Give it away? Re-
linquish it?” A sociological perspective, I tell my
students, shows us that it is not likely that an indi-
vidual can simply “give up” his or her privileges.
Privilege is not merely an individual attribute, like
a pair of shoes one can remove and discard; it is
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READING 25: The Privilege of Teaching About Privilege 263
the sources and consequences of our privilege: But
maybe I did see the unfair treatment of my women
colleagues. How, really, could I not have seen it,
especially having so recently written that impas-
sioned sociology paper on the topic? My sense of
entitlement to unearned privilege allows me to look
the other way—away in 1973 from my women col-
leagues who were not getting the same opportuni-
ties to earn money as I was; away today from the
janitor who dusts and vacuums my offi ce; and away
too from the growing class of adjunct, part-time
faculty who increasingly shoulder the teaching bur-
den in our colleges and universities.
THE SINCERE FICTION OF
INDIVIDUAL MERIT
What is it that allows us to look away from some-
thing that threatens our vested interests? Perhaps
it’s our sense of ourselves as good people—our be-
lief in what O’Brien and Feagin (2004) call “sin-
cere fi ctions”—the idea that we are fair-minded in
our treatment of others, that we do not discriminate.
But more broadly, sincere fi ctions are more than
rosy self-deception. Their power and depth lies in
their grounding in shared ideologies. Particularly
important in this regard is the widely held commit-
ment to the belief in individualism and meritocracy.
Another personal story I convey to my students is
intended to shine the light of intersectional analyses
of inequality on my own immersion in an ideology
of individualism and meritocracy.
I completed my master’s degree in 1976, and
dreamt of landing a job in a community college, at
a time when few colleges were hiring. I was lucky to
get an interview for a job as a full-time one-year
replacement for a professor who was going on sab-
batical from her job in a team-taught experimental
college. I went to a daylong interview that included
several one-on-one talks with faculty and a dean as
well as a grueling two-hour interrogation from half
a dozen faculty and students. When challenged
about my inexperience, I thought I responded well
in delivering an impromptu riff on how Paulo
to the Center on Saturday morning?” Before I
could say “yes,” our colleague Susan interrupted
and said, “I don’t know why Dave and Mike always
get the extra hours. We women can do those jobs as
well as they can, and we need the extra hours and
money as much as they do.” A moment of uncom-
fortable silence settled on the room. And a defen-
sive feeling, a sense that something was being taken
away, crept up on me. I whispered to Dave—way
too loudly, as it turned out—“Who does she think
she is? Gloria Steinem?” Without missing a beat,
Susan placed both arms on the table and said,
“Mike, don’t talk about something you don’t know
anything about.” I thought to myself immediately,
“Gee I do know a lot about this topic; I just wrote
this great paper on it!” Fortunately I had the sense
to keep my mouth shut and not say it.
I am happy to report that the blatantly unfair
privilege informally bestowed upon men workers
by the Salinas Recreation and Park Department in
the summer of 1973 ceased immediately, once it
was publicly named and confronted. But it was not
I, or another male worker, who named or con-
fronted it. And I learned an important lesson: it is
one thing to take an academic position against the
unfair treatment of women workers; it is yet an-
other to align myself with feminist women in a situ-
ation where change might actually threaten to take
an unearned privilege away from me.
The extra hours and more pay I received in this
instance were unearned privileges from which I
benefi tted, just for showing up to work as a male.
Peggy Macintosh’s “knapsack of privilege” exer-
cise helps to illustrate how and why this sort of
privilege often remains “invisible” to those who
benefi t from it. But my story also makes me won-
der: How invisible really is privilege? Was I en-
tirely unaware of my unearned privilege? Or was I
simply turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to an un-
fair practice that benefi tted me? Talking about priv-
ilege as “invisible” is a good strategic starting point
for teaching about it, but perhaps also it is the fl ip-
side of viewing subordinates as dupes who suf-
fer  from false consciousness. After all, it is in the
interests of the privileged to appear to be blind to
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264 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
held conservative views on gender. I don’t know the
whole story, but it’s reasonable to speculate that
this very tension, in local microcosm, produced me,
the white guy, as the compromise candidate least
likely to ignite an already-simmering race-gender
confl agration.
Getting that fi rst job sparked future successes in
my academic career, including giving me two years
of teaching experience that helped me to build a
solid resume that got me admitted to the Ph.D. pro-
gram at U.C. Berkeley. But like most “lucky
breaks,” this one was not random; it was rooted in
the dynamics of the historical moment. Contextual-
ized this way, my story hints at the shortcomings of
using individual stories in sociology classes, the
risk being that we can too easily lose the idea of the
social, an idea that is, I believe, our most radical
contribution in the face of beliefs in individualism
and meritocracy. . . .
CONTRADICTIONS OF
TEACHING ABOUT PRIVILEGE
To this point, I have made a case for the importance
and utility of professors—especially those like me
who are members of privileged social groups—to
use our own stories to lay bare some of the underly-
ing structural and interactional foundations of priv-
ilege. Having read this, some readers might very
well offer a skeptical rejoinder, suggesting that no
matter what I do in the classroom, I end up looking
good—that I reinforce my own white male hetero-
sexual tenured professor privilege in the very act of
being so “open minded,” of making myself so “per-
sonally vulnerable” in front of my students. This is
absolutely correct. And I would observe that this is
yet another way that privilege operates. A graduate
student I work with, Tal Peretz, coined a term for
this: when men openly support feminism, we ben-
efi t from what he calls “the pedestal effect” (Peretz
2010). The question for me then is, What do I do
with this? Part of the answer is to be refl exive not
only about my teaching . . . but also in my teaching,
for example, I tell my classes about how student
evaluations seem to hold women professors and
Freire’s theories could be put into play for libera-
tory pedagogy in the experimental college.
A couple of weeks later, I received a phone call
offering me the job. I was happy, but not shocked. I
really thought I’d wowed them at the interview. I
was perfect for the job. I ended up doing the year-
long gig, and then hung on for another year, teach-
ing sociology classes part-time, before getting laid
off in the wake of California’s Proposition 13,
which eventually chased me back to graduate
school.
A few years later, I was having dinner with a
professor who had been among those who inter-
viewed me back in 1976 at the experimental col-
lege. He said, “Did I ever tell you how you got
hired?” “No,” I said, “but I am curious.” “Well,”
he said, “We interviewed two other people. One
was a black male, the other a white female, and
both had more experience than you. For a full day,
we debated which of those two we should hire; we
were split down the middle, and the split was threat-
ening to get ugly. So at one point, somebody said,
‘Hey, how about this guy Messner?’ We looked
around at each other, we were tired, and it seemed
nobody objected to you. So that’s how it happened.”
That’s not the story I had expected to hear. I
thought he’d explain how I’d emerged as clearly the
most qualifi ed candidate, or that maybe he’d gush
about how my mini-lecture on Friere had sealed the
deal with the search committee. I knew that I had
worked hard in college, and fi gured I’d fully earned
that job. Landing that job, I had thought, was a log-
ical moment within my own developing narrative
of hard work, individual merit, and well-deserved
upward mobility. But with this added information a
few years later, I began retrospectively to re-read
my getting that fi rst job as a moment where inter-
sectional privilege had operated in my favor. I en-
tered the academic labor force in the mid-1970s, a
contested moment of turbulent racial and gender
relations—in particular, a time during which tre-
mendous tensions had built between an ascendant
feminist movement, led mostly by white, middle
class women, and a fragmenting black power and
civil rights movement, many of whose male leaders
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READING 25: The Privilege of Teaching About Privilege 265
their children exercise their educational aspirations
and choices.
I sat down and interviewed four of the students
from Veronica Terriquez’s methods class. I ex-
plained that I was interested in learning from them
how their project might have made visible the often
invisible work of janitors, and also how the research
might have led them to refl ect on inequalities on
campus, and their own privileged positions as stu-
dents. One of the students punctured the assump-
tion implicit in my question, that USC students all
come from privileged backgrounds:
I am from a low-income family, honestly because of
that I’ve always been really social with everybody, like
in high school I was always good friends with the jan-
itors and the gardeners. So it’s always been the same
here at USC .. to me [the janitors] were never invisible,
but I know for a lot of people they are, and it’s evident
when you see how people treat the campus, when it’s
littered with garbage or you see the classrooms and
there’s trash, like people just leave their cups and you
know they don’t care because they know someone’s
going to pick it up—they don’t know who, but they
know someone’s going to pick it up.
Another student in the group who described him-
self as coming from a middle class family did expe-
rience the study as an eye-opener:
I actually was blown away by some of the statistics
we gathered. . . . The tuition remission, I didn’t know
anything about that. . . . Janitors may be living from
paycheck to paycheck, or having trouble trying to pay
their bills, but they don’t get that incentive [of tuition
remission for their children], and I thought wow, that
surprised me. I was blown away by that. Some of the
children of people who work here, they go to over-
crowded schools. I saw the enormous amount of in-
equality.
Yet another member of the research group said that
she experienced the study as an inspiration to
change the goals and culture of the university, in
order to shift the existing reality of unfairness and
inequality toward a vision of social justice:
[Doing the study] really made me question the whole
culture of USC as a university, and what it means to
faculty of color to different standards, benefi tting
white male professors, and I present this to them as
a problem to be discussed and analyzed. This in-
vites students to look at their own gendered and
raced assumptions about professors.
Ultimately, though, I come up against the limits
of being the white heterosexual guy with a secure
job, trying to teach about privilege. And here I want
to return to the hallway outside my offi ce, and to the
question I raised at the outset: What do we do with
moments when we experience so starkly our own
privilege, as I did when I saw the USC janitor paus-
ing to read about Marx, before cleaning the chalk-
board that a professor had left for someone else to
erase? In this same hallway last semester, I ran into
a student who had taken my class the previous
spring. We said hello, and I asked her what she was
doing this term. She said that she was taking her
research methods class from one of our new assis-
tant professors, Veronica Terriquez. Curious, I asked
her how the class was going. “Oh,” she replied, “It’s
the most exciting class I’ve taken so far at USC.”
This was the fi rst time I had ever heard a student
use the words “exciting” to describe a methods
class. She went on to explain that Professor Ter-
riquez had the class divided into small groups,
doing community research projects. Her group was
focusing on the USC janitors, with a particular
focus on their educational aspirations for their chil-
dren. The students surveyed the janitors, and the
result was a research report, “Beyond the Mop,”
that garnered considerable attention across the USC
community (Vargas-Johnson, Silverman, Marcus,
Simmons, Gallardo, Gholani, and Juarez 2009).
The report described the janitors’ own educations
and explored their aspirations for their children’s
educations. In the report, the students did their his-
torical research too, pointing out that in 1995 the
university had subcontracted the janitors. When the
janitors lost their USC employee status, they also
lost one of the most plum benefi ts of USC faculty
and staff: free tuition for our children. In subcon-
tracting the janitors, the University had in
effect shifted the institutional context, creating new
structural constraints within which the janitors and
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266 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
would have occurred to me during the 1970s to
question male privilege, or to even think about the
social construction of masculinity, if I had not fi rst
heard feminist women talking about gender oppres-
sion. I can’t begin to understand the full range of
privilege that is implied in the simple phrase that
“Pierrette and I are married,” without fi rst having
listened to sexually subordinated groups of people
who still lack the legal right to marry. And I can’t
know the fi rst thing about my own white privilege
without fi rst developing some empathy and under-
standing of the lives and experiences of racially sub-
ordinated peoples. There’s a lot that I can’t know, on
my own, based simply on my own experience. And
there’s a good deal that, humbly, I must admit I am
unable alone to teach to my students.
However, in the end, and at the very least, I can
begin by erasing my own chalkboard.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Can you give an example of intersectional
privilege?
2. Why is privilege often so invisible?
3. What should you do with unearned privilege?
Give it away or use it?
REFERENCES
Collins, Patricia Hill. 1991. Black Feminist Thought. Boston:
Unwin Hyman.
Connell, Raewyn. 1987. Gender and Power. Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press.
Domhoff, G. William. 1967. Who Rules America?
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Ferber, Abby L. 1998. White Man Falling: Race, Gender
and White Supremacy. Lanham, MD: Rowman and
Littlefi eld.
Goode, William J. 1982. “Why Men Resist.” Pp. 131–50 in
Rethinking the Family: Some Feminist Questions, edited
by B. Thorne and M. Yalom. New York: Longman.
Ingraham, Chrys. 2004. Thinking Straight: The Power,
Promise and Paradox of Heterosexuality. New York:
Routledge.
Kaufman, Michael, Ed. 1987. Beyond Patriarchy: Essays by
Men on Pleasure, Power and Change. Toronto: Oxford
University Press.
be a center for education. And I think for a lot of chil-
dren of privilege who become students here, I feel
that USC for them is not so much about the education,
it’s a necessary step in their path of career. . . . So to
call USC an educational institution and have 250
workers, none of whom have college degrees, is like a
clash between what should be and what is. I really
gained a lot from doing the survey because it’s like
giving us a chance to use sociology as a way to make
the dreams of the janitors—like getting their children
into college—fi rst of all, it puts that on the table: this
is a goal. But in order to make that happen, things
have to happen.
A fourth student in the research group had concrete
ideas about what had to happen next, linking the
research fi ndings to her activism with the Student
Coalition Against Labor Exploitation (SCALE), a
longstanding student organization that supports
laborers on campus:
[We need to ask next about] the actual wages of the
janitors, and why do they have to be subcontracted?
Why can’t they be USC employees? It’ll be cool
once the contract negotiations are happening that
students can get involved. I’m involved in SCALE
and we are getting more involved with the union
these days . . . This [research] project laid a founda-
tion and has opened a lot of doors to make change
and make this better, and in a really productive way
I think, because we have the fi ndings to back up all
of our initiatives, so it’s defi nitely taught me the
power of social research.
Few sociology professors, I would think, could
read that last line—“it’s defi nitely taught me the
power of social research”—and not think about her
teaching, “mission accomplished.”
And here I believe I have brought us full circle in
thinking about how to teach about privilege: To re-
main critical, a sociology of superordinates needs,
still and always, to be grounded in the standpoints of
subordinate groups of people. It is crucial continu-
ally to remind our students and ourselves that privi-
lege is always a relational concept; the workings of
privilege are illuminated when subordinate groups
of people organize to improve their lives. It never
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READING 26: Proving Manhood 267
. . . Why is it that successfully enduring distress is
so central to proving manhood and proving superi-
ority to women, not only in the United States, but in
most of the cultures of the world? And why is it that
manhood is something to be proved ? And how do
we confer manhood on men without also conferring
upon them superiority to women? Or is the very
business of conferring manhood inherently prob-
lematic? . . .
COMPULSIVE MASCULINITY
By compulsive masculinity I mean the compulsion
or need to relate to, and at times create, stress or
distress as a means of both proving manhood and
conferring on boys and men superiority over
women and other men. Failure to do so results in
the social or private perception that one is less than
a man. One must take distress “like a man” or run
the risk of being perceived as feminine—a “sissy”
or “mama’s boy.”
The content of the stress and distress can be use-
fully divided into three general categories:
1. That which would hurt anyone, e.g., physical
pain, physical danger, large quantities of alcohol.
2. That which poses a psychological danger owing
to the meaning it is given in relation to man-
hood, e.g., failing to win a sporting contest, los-
ing physical strength and skill as one ages, and
crying in public.
3. That which poses the greatest threat of all to
manhood (a special case of category 2)—
women. . . .
I will further divide compulsive masculinity into
what I witness (and manifest) as an American man
and what can be gleaned from other cultures
through anthropological and other data. It is useful
to keep in mind the distinction between activities
performed as masculinity-proving in themselves
(like many rites of passage), and activities like
work where proving masculinity is not the primary
goal, but rather a secondary gratifi cation that infl u-
ences how work is done.
Kimmel, Michael S., Ed. 1987. Changing Men: New Direc-
tions in Research on Men and Masculinity. Newbury Park,
CA: Sage.
——— and Abby L. Ferber, Eds. 2003. Privilege. Boulder,
CO: Westview.
Lipsitz, George. 1998. The Possessive Investment in White-
ness: How White People Profi t from Identity Politics.
Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
MacIntosh, Peggy. 1989. “White Privilege: Unpacking the
Invisible Knapsack.” Peace and Freedom July/August:
l0–12.
Marx, Karl. 1867/1974. Capital. London: Lawrence &
Wishart Publishers.
Messner, Michael A. 2000. “White Guy Habitus in the Class-
room: Confronting the Reproduction of Privilege,” Men
and Masculinities 2(4):457–69.
———. 2003. “Men as Superordinates: Challenges for Gen-
der Scholarship.” Pp. 287–98 in Privilege, edited by in
M. S. Kimmel and A. L. Ferber. Boulder, CO: Westview.
Mills, C. Wright. 1956. The Power Elite. London, Oxford,
and New York: Oxford University Press.
O’Brien, Eileen and Joe R. Feagin. 2004. White Men on
Race: Power, Privilege, and the Shaping of Cultural Con-
sciousness. Boston: Beacon Press.
Peretz, Tal. 2010. “No More Mr. Goodguy? Stepping Off the
Pedestal of Male Privilege.” VoiceMale: Changing Men in
Changing Times Winter:10–13.
Ridgeway, Cecilia. 2009. “Framed Before We Know It: How
Gender Shapes Social Relations.” Gender & Society
23(2):145–60.
Vargas-Johnson, Alejandra, Sabrina Silverman, Evan Mar-
cus, Marcus Simmons, Mario Gallardo, Bernadette
Gholani, and Angelica Juarez. 2009. “Beyond the Mop:
The Untold Story of U.S.C. Janitors.” Research report
written for Sociology 313 (University of Southern
California, Department of Sociology).
R E A D I N G 2 6
Proving Manhood
Timothy Beneke
Instead of coming to ourselves . . . we grow all
manner of deformities and enormities.
Saul Bellow
Timothy Beneke is a freelance writer and antirape activist.
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268 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
withstand stress as a preparation for greater stress.
Kimmel quotes General Homer Lea, writing in
1898: “the greatest danger that a long period of pro-
found peace offers to a nation is that of creating
effeminate tendencies in young men” (241). With-
out war to “masculinize” men, they are in danger of
becoming like women. And the Boy Scout Manual
of 1914 states:
The wilderness is gone, the Buckskin Man is gone, the
painted Indian has hit the trail over the Great Divide, the
hardships and privations of pioneer life which did so
much to develop sterling manhood are now but a legend
of history, and we must depend upon the Boy Scout
movement to produce the MEN of the future. (243)
Again, without stress or distress through which
men could test their manhood, they risk becoming
women or remaining boys.
It seems that virtually anything men experience
as stressful can serve as an occasion to prove man-
hood, so long as it is also something experienced as
stressful by women. It would appear unlikely that
American men could prove masculinity doing
something women fi nd easy to do. Although, with
the advent of a “mythopoetic men’s movement,”
where men take pride and may even compete in dis-
playing their feelings, it is possible that the ability to
cry in public, something women do more easily than
men, may become a means of proving manhood.
American men take pride in handling alcohol
like a man—getting sick or drunk, becoming in-
competent, too easily can threaten one’s manhood.
Boys and even men feel superior to women and
other men through their greater capacity to handle
“grossness”: unpleasant sounds and smells, insects
and rodents, dirt, and so on.
The whole domain of male sports constitutes an
occasion for proving manhood. The ability to with-
stand physical pain and intense psychological pres-
sure, as Ali had done, and remain competent, is a
central part of this. Moments of physical danger,
like facing a fast-moving baseball when at bat or on
the fi eld, or evading tacklers while carrying a foot-
ball, are similar occasions. The sheer psychological
pressure exerted by the importance of winning or
performing well enables one to prove manhood.
COMPULSIVE MASCULINITY
IN THE UNITED STATES
American culture is replete with examples of com-
pulsive masculinity. Witness Norman Mailer writ-
ing about Muhammad Ali, who had recently lost an
agonizing championship fi ght to Joe Frazier, in Life
magazine in March of 1971: “For Ali had shown
America what we all had hoped was secretly true.
He was a man. He could endure moral and physical
torture and he could stand.”
1

It wasn’t enough that Ali had shown himself to be
a great fi ghter; winning had been too easy for him.
Ali had taken Frazier’s punishment “like a man” and
remained competent and whole: “he could stand.”
He did not give up or burst into tears or go soft. Ac-
cording to Mailer “we all ” could only be sure he was
a man if he suffered and endured. Otherwise he
was too much of a woman and not a real man, or he
was a boy and, implicitly, too soft and attached to
his  mother—too feminine. Mailer assumes that
admirers of Ali tacitly subscribed to this manhood
ideology and that readers of Life magazine already
understood it. No explanation was required.
That one of America’s most famous writers could
write this about America’s (then) most famous ath-
lete in one of America’s most popular magazines
suggests the pervasiveness of this ideology. It was,
and largely still is, central to American culture.
Tom Wolfe wrote about the “right stuff” that was
required of men to be test pilots and astronauts. What
was this right stuff? It was the ability to repeatedly
endure severe physical and psychological distress—
high g’s; intense, physically induced anxiety; and
rapid heartbeats—while remaining cool, competent,
and able to make snap, life-or-death decisions. And
this right stuff—possessed only by the few—Wolfe
says, is nothing other than masculinity itself.
2

Sociologist Michael Kimmel offers many ex-
amples in his essay on the cult of masculinity in the
United States.
3
The National Commission on the
Causes and Prevention of Violence stated that
“proving masculinity may require frequent rehears-
als of toughness, the exploitation of women, and
quick aggressive responses” (237). To “rehearse
toughness” is to repeatedly prove one’s ability to
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READING 26: Proving Manhood 269
degrees, then, ways that men prove their manhood.
Men engaging in a gang bang, committing political
torture, bashing a gay man; white men deriding
blacks and boys torturing a bug, are all in danger of
being regarded as less manly by other men if they
empathize with or try to help the rape or torture vic-
tim, the gay or black man, even the bug. They resist
the impulse to empathize with victims in order to
prove manhood. Though men aren’t likely to explic-
itly regard these experiences as suffering “taken like
a man,” it is what’s expected of them.
And, similarly, men mock and feel superior to
women or men whose need to nurture is easily
aroused at the sight of babies or cuddly animals. The
capacity to experience other beings as “cute” is the
capacity to have one’s desire to nurture aroused.
Many men fi nd this threatening to their manhood.
Men rather often, and women seldom, refer sarcasti-
cally to the actions of others as “cute.” Typically, it
is a way of saying that, in trying to be clever, another
man has been incompetent; “cute” is, in this sense, a
denigration of manhood. If a baseball pitcher throws
an odd pitch or a basketball player shoots a wild and
spectacular shot, they may be accused of “trying to
be cute,” that is, of not being a real man. “Getting
cute” is perceived as the equivalent of seeking nur-
turance, being feminine, and is thus unacceptable.
Learning to swear is an interesting domain for
proving manhood; saying what (supposedly) no
“good” woman would say is a way of advertising
one’s toughness and separation from women; one
learns to endure the implicit fear of one’s parents,
and maybe, God. A good swear is the opposite of a
good cry; it hardens one in a self-image of tough-
ness and attempts to inspire fear in one’s real or
imagined cohorts and adversaries.
Symbols of masculinity often contain and ex-
press a history of suffering successfully endured.
Think of tattoos, sculpted muscles, and scars. Such
symbols convey a willingness and capacity to suf-
fer for a masculine identity, an achieved and visible
toughness.
Threats to manhood need not be explicit, con-
scious, or labeled; they can be deeply internalized
and can manifest themselves as shadowy anxiety,
guilt, or defensiveness, among other things. Proving
Hypermasculine G. Gordon Liddy, of radio talk
and Watergate fame, as a child toughened himself
by placing his hand on a burning fl ame without
fl inching and eating a cooked rat.
4
And part of what
makes some popular aftershave lotions like Old
Spice manly is the stinging pain they cause when
rubbed on the face.
What defi nes a sissy on the playground is regres-
sion in the face of stress: bursting into tears when
hurt, growing soft and “choking” at a crucial mo-
ment in a sporting event, giving in to fear and refus-
ing to accept dares or take risks.
Work is another realm where the ethos of the
playground is often transferred and where compe-
tence has often been equated with masculinity. It is
an open question to what extent the training one
receives to become a doctor, lawyer, or other pro-
fessional is motivated by compulsive masculinity—
and to what extent the entrance of large numbers of
women into the higher levels of these professions
will change them.
5
Nor is it clear the degree to
which proving manhood constitutes a source of cre-
ativity in work.
Clearly, the army claims to make a man out of its
entrants.
6
A popular television commercial for the
army presents a solider about to parachute from a
plane. We hear a voice-over of him writing to his
father, telling him that he would have been proud of
him today. The solider remembers what his father
told him: “Being a man means putting your fear
aside and doing your job.”
The degree to which work is motivated by ulte-
rior, manhood-proving needs is an issue that de-
mands exploration. And, as technology increasingly
renders men’s superior physical strength of less
value, mastering technology itself increasingly be-
comes an important realm for proving manhood, as
the popularity of the television sitcom, Home Im-
provement, ironically attests.
Another means of proving manhood requires re-
sisting the impulse to “go soft” and empathize with
or nurture those who are suffering or weaker—a
skill strongly needed to remain cold-blooded when
confronting suffering or horror. It would appear that
at least some of the evils of the world, e.g., sexism,
fascism, homophobia, and racism, are, in varying
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270 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
What follows are some assumptions of sexist men,
stated at their most extreme and stereotypical:
10

Men and women are inherently different.
Real men are superior to women and superior to men
who do not live up to models of masculinity.
Activities normally associated with women are de-
meaning for men to engage in.
Men should not feel or express vulnerable or sensitive
emotions: the manly emotions are lust and anger.
Toughness and the domination of others are central to
men’s identity.
Sex is less about pleasure or relating and more about
proving manhood and asserting power.
Gay men are failed men.
Relatively few men may actively express such
beliefs; far more men feel them than express them.
But it is safe to say that all men in American soci-
ety must—to some degree—negotiate their identi-
ties by way of such ideas. I am struck by the
powerful psychic resonance such ideas have for
me, even though I do not intellectually subscribe to
them. They are far more alive in my emotions than
I would like them to be. For instance, I react with
anxiety to the thought of engaging in certain
“women’s activities” like sewing; I still have trou-
ble acknowledging, much less expressing, vulner-
able emotions; the element of performance as an
end in itself is still more alive in my sex life than I
want it to be. And it has been a struggle to ac-
knowledge the liberatory potential that gay men
offer straight men.
I fi nd it impossible to imagine compulsive mas-
culinity without sexism. The inability to empathize
with women, to experience “vulnerable” emotions,
to engage in egalitarian sex, or to empathize with
gays is tied to the need to prove manhood by never
regressing under stress.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Is proving masculinity primarily about demon-
strating superiority to women?
2. Do you think the need to prove manhood
is  as  strong now as it was for your parents’
generation?
manhood need not be dramatic or overt, rather, typi-
cally, it becomes internalized and characterological.
What makes the need to prove manhood compulsive
is that it can never be satisfi ed; one is momentarily a
man and then the doubts reassert themselves—
you’re only as masculine as your last demonstration
of masculinity. Men internalize a draconian model
of masculinity that is inherently masochistic.
Relating to stress together is a common way that
men bond—the greater the stress the stronger the
bond. The extraordinary connection men feel at war
has often been observed.
7
Compulsive masculinity
is inherently social, no matter how isolated the man
or boy engaging in it.
8

Women constitute the third major category of
stress that threatens manhood. . . .
First, the presence of women when a man is en-
countering masculinity-threatening stress com-
pounds the stress. Part of proving manhood includes
being perceived by women as a “real man.”
Second, in the realm of sex, manhood is proved
through one’s capacity to fi nd sexual partners and
to remain potent with them. Sex is often dominative
for men, and sexual problems are typically seen
more as problems of failed manhood than as sexual
problems.
9
In American culture we seldom explic-
itly regard sex as an occasion to take distress “like
a man.” But we do regard it as a proving ground for
masculinity, either in terms of success at fi nding
sexual partners or performance in sex.
Third, men’s competition with women in the
workplace is increasingly a threat to masculinity;
competence at work has been a defi ning feature of
male identity and men’s superiority to women. . . .
COMPULSIVE MASCULINITY
AND SEXISM
Compulsive masculinity is inexorably tied to
sexism—in proving manhood a man is proving his
superiority to women by enduring distress that
women supposedly cannot endure. The domination
and degradation of women are a basic defense used
to bolster men’s vulnerable masculinity. Where men
are compulsively masculine, they are also sexist.
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READING 26: Proving Manhood 271
thoughtful empirical studies about work and gender: Still
a Man’s World: Men Who Do “ Women’s ” Work (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1995), and Gender Differ-
ences at Work: Women and Men in Nontraditional Occu-
pations (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989).
6. The likelihood that one will have to go to war some day
is no doubt a major, underdiscussed factor among the
objective social forces constructing masculinity and sex-
ism. If a sense that someday they will have to fi ght and
kill is drilled into men, if they have to be willing to risk
death, to die as part of their gendered identity, then
childhood becomes war preparedness and women be-
come objects of protection and thus inferior.
7. S ee Glenn Gray, The Warriors (New York: Harper and
Row, 1967).
8. This is as good a place as any to suggest a possible rela-
tion between compulsive masculinity and creativity. To
wit, I am intrigued by a parallel between creating and
conquering stress as a means of proving manhood, and
creating and conquering stress as a part of the creative
process in art. Sometimes in the creative process, an in-
ternalized dare is produced as one writes the fi rst line of
a poem (or puts the fi rst daub of paint on canvas), and
prepares for the second. Does compulsive masculinity
NOTES
1. Norman Mailer, Existential Errands (New York: Signet,
1974), 43.
2. Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff (New York: Bantam, 1980), 22.
3. Michael Kimmel, “The Cult of Masculinity: American
Social Character and the Legacy of the Cowboy,” in Be-
yond Patriarchy, ed. Michael Kaufman (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1983). Also see Kimmel’s lucid and
rich Manhood in America (New York: The Free Press,
1995), which promises to establish manhood-proving as
an independent force in American history.
4. Gordon Liddy, Will (New York: St. Martin’s Press,
1980), 24.
5. The issue of how work, indeed the Weberian rationaliza-
tion of modern society, is informed and motivated by
manhood-proving motivations is one that awaits demysti-
fi cation. For instance, will the massive entry of women
into medical school alter the masochistic structure of
medical training? The degree to which training for the
professions is modeled on military training no doubt
relates to the general militarization of society. The moral
logic of the warrior still can be found throughout the
world of work. Christine L. Williams has produced two
P E R S O N A L A C C O U N T
Just Something You Did as a Man
In a class we had discussed the ways men stratify them-
selves in terms of masculinity. I decided I would put that
discussion to the test at work.
As I sat at a table, one of my coworkers approached
me with a copy of a popular men’s magazine, which
portrays nude women. He said, “Frank, there is this
bitch in here with the most beautiful big tits I have ever
seen in my life.” I told him that I wasn’t interested in look-
ing at the magazine because I had decided I did not
agree with the objectification of women. His reply was,
“What’s the matter, are you getting soft on us?” I joked
that it was not a matter of getting soft, it was simply a
decision I had made due to a “new and improved con-
sciousness.”
At my job, talk about homosexuals, the women who
walk by, and graphic (verbal) depictions of sexual ag-
gression toward women abound, but on this occasion I
either rejected the conversation or said nothing at all. By
the end of the day I was being called, sometimes jokingly
and sometimes not, every derogatory homosexual slur in
the English language. I was no longer “one of the boys.”
I did not engage in the “manly” discourse of the day so
therefore I was labeled (at best) a “sissy.”
My coworkers assumed that I had had or was about
to have a change of sexual orientation simply because I
did not engage in their conversations about women and
homosexuals. Since men decide how masculine another
man is by how much he is willing to put down women and
gays, I was no longer considered masculine.
This experience affected me as much as it did be-
cause it opened my eyes to a system of stratification in
which I have been immersed but still had no idea existed.
Demeaning women and homosexuals, to me, was just
something you did as a man. But to tell you the truth,
I don’t think I could go back to talking like that. I am sure
that my coworkers will get used to my new thinking, but
even if they don’t I believe that it is worth being rejected
for a cause such as this. I had not thought about it, but
I would not want men talking about my sisters and mother
in such a demeaning way.
Francisco Hernandez
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272 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
wife she had to stay home and take care of the kids”;
“I’m not a feminist, but I think women and men ought
to be whatever they want to be”; “I’m not a feminist,
but I don’t think violence against women is right.”
Like my professor, I sometimes say, “Oh, well, if you
think that, then you are a feminist.” And I get back the
same skeptical looks I’m quite certain I gave her.
After more than two decades of engagement in
feminist politics, teaching, writing, speaking, and
living, I fi nd myself concerned to understand that
reluctance and discomfort so many feel with say-
ing, “Yes, I’m a feminist.” After all, it seems un-
likely that any signifi cant percentage of those
women . . . would say, “I don’t eat meat, but I’m not
a vegetarian,” or “I’m not a Democrat, but I believe
in the Democratic Party platform.” What is at stake,
then, in rejecting or adopting the label “feminist”?
One semester I asked my undergraduate
“Women and the Law” class to help me out. On the
fi rst day of class this nonrandom sample
1
of Purdue
students broke into small groups and came up with
separate lists of the reasons people say, “I’m not a
feminist, but . . .” My class divided themselves into
fourteen groups of from two to fi ve people. They
wrote down what they came up with and turned the
lists in anonymously. Grouping their responses, I
found the following:
• Nine groups cited the fact that feminists are per-
ceived as radical, which means, according to their
notes, too radical, against tradition, too liberal,
wanting to change everything, wanting too much.
• Seven groups cited concern with social rejection:
society does not condone outspoken women;
feminists will be outcasts in a male-dominated
society; they will be rejected by men and/or soci-
ety; they will offend, will end up arguing, will
lose men’s respect, will be perceived as pushy
bitches, and might lose their jobs.
• Seven groups raised issues around sexuality,
noting that feminists are identifi ed as lesbians.
One group, using gay rather than lesbian, per-
haps acknowledged the possibility that men
might be feminists, too, and those men too would
be perceived as homosexual.
make such creative processes more psychically conge-
nial to boys and men? There is considerable evidence that
boys are more risk-taking in their cognitive styles than
girls. And if creating and conquering distress separates
men from mothers, does the same process in art gratify a
need in men to emulate mothers by giving birth to some-
thing new? I owe this last observation to Jim Stockinger.
9. See Jeffrey Fracher and Michael Kimmel, “Hard Issues
and Soft Spots: Counseling Men About Sexuality,” in
Men’s Lives, eds. Michael Kimmel and Mike Messner
(New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1989).
10. This summary is adopted from Harry Christian’s useful
The Making of Anti – sexist Men (London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1994), 10–11.
R E A D I N G 2 7
“I’m Not a Feminist, But . . .”:
Popular Myths about Feminism
Penny A. Weiss
. . . As an undergraduate at the University of South
Florida, I had to meet with my political science pro-
fessor, who was, somewhat surprisingly for 1974, a
woman. In the course of conversation, and for rea-
sons now unknown to me, she asked whether I was
a feminist. There I was, a fi rst-generation college
student, sitting in a small offi ce with “A Professor.”
This was neither a familiar nor a particularly com-
fortable experience for me. What was I supposed to
say? I fell back on the safest, most familiar response
I could conjure up on the spur of the moment: “Well,
I’m not a feminist, but I believe in equal pay.”
In 1974, as I rattled off to my professor the
things I believed in even though I was not a femi-
nist, she said, “Oh, well, if you believe in that, then
you are a feminist!” Hmmm, I thought, give me
some time to think that over.
Since that time I have heard many say “I’m not a
feminist, but . . . ” with various endings to the sen-
tence: “I’m not a feminist, but I believe in equal
rights”; “I’m not a feminist, but I wouldn’t tell my
Penny A. Weiss is a professor of political science and director of
women’s studies at St. Louis University.
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READING 27: “I’m Not a Feminist, But . . .”: Popular Myths about Feminism 273
such as those in the world of paid labor, and people
with power, namely men, would reject feminist
women. Much of what is called fear of feminism is
in fact fear of men, of what men might do or not do
to women who somehow don’t comply. The wide-
spread existence of this fear is indicative of wom-
en’s more vulnerable social and economic status,
their dependence on males and male approval. This
fear is all too real. The problem, however, is not the
horror or the unacceptability of feminism itself but
the horrible power of the status quo to punish what
it deems unacceptable so that it may maintain itself.
It is not so much that a woman thinks it horrible to
challenge a boss who sexually harasses her, or to
protest government cuts   in Aid to Families with
Dependent Children (AFDC), or to leave a husband
who abuses her, or to question the ethos of domina-
tion that continually brings us to the brink of war.
No, it is not feminism itself that is being called
unacceptable. What is unacceptable, what is horri-
ble, is that if she challenges her boss for sexual
harassment, she will be fi red, or be called delu-
sional, or be told she asked for it, or be ostracized
by her coworkers; if she protests the poverty of
female-headed households, she will be treated as
embodying or endorsing laziness and promiscuity;
if she leaves her abusive husband, she’ll be asked
what she did to provoke him, or he will successfully
pursue her and the police will say they cannot do
anything; and if she challenges the military mental-
ity, she will be called unpatriotic.
Feminism is unaccepted by too many with too
much power, making feminists unacceptable and the
costs of feminist identifi cation and living real. That
message has been heard, loud and clear. Much less
visible to too many with both too much and too little
power are the costs of antifeminism: rape, domestic
violence, self-hatred, poverty, and lost potential, to
name but a few. Equally as indistinct are the rewards
of feminism. But how incredibly, wonderfully, pow-
erfully real these gain are: relations of friendship
between equals, true partnerships with our lovers,
the restoration of our confi dence in our own power,
the reclaiming of our self-worth, the rejection of vio-
lence and exclusivity, and the integrity of the constant
• Seven groups associated the reluctance to call
ourselves feminists with social norms of mascu-
linity and femininity, fi ve saying feminists are
unfeminine or downright masculine, two addi-
tional groups noting that feminist men were per-
ceived as feminine or wimps.
• Four mentioned that feminists are seen as anti-
male, man hating, or wanting to be dominant
over men.
• Finally, four cited varied issues of style: femi-
nists are associated, again according to their
notes, with being outspoken, aggressive, macho,
pushy, one-sided, narrow-minded, hard-line,
cold, and harsh.
To what extent are the popular perceptions of femi-
nism, as described by my students, accurate repre-
sentations of feminist theory and practice? Why
do  certain myths and misconceptions exist—that
is,  how do they arise, and what functions do
they serve?
The fi rst noteworthy aspect of my students’
responses was the degree of overlap in their lists.
Without question, popular images of feminism and
of feminists surround us. I think no one has man-
aged to avoid them. A different semester I asked
students to tell me what a feminist was like, and, to
my surprise, they were able to come up with not
only ideas about her political views but also stereo-
types about everything from the shoes she wore and
the haircut she sported to the food she ate, the pets
she owned, and the books she read (vegetarian,
cats, Alice Walker . . .)! The popular image is not
only pervasive but also fairly detailed.
Most important, the popular image is largely a
negative one, at least as judged by current social
standards. Just how negatively and how costly fem-
inism is seen to be is revealed by the number citing
social rejection as part of their reluctance to endorse
feminism. When are people most afraid of rejec-
tion? Perhaps it is when we care deeply about being
accepted or when the consequences of rejection are
dire. It is important to be clear here about who fi nds
feminism unacceptable. What was most often men-
tioned by my students was that power structures,
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274 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
advocates, union organizers, or feminists, calling
them radical is a way of saying, “I don’t have to
think about what they’re saying, do I? I don’t have
to change the way I’m doing things, do I? After all,
they’re so radical.” This sort of dismissal through
name-calling might reveal that the ideas being
called radical are hitting something too close to
home or something a little scary; something in
which we have a vested interest, or something we
have already declared decided. We thus desire to
brush off this radical challenge as we do any intru-
sive or dangerous pest.
Etymologically, radical means “to the root.”
Feminist analysis that goes to the deep structural
roots of gender identity and oppression inevitably
forces us to rethink our ideas, restructure our insti-
tutions, review our daily practices, reconceive our
relationships, reevaluate our mores, and revise our
ideals. Systemic oppression based on sex, race,
class, nationality, and sexuality will survive any
less radical efforts. That is why we would rather
brush feminism off as radical. It both seems like
and is a lot of work. Furthermore, in our current
framework of values, radical feminism is asking us
to work for things we’ve been taught to understand
as relatively unimportant. You know, feminists al-
ways make mountains out of molehills. What’s the
big deal, after all, about rape, when our culture
teaches that women enjoy it? Why should we
change the way we speak of women as objects
when our culture teaches us to see this as fl attery?
Why should we care about job discrimination when
our culture teaches us that women would really
rather not be employed for pay anyway? Conse-
quently, before we can convince people to change
those things that contribute to the creation of domi-
nant males and subordinant females, we fi rst have
to make the subordination of women something
problematic. The highest authorities in every fi eld
have declared that women like their subordination:
it’s woman’s nature; it’s for their own good; it’s all
that can be expected; it’s not really so bad. It is only
against such a background and in such a context
that feminism looks, and indeed is, radical. How
radical feminism is stands as a measure of how
challenges presented by forsaking destructive sexist
patterns. So, yes, there is some truth in the popular
understanding that feminism is unacceptable, but a
misperception persists that it is the tenets and prac-
tices of feminism itself that make it so, rather than
those self-protective self-interested behaviors and
structures of the status quo that reward conformity
and punish resisters. Opportunities to evaluate and
explore feminism openly are too few, so quickly and
deeply has it been cast in a negative light by many
well-respected individuals and institutions. Yet when
we allow their judgment to become ours and shun
identifi cation with feminism, we leave the myths
intact; we accept as valid the cat’s version of the
trouble-making mouse.
Antifeminism has had a larger part than has fem-
inism in shaping popular perceptions of feminism.
Judging by my students’ comments, one of the
most successful antifeminist themes has been that
feminism is radical. The fact that feminism is un-
derstood as radical may be an unspoken acknowl-
edgment that antifeminism is, very much, the status
quo. If feminism wants to change antifeminism,
and if feminism wants, as my students said, to
change everything, then antifeminism must be per-
vasive. This acknowledgment is reminiscent of a
court case in which a woman was being tried for the
death of her extremely abusive husband. The judge
said he was not going to give women licenses to kill
their husbands. His fear was that if one woman got
away with this, women everywhere would start kill-
ing their husbands. At some level he understood
that huge numbers of women are being battered in
their homes and that the criminal justice system is
useless or counterproductive to them, which is why
the prospect of battered women defending them-
selves so alarmed him.
2
The extent to which femi-
nism seems and is radical is relative to the extent to
which the norm is antifeminist. Or, as Pat Mainardi
puts it in an article on sharing housework, “The
measure of your oppression is his resistance.”
3

Calling something radical is often an indirect
way of writing something off or challenging its
legitimacy. Whether the group being labeled is
war  protesters, civil rights activists, animal rights
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disseminated social requirement that there be two
distinct, sharply polarized, and hierarchically ar-
ranged sexes. The male feminist wimp (among oth-
ers), as my students noted, is someone who fails to
fulfi ll this requirement in his life or in his politics. A
wimp is a man who betrays men by refusing to be a
bully to women. He’s “henpecked,” the only alterna-
tive to the exertion of masculine privilege our cul-
ture can manage to imagine. When they refuse to
exert power over women, we call men wimps; we
call them what is a dirty name in our society; we nab
them for the crime of refusing to be real men. Real
men dominate women. To be a man is to dominate
women. And to be a real woman is to accept that
domination, in at least some arenas on some levels,
to live every day in quiet subjugation to men on the
streets who harass us for their entertainment, to men
on the job who underpay us for their profi t, and to
men at home who take advantage of us because it’s
become second nature. Systems of oppression jus-
tify this abuse, and those on top try to buy others off
with worthless compensations in an attempt to mask
and perpetuate the systemic privileges that work
against us.
Maintaining the boundaries of masculinity and
femininity, and of heterosexuality, are central tasks
of education and public policy, of advertising and
pornography, of fashion and storybooks. We are
witnesses to the channeling of our economic, so-
cial, political, and psychic resources into maintain-
ing male privilege. These boundaries defi ne the
sexes as different and men as better, making it ab-
solutely essential to cross them and tear them down.
In doing so we reject defi ning all human beings in
terms, of their sex and all human relationships in
terms of power. The power relationship between
women and men obligates the members of one sex
to harass, abuse, exploit, ignore, or ridicule the
members of the other sex, who must acquiesce or at
least limit their complaints to forms that are
“appropriate” and therefore ultimately ineffective.
It is made incumbent upon us to prove our man-
hood and womanhood repeatedly throughout our
lives—every time we dress ourselves, get a fl at tire,
initiate a conversation, eat, or play games. In these
patriarchal a society we confront. Feminism seems
radical because, looking at the same event, femi-
nists see subordination, injustice, and serious of-
fense, while others will only reluctantly, if at all,
see a misdemeanor of little consequence.
From another angle, there is nothing very radi-
cal about feminism. It is an expression of the time-
honored, self-evident truth that we are all created
equal (even if the authors of the Declaration of
Independence forgot to use gender-inclusive lan-
guage, the Constitution forgot to include women
and minority men as full citizens, and it wasn’t
until 1971 that the Supreme Court fi rst struck down
a sex-based law as unconstitutional). Feminists
want women and men to be treated with equal re-
spect; to be given equal opportunity to express
their potential and to be appreciated for their con-
tribution; to have choices about the families they
create, the jobs they hold, and the partnerships they
form; and to have personal, social, economic, and
political resources at work to eliminate exploita-
tion, discrimination, oppression, abuse, and vio-
lence. This long and still incomplete list presents a
very full conception of equality, a very inclusive
and enabling conception. Not so easy to attain,
perhaps, but clearly a worthy and admirable goal.
Why, then, the ridicule of feminism, the titters
about “those bra-burning libbers”?
To understand that we can look again at my stu-
dents’ responses. Seven groups cited issues of sex-
uality, and, related, seven mentioned norms of
masculinity and femininity. I think we titter when
we’re nervous. And I think the reason we titter
about feminism is because we’re nervous about
crossing those sacred boundaries that separate men
from women everywhere but the private bedroom
(where there is nervousness about the sexes being
separated). Norms of masculinity, femininity, and
heterosexuality are among the most powerful in
our culture. Calling a man effeminate or a woman
masculine or mannish is a serious accusation
meant to provoke negative, disapproving, wary
response. . . .
It is true that feminism challenges the sacred
boundaries here, violating the clearly and pervasively
READING 27: “I’m Not a Feminist, But . . .”: Popular Myths about Feminism 275
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276 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
challenging something very fundamental to our so-
cial system: its organization within and on a frame-
work of sexual differentiation and inequality.
My students are right in another sense, this is to
say, about the radicalness of feminism. Many femi-
nists argue that sexual inequality affects much more
than relations between the sexes: it bolsters, bor-
rows from, provides a model for, and trains folks in
other forms of domination, competition, and self-
ishness. Our ideology justifi es or explains away
wife abuse and, similarly, the abuse of natural re-
sources. The system that denies the need for man-
datory paid parental leave policies is well trained to
ignore the needs of the homeless. The system that
can make rape women’s fault can make affi rmative
action reverse discrimination. A system of sexual
differentiation that forces us to think of women and
men as us and them prepares us well to create
numerous divisions and hierarchies around the
globe. . . .
By patriarchy’s self-(pre)serving defi nitions of
what is hateful and monstrous, feminists are indeed
monsters: macho, pushy, narrow-minded man hat-
ers. Our feelings toward men, individually or as a
group, positive or negative, have precious little to
do with why we are portrayed as antimale. We live
in a culture in which to be female and to do other
than be subservient to men is said to be man hating.
When women do something with their energy and
their lives besides serve men, padding male egos
and their paychecks, putting up with their remarks
and their demands, then women are called man hat-
ing. When women stand up for themselves and de-
mand a certain level of treatment, they are called
man-hating. When a woman refuses to submit, she
is said not to love men. Looking carefully at the
actions and the attitudes that are labeled man hating
shows that they have very little to do with hating
men and a great deal to do with challenging male
rule over and access to women. Only when to be
loving is defi ned as to be self-sacrifi cing, long-
suffering, uncomplaining, and acquiescent to men
is feminism antimale. But it is not man hating to
have strengths of one’s own, ideas of one’s own,
and other situations, men prove their manhood by
being taller, smarter, tougher, more competent,
richer, cooler, more athletic, or more powerful than
women, who prove their womanhood through sub-
servience, nurturing, acquiescence, understanding,
accommodation, incompetence, and weakness.
To  be a proper female, to be feminine, is to be
disempowered.
And to be a female, to be feminine, is certainly
also to be heterosexual, because to be a lesbian is to
reject men and male rule, to question the myth that
women need men, and to exist as a dangerous ex-
ample, a challenge to patriarchy by being a woman
yet not being subservient to a man, by refusing men
access.
4

When people say of feminists, “Oh, they’re just
a bunch of dykes,” they are engaged in another va-
riety of attempt at dismissal. The speaker of these
words intends to write off all the claims of femi-
nists by feeding on people’s fears and prejudices
about homosexuality. They hope to send shivers of
horror up the spines of women who might be femi-
nists, who might challenge the status quo, by warn-
ing them of the cost—the stigmatization that will
follow. They hope, and often succeed, in scaring
women into taking less radical stands and in mak-
ing all alliances between women and for women’s
interests inherently suspect. Because the lesbian
label is a powerful weapon wielded against femi-
nists, challenging the norm of heterosexuality is a
project critical to feminism. Our most popular
model of sexuality demands male control over
women, thus using sexuality to help keep women in
their second-class seats.
When we hesitate to identify as feminists be-
cause we fear breaking sex-specifi c rules about
what is masculine and feminine, about what is fi t-
ting for women and what is fi tting for men, what
we are leaving intact are those rules that actually
create us as dominant males and subjugated
females. And, yes, challenging the division of
practically everything in the world—from colors
and toys to names and professions—into mascu-
line and feminine is frightening, because we are
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READING 28: Dude, You’re a Fag 277
work of one’s own, and love for oneself. It is a lie
that the only way to love men, or anyone, is to serve
them, as a master, a god, a superior. It is a lie that
we should love those who demand such tyrannical
terms. How far man hating is from what we are
about, and how little it captures of feminism, of the
injustice of the status  quo, of the imagination and
passion of its resisters. . . .
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Weiss’s article was written in 1998. Do you
think women are still reluctant to call them-
selves feminists?
2. Is the image of feminists still the same as Weiss
describes?
3. How do you explain the constancy or change
you see in the meaning that the term feminist
has for women and men?
C. J. Pascoe is a professor of sociology at the University of
Oregon.
SEXUALITY
R E A D I N G 2 8
Dude, You’re a Fag: Adolescent
Male Homophobia
C. J. Pascoe
The sun shone bright and clear over River High’s
annual Creative and Performing Arts Happening, or
CAPA. During CAPA the school’s various art pro-
grams displayed students’ work in a fairlike atmo-
sphere. The front quad sported student-generated
computer programs. Colorful and ornate chalk art
covered the cement sidewalks. Tables lined with
student-crafted pottery were set up on the grass. Tall
displays of students’ paintings divided the rear quad.
To the left of the paintings a television blared
student-directed music videos. At the rear of the
back quad, a square, roped-off area of cement served
as a makeshift stage for drama, choir, and dance per-
formances. Teachers released students from class to
wander around the quads, watch performances, and
look at the art. This freedom from class time lent the
day an air of excitement because students were rarely
allowed to roam the campus without a hall pass, an
offi ce summons, or a parent/faculty escort. In honor
of CAPA, the school district bussed in elementary
school students from the surrounding grammar
schools to participate in the day’s festivities.
Running through the rear quad, Brian, a senior,
yelled to a group of boys visiting from the elemen-
tary schools, “There’s a faggot over there! There’s a
NOTES
1. The sample might be thought to be more “liberal” than
most given that it is composed of a majority of young,
college-educated women. It might also be thought of as
more “conservative” than other groups, since most of the
class was white, midwestern, and middle-class. The lack
of a random sample means what follows should not be
seen as an exhaustive list of answers. But that the an-
swers included are common is, I think, unquestionable.
Also see Barbara Smith, “Some Home Truths on the
Contemporary Black Feminist Movement,” The Black
Scholar (April 1995): 4–13. Smith discusses some of the
same myths, some different ones.
2. Sharon Wyse, “She’s Battered; Judged Guilty,” New
Directions for Women 17 (July/August 1988), 1.
3. Pat Mainardi, “The Politics of Housework,” in Sister-
hood Is Powerful, ed. Robin Morgan (New York: Vintage
Books, 1970), 447–54.
4. See Marilyn Frye, “Some Refl ections on Separatism
and Power,” in The Politics of Reality: Essays in Femi-
nist Theory (Trumansburg, N.Y.: Crossing, 1983),
95–109.
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278 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
the use of the word fag homophobia—and letting the
argument stop there—previous research has obscured
the gendered nature of sexualized insults (Plummer
2001). Invoking homophobia to describe the ways
boys aggressively tease each other overlooks the pow-
erful relationship between masculinity and this sort of
insult. Instead, it seems incidental, in this conventional
line of argument, that girls do not harass each other
and are not harassed in this same manner. This fram-
ing naturalizes the relationship between masculinity
and homophobia, thus obscuring that such harassment
is central to the formation of a gendered identity for
boys in a way that it is not for girls.
Fag is not necessarily a static identity attached to a
particular (homosexual) boy. Fag talk and fag imita-
tions serve as a discourse with which boys discipline
themselves and each other through joking relation-
ships. Any boy can temporarily become a fag in a
given social space or interaction. This does not mean
that boys who identify as or are perceived to be ho-
mosexual aren’t subject to intense harassment. Many
are. But becoming a fag has as much to do with fail-
ing at the masculine tasks of competence, heterosex-
ual prowess, and strength or in any way revealing
weakness or femininity as it does with a sexual iden-
tity. This fl uidity of the fag identity is what makes the
specter of the fag such a powerful disciplinary mech-
anism. It is fl uid enough that boys police their behav-
iors out of fear of having the fag identity permanently
adhere and defi nitive enough so that boys recognize a
fag behavior and strive to avoid it.
An analysis of the fag discourse also indicates
ways in which gendered power works through ra-
cialized selves. The fag discourse is invoked differ-
ently by and in relation to white boys’ bodies than it
is by and in relation to African American boys’ bod-
ies. While certain behaviors put all boys at risk for
becoming temporarily a fag, some behaviors can be
enacted by African American boys without putting
them at risk of receiving the label. The racialized
meanings of the fag discourse suggest that some-
thing more than simple homophobia is involved in
these sorts of interactions. It is not that gendered ho-
mophobia does not exist in African American com-
munities. Indeed, making fun of “negro faggotry
faggot over there! Come look!” Following Brian,
the ten-year-olds dashed down a hallway. At the
end of the hallway Brian’s friend Dan pursed his
lips and began sashaying toward the little boys. As
he minced, he swung his hips exaggeratedly and
wildly waved his arms. To the boys Brian yelled,
“Look at the faggot! Watch out! He’ll get you!” In
response, the ten-year-olds raced back down
the  hallway screaming in terror. Brian and Dan
repeated this drama throughout the following half
hour, each time with a new group of young boys.
Making jokes like these about faggots was cen-
tral to social life at River High. Indeed, boys learned
long before adolescence that faggots were simulta-
neously predatory and passive and that they were,
at all costs, to be avoided. Older boys repeatedly
impressed upon younger ones through these types
of homophobic rituals that whatever they did, what-
ever they became, however they talked, they had to
avoid becoming a faggot.
Feminist scholars of masculinity have docu-
mented the centrality of homophobic insults and at-
titudes to masculinity (Kimmel 2001; Lehne 1998),
especially in school settings (Burn 2000; Kimmel
2003; Messner 2005; Plummer 2001; G.  Smith
1998; Wood 1984). They argue that homophobic
teasing often characterizes masculinity in adoles-
cence and early adulthood and that antigay slurs tend
to be directed primarily at gay boys. This [discus-
sion] both expands on and challenges these accounts
of relationships between homophobia and masculin-
ity. Homophobia is indeed a central mechanism in
the making of contemporary American adolescent
masculinity. A close analysis of the way boys at
River High invoke the faggot as a disciplinary mech-
anism makes clear that something more than simple
homophobia is at play in adolescent masculinity. The
use of the word fag by boys at River High points to
the limits of an argument that focuses centrally on
homophobia. Fag is not only an identity linked to
homosexual boys but an identity that can temporar-
ily adhere to heterosexual boys as well. The fag trope
is also a racialized disciplinary mechanism.
Homophobia is too facile a term with which to de-
scribe the deployment of fag as an epithet. By calling
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guy part that they’re like ewwww.” In this sense it
was not strictly homophobia but a gendered ho-
mophobia that constituted adolescent masculinity in
the culture of River High. It is clear, according to
these comments, that lesbians were “good” because
of their place in heterosexual male fantasy, not nec-
essarily because of some enlightened approach to
same-sex relationships. A popular trope in hetero-
sexual pornography depicts two women engaging in
sexual acts for the purpose of male titillation. The
boys at River High are not unique in making this
distinction; adolescent boys in general dislike gay
men more than they dislike lesbians (Baker and
Fishbein 1998). The fetishizing of sex acts between
women indicates that using only the term homopho-
bia to describe boys’ repeated use of the word fag
might be a bit simplistic and misleading.
Girls at River High rarely deployed the word
fag and were never called fags. I recorded girls ut-
tering fag only three times during my research. In
one instance, Angela, a Latina cheerleader, teased
Jeremy, a well-liked white senior involved in stu-
dent government, for not ditching school with her:
“You wouldn’t ‘cause you’re a faggot.” However,
girls did not use this word as part of their regular
lexicon. The sort of gendered homophobia that con-
stituted adolescent masculinity did not constitute
adolescent femininity. Girls were not called dykes
or lesbians in any sort of regular or systematic way.
Students did tell me that slut was the worst thing a
girl could be called. However, my fi eld notes indi-
cate that the word slut (or its synonym ho) appeared
one time for every eight times the word fag appeared.
Highlighting the difference between the deploy-
ment of gay and fag as insults brings the gendered
nature of this homophobia into focus. For boys and
girls at River High gay was a fairly common syn-
onym for “stupid.” While this word shared the sex-
ual origins of fag, it didn’t consistently have the
skew of gender-loaded meaning. Girls and boys
often used gay as an adjective referring to inanimate
objects and male or female people, whereas they
used fag as a noun that denoted only unmasculine
males. Students used gay to describe anything from
someone’s clothes to a new school rule that they
seems to be a rite of passage among contemporary
black male rappers and fi lmmakers” (Riggs 1991,
253). However, the fact that “white women and men,
gay and straight, have more or less colonized cultural
debates about sexual representation” (Julien and
Mercer 1991, 167) obscures varied systems of sexu-
alized meanings among different racialized ethnic
groups (Almaguer 1991). Thus far male homophobia
has primarily been written about as a racially neutral
phenomenon. However, as D. L. King’s (2004) re-
cent work on African American men and same-sex
desire pointed out, homophobia is characterized by
racial identities as well as sexual and gendered ones.
WHAT IS A FAG? GENDERED
MEANINGS
“Since you were little boys you’ve been told, ‘Hey,
don’t be a little faggot,’” explained Darnell, a foot-
ball player of mixed African American and white
heritage, as we sat on a bench next to the athletic
fi eld. Indeed, both the boys and girls I interviewed
told me that fag was the worst epithet one guy could
direct at another. Jeff, a slight white sophomore, ex-
plained to me that boys call each other fag because
“gay people aren’t really liked over here and stuff.”
Jeremy, a Latino junior, told me that this insult liter-
ally reduced a boy to nothing, “To call someone gay
or fag is like the lowest thing you can call someone.
Because that’s like saying that you’re nothing.”
Most guys explained their or others’ dislike of
fags by claiming that homophobia was synonymous
with being a guy. For instance, Keith, a white
soccer-playing senior, explained, “I think guys are
just homophobic.” However, boys were not equal-
opportunity homophobes. Several students told me
that these homophobic insults applied only to boys
and not to girls. For example, while Jake, a hand-
some white senior, told me that he didn’t like gay
people, he quickly added, “Lesbians, okay, that’s
good.” Similarly Cathy, a popular white cheerleader,
told me, “Being a lesbian is accepted because guys
think, ‘Oh that’s cool.’  ” Darnell, after telling me
that boys were warned about becoming faggots,
said, “They [guys] are fi ne with girls. I think it’s the
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280 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
nonsexual meanings didn’t replace sexual mean-
ings but rather existed alongside them.
One-third (thirteen) of the boys I interviewed told
me that, while they might liberally insult each other
with the term, they would not direct it at a homo-
sexual peer. Jabes, a Filipino senior, told me, “I actu-
ally say it [fag] quite a lot, except for when I’m in
the company of an actual homosexual person. Then I
try not to say it at all. But when I’m just hanging out
with my friends I’ll be like, ‘shut up, I don’t want to
hear you any more, you stupid fag.’” Similarly J. L.
compared homosexuality to a disability, saying there
was “no way” he’d call an actually gay guy a fag
because “there’s people who are the retarded people
who nobody wants to associate with. I’ll be so nice
to those guys, and I hate it when people make fun of
them. It’s like, ‘Bro do you realize that they can’t
help that?’ And then there’s gay people. They were
born that way.” According to this group of boys, gay
was a legitimate, or at least biological, identity.
There was a possibility, however slight, that a boy
could be gay and masculine (Connell 1995). David, a
handsome white senior dressed smartly in khaki pants
and a white button-down shirt, told me, “Being gay is
just a lifestyle. It’s someone you choose to sleep with.
You can still throw around a football and be gay.” It
was as if David was justifying the use of the word fag
by arguing that gay men could be men if they tried but
that if they failed at it (i.e., if they couldn’t throw a
football) then they deserved to be called a fag. In other
words, to be a fag was, by defi nition, the opposite of
masculine, whether the word was deployed with sexu-
alized or nonsexualized meanings. In explaining this
to me, Jamaal, an African American junior, cited the
explanation of the popular rap artist Eminem: “Al-
though I don’t like Eminem, he had a good defi nition
of it. It’s like taking away your title. In an interview
they were like, ‘You’re always capping on gays, but
then you sing with Elton John.’ He was like ‘I don’t
mean gay as in gay.’” This is what Riki Wilchins
(2003) calls the “Eminem Exception. Eminem
explains that he doesn’t call people ‘faggot’ because
of their sexual orientation but because they’re weak
and unmanly” (72). This is precisely the way boys at
River High used the term faggot. While it was not
didn’t like. For instance, one day in auto shop, Arnie
pulled out a large older version of a black laptop
computer and placed it on his desk. Behind him
Nick cried, “That’s a gay laptop! It’s fi ve inches
thick!” The rest of the boys in the class laughed at
Arnie’s outdated laptop. A laptop can be gay, a
movie can be gay, or a group of people can be gay.
Boys used gay and fag interchangeably when they
referred to other boys, but fag didn’t have the gen-
der-neutral attributes that gay frequently invoked.
Surprisingly, some boys took pains to say that
the term fag did not imply sexuality. Darnell told
me, “It doesn’t even have anything to do with
being gay.” Similarly, J. L., a white sophomore at
Hillside High (River High’s cross-town rival), as-
serted, “ Fag, seriously, it has nothing to do with
sexual preference at all. You could just be calling
somebody an idiot, you know?” I asked Ben, a
quiet, white sophomore who wore heavy-metal
T-shirts to auto shop each day, “What kind of
things do guys get called a fag for?” Ben an-
swered, “Anything . . . literally, anything. Like
you were trying to turn a wrench the wrong way,
‘Dude, you’re a fag.’ Even if a piece of meat
drops out of your sandwich, ‘You fag!’” Each
time Ben said, “You fag,” his voice deepened as if
he were imitating a more masculine boy. While
Ben might rightly feel that a guy could be called a
fag for “anything . . . literally, anything,” there
were actually specifi c behaviors that, when en-
acted by most boys, could render them more vul-
nerable to a fag epithet. In this instance Ben’s
comment highlights the use of fag as a generic
insult for incompetence, which in the world of
River High, was central to a masculine identity. A
boy could get called a fag for exhibiting any sort
of behavior defi ned as unmasculine (although not
necessarily behaviors aligned with femininity):
being stupid or incompetent, dancing, caring too
much about clothing, being too emotional, or ex-
pressing interest (sexual or platonic) in other
guys. However, given the extent of its deployment
and the laundry list of behaviors that could get a
boy in trouble, it is no wonder that Ben felt a
boy  could be called fag for “anything.” These
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a regular basis—in the hallway, in class, or across
campus as a greeting. In my fi eldwork I was amazed
by the way the word seemed to pop uncontrollably
out of boys’ mouths in all kinds of situations.
1
To
quote just one of many instances from my fi eld
notes: two boys walked out of the PE locker room,
and one yelled, “Fucking faggot!” at no one in par-
ticular. None of the other students paid them any
mind, since this sort of thing happened so fre-
quently. Similar spontaneous yelling of some varia-
tion of the word fag, seemingly apropos of nothing,
happened repeatedly among boys throughout the
school. This and repeated imitations of fags consti-
tute what I refer to as a “fag discourse.”
Fag discourse is central to boys’ joking relation-
ships. Joking cements relationships among boys
(Kehily and Nayak 1997; Lyman 1998) and helps
to manage anxiety and discomfort (Freud 1905).
Boys both connect with one another and manage
the anxiety around this sort of relationship through
joking about fags. Boys invoked the specter of the
fag in two ways: through humorous imitation and
through lobbing the epithet at one another. Boys
at  River High imitated the fag by acting out an
exaggerated “femininity” and/or by pretending to
sexually desire other boys. As indicated by the
introductory vignette in which an older boy imi-
tated a predatory fag to threaten little boys, male
students at River High linked these performative
scenarios with a fag identity. They also lobbed the
fag epithet at each other in a verbal game of hot
potato, each careful to defl ect the insult quickly by
hurling it toward someone else. These games and
imitations made up a fag discourse that highlighted
the fag not as a static but rather as a fl uid identity
that boys constantly struggled to avoid.
In imitative performances the fag discourse
functioned as a constant reiteration of the fag’s
existence, affi rming that the fag was out there; boys
reminded themselves and each other that at any
moment they could become fags if they were not
suffi ciently masculine. At the same time these per-
formances demonstrated that the boy who was
invoking the fag was not a fag. Emir, a tall, thin
African American boy, frequently imitated fags to
necessarily acceptable to be gay, at least a man who
was gay could do other things that would render him
acceptably masculine. A fag, by the very defi nition of
the word, could not be masculine.
This distinction between fag as an unmasculine
and problematic identity and gay as a possibly mas-
culine, although marginalized, sexual identity is not
limited to a teenage lexicon; it is refl ected in both
psychological discourses and gay and lesbian activ-
ism. Eve Sedgwick (1995) argues that in contempo-
rary psychological literature homosexuality is no
longer a problem for men so long as the homosexual
man is of the right age and gender orientation. In this
literature a homosexual male must be an adult and
must be masculine. Male homosexuality is not
pathologized, but gay male effeminacy is. The lack
of masculinity is the problem, not the sexual practice
or orientation. Indeed, the edition of the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (a key
document in the mental health fi eld) that erased ho-
mosexuality as a diagnosis in the 1970s added a new
diagnosis in its wake: Gender Identity Disorder. Ac-
cording to Sedgwick, the criteria for diagnosis are
different for girls and boys. A girl has to actually as-
sert that she is a boy, indicating a psychotic discon-
nection with reality, whereas a boy need only display
a preoccupation with female activities. The policing
of boys’ gender orientation and of a strict masculine
identity for gay men is also refl ected in gay culture
itself. The war against fags as the specter of unmas-
culine manhood appears in gay male personal ads in
which men look for “straight-appearing, straight-
acting men.” This concern with both straight and gay
men’s masculinity not only refl ects teenage boys’
obsession with hypermasculinity but also points to
the confl ict at the heart of the contemporary “crisis
of masculinity” being played out in popular, scien-
tifi c, and educational arenas.
BECOMING A FAG:
FAG FLUIDITY
“The ubiquity of the word faggot speaks to the
reach of its discrediting capacity” (Corbett 2001, 4).
It’s almost as if boys cannot help shouting it out on
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282 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
extremely talented dancer, he often starred in the
school’s dance shows and choreographed assem-
blies. In fact, he was the male lead in “I’ve Had the
Time of My Life,” the fi nal number in the dance
show. Given how important other students thought it
was that I speak to him, I was surprised that I had to
wait for nearly a year before he granted me an inter-
view. His friends had warned me that he was
“ heterophobic” and as a result was reluctant to talk
to authority fi gures he perceived were heterosexual.
After I heard his stories of past and present abuse at
the hands of negligent adults, cruel teenagers, and
indifferent school administrators, I understood why
he would be leery of folks asking questions about
his feelings, experiences, and opinions. While other
boys at River High engaged in continual repudiatory
rituals around the fag identity, Ricky embodied the
fag because of his homosexuality and his less nor-
mative gender identifi cation and self-presentation.
Ricky assumed (rightly so in this context) that
other people immediately identifi ed him with his
sexuality. He told me that when he fi rst met people,
“they’ll be like, ‘Can I ask you a personal ques-
tion?’ And I’m like, ‘sure.’ And they say, ‘Are you
gay?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeeeaahh.’ ‘Okay, can I ask
you another question?’ And I’m like, ‘Sure.’ And
they’ll go, ‘Does it hurt?’ It always goes . . .” He
rolled his eyes dismissively, telling me, “They go
straight up to the most personal question! They skip
everything else. They go straight to that. Some-
times I’ll get the occasional ‘Well, how did you
know that you were [gay]?’” He answered with
“For me it’s just always been there. I knew from the
time I could think for myself on. It was pretty obvi-
ous,” he concluded gesturing to his thin frame and
tight fi tting tank top with a fl ourish. . . .
. . . Figuring out the social map of the school was
central to Ricky’s survival. Homophobic harass-
ment at the hands of teachers and students charac-
terized his educational experience. When he was
beat up in a middle school PE class, the teacher
didn’t help but rather fostered this sort of treatment:
They gave them a two-day suspension and they kind
of kept an eye on me. That’s all they could do. The PE
draw laughs from other students in his introductory
drama class. One day Mr. McNally, the drama
teacher, disturbed by the noise outside the class-
room, turned to the open door, saying, “We’ll shut
this unless anyone really wants to watch sweaty
boys playing basketball.” Emir lisped, “I wanna
watch the boys play!” The rest of the class cracked
up at his imitation. No one in the class actually
thought Emir was gay, as he purposefully mocked
both same-sex sexual desire (through pretending to
admire the boys playing basketball) and an effemi-
nate gender identity (through speaking with a lisp
and in a high-pitched voice). Had he said this in all
seriousness, the class most likely would have re-
sponded in stunned silence. Instead, Emir reminded
them he was masculine by immediately dropping
the fag act. After imitating a fag, boys assure others
that they are not a fag by instantly becoming mas-
culine again after the performance. They mock
their own performed femininity and/or same-sex
desire, assuring themselves and others that such an
identity deserves derisive laughter. . . .
The constant threat of the fag regulated boys’
attitudes toward their bodies in terms of clothing,
dancing, and touching. Boys constantly engaged in
repudiatory rituals to avoid permanently inhabiting
the fag position. Boys’ interactions were composed
of competitive joking through which they interac-
tionally created the constitutive outside and af-
fi rmed their positions as subjects.
EMBODYING THE FAG:
RICKY’S STORY
Through verbal jockeying, most boys at River con-
tinually moved in and out of the fag position. For the
one boy who permanently inhabited the fag posi-
tion, life at River High was not easy. I heard about
Ricky long before I met him. As soon as I talked to
any student involved with drama, the choir, or the
Gay/Straight Alliance, they told me I had to meet
Ricky. Ricky, a lithe, white junior with a shy smile
and downcast eyes, frequently sported multicolored
hair extensions, mascara, and sometimes a skirt. An
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Lacy had water bottles thrown at them by young
boys yelling, “Oh look, it’s a fag!” He said that this
sentiment echoed as they tried to sit in the bleachers
to watch the half-time show, which he had choreo-
graphed: “Left and right, ‘What the fuck is that fag
doing here?’ ‘That fag has no right to be here.’ Blah
blah blah. That’s all I heard. I tried to ignore it. And
after a while I couldn’t take it and then we just went
home.” While many of the boys I interviewed said
they would not actually harass a gay boy, that was
not Ricky’s experience. He was driven out of the
event he had choreographed because of the intense
homophobic harassment. . . .
Ricky developed different strategies to deal with
the fag discourse, given that he was not just a fag
but the fag. While other boys lobbed the epithet at
one another with implied threats of violence (you
are not a man and I am, so watch out), for Ricky
that violence was more a reality than a threat. As a
result, learning the unwritten rules of a particular
school and mapping out its social and physical
landscape was literally a matter of survival. He
found River High to be one of the most homopho-
bic schools he had attended: “It’s the most violent
school I think that I’ve seen so far. With all the
schools the verbal part about, you know the slang,
‘the fag,’ the ‘fuckin’ freak,’‘fucking fag,’ all that
stuff is all the  same. But this is the only school
that  throws water bottles, throws rocks, and
throws food, ketchup, sandwiches, anything of that
nature.”
2

While there is a law in California protecting stu-
dents from discrimination based on sexual identity,
when Ricky requested help from school authorities
he was ignored, much as in his interaction with the
vice principal at the homecoming game. Ricky re-
sponded to this sort of treatment with several eva-
sion strategies. He walked with his eyes downcast
to avoid meeting other guys’ eyes, fearing that they
would regard eye contact as a challenge or an invi-
tation to a fi ght. Similarly he varied his route to and
from school:
I had to change paths about three different times walk-
ing to school. The same people who drive the same
coach was very racist and very homophobic. He was
just like “faggot this” and “faggot that.” I did not feel
comfortable in the locker room and I asked him if I
could go somewhere else to change, and he said, “No,
you can change here.”
Sadly, by the time Ricky had reached River High
he had become accustomed to the violence.
In a weird sense, in a weird way, I’m comfortable
with it because it’s just what I’ve known for as long as
I can remember. I mean, in elementary school, I’m
talking like sixth grade, I started being called a fag.
Fifth grade I was called a fag. Third grade I was called
a fag. I have the paperwork, ’cause my mom kept ev-
erything, I still have them, of kids harassing me, say-
ing “Gaylord,” at that time it was “Gaylord.”
Contrary to the protestations of boys . . . that they
would never call someone who was gay a fag,
Ricky experienced this harassment on a regular
basis, probably because he couldn’t draw on identi-
fi ably masculine markers such as athletic ability or
other forms of dominance to bolster some sort of
claim on masculinity.
Hypermasculine environments such as sporting
events continued to be venues of intense harass-
ment at River High. “I’ve had water balloons
thrown at me at a football game. Like, we [his
friends Genevieve and Lacy] couldn’t have stayed
at the homecoming game. We had to go.” The per-
secution began immediately at the biggest football
game of the year. When he entered with his friend
Lacy, “Two guys that started walking up to get tick-
ets said, ‘There’s the fucking fag.’ ” When Ricky
responded with “Excuse me?” the boy shot back,
“Don’t talk to me like you know me.” The boy and
his friends started to threaten Ricky. Ricky said,
“He started getting into my face, and his friends
started saying, ‘Come on, man, come on, man’ ” as
if they were about to hit Ricky. Ricky felt frustrated
that “the ticket people are sitting there not doing a
damn thing. This is right in front of them!” He
found Ms. Chesney, the vice principal, after the
boys fi nally left. While Ms. Chesney told him,
“We’ll take care of it,” Ricky said he never heard
about the incident again. Later at the game he and
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284 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
Richard Majors (2001) calls this presentation of
self a “cool pose” consisting of “unique, expressive
and conspicuous styles of demeanor, speech, ges-
ture, clothing, hairstyle, walk, stance and hand-
shake,” developed by African American men as a
symbolic response to institutionalized racism (211).
Pants are usually several sizes too big, hanging low
on the hips, often revealing a pair of boxers be-
neath. Shirts and sweaters are similarly oversized,
sometimes hanging down to a boy’s knees. Tags are
frequently left on baseball hats worn slightly askew
and perched high on the head. Meticulously clean,
unlaced athletic shoes with rolled-up socks under
the tongue complete a typical hip-hop outfi t. In
fact, African American men can, without risking a
fag identity, sport styles of self and interaction fre-
quently associated with femininity for whites, such
as wearing curlers (Kelley 2004). These symbols, at
River High, constituted a “cool pose.” . . .
Dancing was another arena that carried dis-
tinctly fag-associated meanings for white boys but
masculine meanings for African American boys
who participated in hip-hop culture. White boys
often associated dancing with fags. However, danc-
ing did not carry this sort of sexualized gender
meaning for all boys at River High. For African
American boys dancing demonstrates membership
in a cultural community (Best 2000). At River,
African American boys frequently danced together
in single-sex groups, teaching each other the latest
dance moves, showing off a particularly diffi cult
move, or making each other laugh with humorous
dance moves. In fact, while in drama class Liam
and Jacob [who are white] hit each other and joked
through the entire dancing exercise, Darnell and
Maro [who are African American] seemed very
comfortable touching one another. They stood close
to one another, heel to toe, as they were supposed
to. Their bodies touched, and they gently and grace-
fully moved the other’s arms and head in a way that
was tender, not at all like the fl ailing of the two
white boys. . . .
None of this is to say that the sexuality of boys
of color wasn’t policed. In fact, because African
American boys were regarded as so hypersexual, in
route know, ’cause I guess they leave at the same time,
so they’re always checking something out. But I’m
always prepared with a rock just in case. I have a rock
in my hand so if anything happens I just chuck one
back. I always walk with something like that.
Indeed, when I was driving him home from the
interview that day, boys on the sidewalk glared at
him and made comments I couldn’t hear. He also,
with the exception of the homecoming football
game, avoided highly sexualized or masculinized
school events where he might be subject to violence.
3

RACIALIZING THE FAG
While all groups of boys, with the exception of the
Mormon boys, used the word fag or fag imagery in
their interactions, the fag discourse was not de-
ployed consistently or identically across social
groups at River High. Differences between white
boys’ and African American boys’ meaning mak-
ing, particularly around appearance and dancing,
reveal ways the specter of the fag was racialized.
The specter of the fag, these invocations reveal, was
consistently white. Additionally, African American
boys simply did not deploy it with the same fre-
quency as white boys. For both groups of boys, the
fag insult entailed meanings of emasculation, as
evidenced by Darnell’s earlier comment. However,
African American boys were much more likely to
tease one another for being white than for being a
fag. Precisely because African American men are
so hypersexualized in the United States, white men
are, by default, feminized, so white was a stand-in
for fag among many of the African American boys
at River High. Two of the behaviors that put a white
boy at risk for being labeled a fag didn’t function in
the same way for African American boys.
Perhaps because they are, by necessity, more in-
vested in symbolic forms of power related to ap-
pearance (much like adolescent girls), a given
African American boy’s status is not lowered but
enhanced by paying attention to clothing or danc-
ing. Clean, oversized, carefully put-together cloth-
ing is central to a hip-hop identity for African
American boys who identify with hip-hop culture.
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each other fag so frequently in everyday discussion
that if it were always reported most boys in the
school would be suspended or at least in detention
on a regular basis. This was the only time I saw
school authorities take action based on what they
saw as a sexualized insult. As a result Mr. J. ex-
plained that somebody from the wrestling team told
him that Kevin was “harassing” them. Mr. J. pulled
Kevin out of weight-lifting class to discuss the inci-
dent. According to him, Kevin “kept mouthing off”
and it wasn’t the fi rst time he had been in trouble,
so they decided to expel him and send him to
Hillside.
While Kevin apparently had multiple disciplin-
ary problems and this interaction was part of a
larger picture, it is important that this was the only
time that I heard any boy (apart from Ricky) tattle
on another boy for calling him gay or fag. Similarly
it was the only time I saw punishment meted out by
the administration. So it seems that . . . intentional-
ity was more frequently attributed to African
American boys. They weren’t just engaging in the
homophobic bantering to which teachers like
Mr.  Kellogg turned a blind eye or in which
Mr.  McNally participated. Rather, they were seen
as engaging in actual struggles for dominance by
attacking others. Because they were in a precarious
economic and social position, the ramifi cations for
African American boys for engaging in the fag dis-
course were more serious. Precisely because some
of them were supposed to be attending, not River
High, but the “bad” school, Chicago, in the neigh-
boring school district, when they did encounter
trouble their punishment was more severe.
REFRAMING HOMOPHOBIA
Homophobia is central to contemporary defi nitions
of adolescent masculinity. Unpacking multilayered
meanings that boys deploy through their uses of ho-
mophobic language and joking rituals makes clear
that it is not just homophobia but a gendered and
racialized homophobia. By attending to these mean-
ings, I reframe the discussion as a fag discourse
rather than simply labeling it as homophobia.
the few instances I documented in which boys were
punished for engaging in the fag discourse, African
American boys were policed more stringently than
white boys. It was as if when they engaged in the
fag discourse the gendered insult took on actual
combative overtones, unlike the harmless sparring
associated with white boys’ deployments. The in-
tentionality attributed to African American boys in
their sexual interactions with girls seemed to occur
as well in their deployment of the fag discourse.
One morning as I waited with the boys on the as-
phalt outside the weight room for Coach Ramirez
to arrive, I chatted with Kevin and Darrell. The all-
male, all-white wrestling team walked by, wearing
gold and black singlets. Kevin, an African
American sophomore, yelled out, “Why are you
wearing those faggot outfi ts? Do you wear those
tights with your balls hanging out?” The weight-
lifting students stopped their fi dgeting and turned to
watch the scene unfold. The eight or so members of
the wrestling team stopped at their SUV and turned
to Kevin. A small redhead whipped around and
yelled aggressively, “Who said that?!” Fingers
from wrestling team members quickly pointed to-
ward Kevin. Kevin, angrily jumping around, yelled
back as he thrust his chest out, “Talk about jumping
me, nigger?” He strutted over, advancing toward
the small redhead. A large wrestler sporting a cow-
boy hat tried to block Kevin’s approach. The red-
head meanwhile began to jump up and down, as if
warming up for a fi ght. Finally the boy in the cow-
boy hat pushed Kevin away from the team and they
climbed in the truck, while Kevin strutted back to
his classmates, muttering, “All they know how to
do is pick somebody up. Talk about jumping me . . .
weak-ass wrestling team. My little bro could wres-
tle better than any of those motherfuckers.”
It would seem, based on the fag discourse sce-
narios I’ve described thus far, that this was, in a
sense, a fairly routine deployment of the sexualized
and gendered epithet. However, at no other time did
I see this insult almost cause a fi ght. Members of
the white wrestling team presumably took it so
seriously that they reported the incident to school
authorities. This in itself is stunning. Boys called
READING 28: Dude, You’re a Fag 285
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286 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
Freud, Sigmund. 1905. The Basic Writings of Sigmund
Freud. Translated by A. A Brill. New York: Modern
Library.
Julien, Isaac, and Kobena Mercer. 1991. “True Confessions:
A Discourse on Images of Black Male Sexuality.” In
Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men, ed-
ited by Essex Hemphill, 167–73. Boston: Alyson Publica-
tions.
Kehily, Mary Jane, and Anoop Nayak. 1997. “‘Lads and
Laughter’: Humour and the Production of Heterosexual
Masculinities.” Gender and Education 9, no.1:69–87.
Kelley, Robin D. G. 2004. “Confessions of a Nice Negro, or
Why I Shaved My Head.” In Men’s Lives, edited by
Michael Kimmel and Michael Messner, 335–41. Boston:
Allyn and Bacon.
Kimmel, Michael S. 2001. “Masculinity as Homophobia: Fear,
Shame, and Silence in the Construction of Gender Identity.”
In The Masculinities Reader, edited by Stephen Whitehead
and Frank Barrett, 266–87. Cambridge: Polity Press.
_____. 2003. “Adolescent Masculinity, Homophobia,
and  Violence Random School Shootings, 1982–2001.”
American Behavioral Scientist 46, no. 10:1439–58.
King, J. L. 2004. On the Down Low: A Journey into the Lives
of Straight Black Men Who Sleep with Men. New York:
Broadway Books.
Lehne, Gregory. 1998. “Homophobia among Men: Support-
ing and Defi ning the Male Role.” In Men’s Lives, edited
by Michael Kimmel and Michael Messner 237–49
Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Lyman, Peter. 1998. “The Fraternal Bond as a Joking Rela-
tionship: A Case Study of the Role of Sexist Jokes in Male
Group Bonding.” In Men’s Lives, edited by Michael
Kimmel and Michael Messner, 171–93. Boston: Allyn
and Bacon.
Majors, Richard. 2001. “Cool Pose: Black Masculinity and
Sports.” In The Masculinities Reader, edited by Stephen
Whitehead and Frank Barrett, 208–17. Cambridge-Polity
Press.
Messner, Michael 2005. “Becoming 100% Straight.” In
Gender through the Prism of Difference, edited by Maxine
Baca Zinn, Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, and Michael
Messner, 227–32. New York: Oxford University Press.
Plummer, David C. 2001, “The Quest for Modern Manhood:
Masculine Stereotypes, Peer Culture and the Social Sig-
nifi cance of Homophobia.” Journal of Adolescence 24,
no. 1:15–23.
Riggs, Marlon. 1991. “Black Macho Revisited: Refl ections
of a Snap! Queen.” In Brother to Brother: New Writings
by Black Gay Men, edited by Essex Hemphill 253–60.
Boston: Alyson Publications.
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. 1995. “‘Gosh, Boy George, You
Must Be Awfully Secure in Your Masculinity!’” In Con-
structing Masculinity, edited by Maurice Berger, Brian
Wallis, and Simon Watson, 11–20. New York: Routledge.
The fag is an “abject” (Butler 1993) position, a posi-
tion outside masculinity that actually constitutes
masculinity. Thus masculinity, in part, becomes the
daily interactional work of repudiating the threaten-
ing specter of the fag. . . .
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What are the social uses and consequences of
“fag discourse”?
2. Is that discourse racialized?
NOTES
1. In fact, two of my colleagues, both psychotherapists,
suggested that the boys exhibited what we could think of
as a sort of “Fag Tourette’s Syndrome.”
2. Though River was not a particularly violent school, it may
have seemed like that to Ricky because sexuality-based
harassment increases with grade level as gender differen-
tiation becomes more intense. As youth move from child-
hood into adolescence there is less fl exibility in terms of
gender identity and self-presentation (Shakib 2003).
3. There were two other gay boys at the school. One,
Corey, I learned about after a year of fi eldwork. While
he wasn’t “closeted,” he was not well known at the
school and kept a low profi le. The other out gay boy at
the school was Brady. While he didn’t engage in the
masculinity rituals of the other boys at River High, he
didn’t cross-dress or engage in feminine-coded activities
as did Ricky. As such, when boys talked about fags, they
referenced Ricky, not Brady or Corey.
REFERENCES
Almaguer, Tomas. 1991. “Chicano Men: A Cartography of
Homosexual Identity and Behavior.” Differences 3, no. 2:
75–100.
Baker, Janet G., and Harold D. Fishbein. 1998. “The Devel-
opment of Prejudice towards Gays and Lesbians by Ado-
lescents,” Journal of Homosexuality 36, no. 1:89–100.
Burn, Shawn Meghan. 2000. “Heterosexuals’ Use of ‘Fag’
and ‘Queer’ to Deride One Another: A Contributor to Het-
erosexism and Stigma.” Journal of Homosexuality 40,
no. 2:1–11.
Butler, Judith. 1993. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive
Limits of “Sex.” New York: Routledge.
Connell, R. W. 1995. Masculinities. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Corbett, Ken. 2001. “Faggot = Loser.” Studies in Gender and
Sexuality 2, no. 1:3–28.
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READING 29: Gendered Sexuality in Young Adulthood 287
and  Fogarty 2007). While strangers sometimes
hook up, more often hookups occur among those
who know each other at least slightly (Manning,
Giordano, and Longmore 2006).
England has surveyed more than 14,000 stu-
dents from 19 universities and colleges about their
hookup, dating, and relationship experiences. Her
Online College Social Life Survey (OCSLS) asks
students to report on their recent hookups using
“whatever defi nition of a hookup you and your
friends use.”
1
Seventy-two percent of both men
and women participating in the OCSLS reported at
least one hookup by their senior year in college.
2

Of these, roughly 40 percent engaged in three or
fewer hookups, 40 percent between four and nine
hookups, and 20 percent 10 or more hookups. Only
about one-third engaged in intercourse in their
most recent hookups, although—among the 80
percent of students who had intercourse by the end
of college—67  percent had done so outside of a
relationship.
Ongoing sexual relationships without commit-
ment were common and were labeled “repeat,”
“regular,” or “continuing” hookups and sometimes
“friends with benefi ts” (Armstrong, England, and
Fogarty 2009; Bogle 2008; Glenn and Marquardt
2001). Ongoing hookups sometimes became com-
mitted relationships and vice versa; generally, the
distinction revolved around the level of exclusivity
and a willingness to refer to each other as “girl-
friend/boyfriend” (Armstrong, England, and Fogarty
2009). Thus, hooking up does not imply interest in
a relationship, but it does not preclude such interest.
Relationships are also common among students.
By their senior year, 69 percent of heterosexual stu-
dents had been in a college relationship of at least
six months.
To date, however, scholars have paid more atten-
tion to women’s experiences with hooking up than
relationships and focused primarily on ways that
hookups may be less enjoyable for women than for
men. Glenn and Marquardt (2001, 20) indicate that
“hooking up is an activity that women sometimes
fi nd rewarding but more often fi nd confusing, hurt-
ful, and awkward.” Others similarly suggest that
Shakib, Sohaila. 2003. “Female Basketball Participation:
Negotiating the Confl ation of Peer Status and Gender Sta-
tus from Childhood through Puberty.” American Behav-
ioral Scientist 46, no. 4:1405–22.
Smith, George W. 1998. “The Ideology of ‘Fag’: The School
Experience of Gay Students.” Sociological Quarterly 39,
no. 2:309–35.
Wilchins, Riki. 2003. “Do You Believe in Fairies?” Advo-
cate, February 4, 72.
Wood, Julian. 1984. “Groping Towards Sexism: Boy’s Sex
Talk.” In Gender and Generation, edited by Angela
McRobbie and Mica Nava, 54–84. London: Macmillan.
R E A D I N G 2 9
Gendered Sexuality in Young
Adulthood: Double Binds and
Flawed Options
Laura Hamilton
Indiana University, Bloomington
Elizabeth A. Armstrong
University of Michigan
Paul, McManus, and Hayes (2000) and Glenn and
Marquardt (2001) were the fi rst to draw attention to
the hookup as a distinct social form. As Glenn and
Marquardt (2001, 13) explain, most students agree
that “a hook up is anything ‘ranging from kissing to
having sex,’ and that it takes place outside the con-
text of commitment.” Others have similarly found
that hooking up refers to a broad range of sexual
activity and that this ambiguity is part of the appeal
of the term (Bogle 2008). Hookups differ from
dates in that individuals typically do not plan to do
something together prior to sexual activity. Rather,
two people hanging out at a party, bar, or place of
residence will begin talking, fl irting, and/or danc-
ing. Typically, they have been drinking. At some
point, they move to a more private location,
where  sexual activity occurs (England, Shafer,
Laura Hamilton is a professor of sociology at the University of
California, Merced. Elizabeth A. Armstrong is a professor of
sociology at the University of Michigan.
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288 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
METHOD
The strength of our research strategy lies in its
depth: We conducted a longitudinal ethnographic
and interview study of a group of women who
started college in 2004 at a university in the
Midwest, collecting data about their entire sexual
and romantic careers. . . .
A research team of nine, including the authors,
occupied a room on an all-female fl oor in a mixed-
gender dormitory. When data collection com-
menced, Laura was a graduate student in her early
twenties and Elizabeth an assistant professor in her
late thirties. The team also included a male gradu-
ate student, an undergraduate sorority member, and
an undergraduate with working-class roots. Varia-
tion in age, approach, and self-presentation among
team members allowed for different relationships
with participants and brought multiple perspectives
to data analysis—strengths of team ethnography
(Erickson and Stull 1998).
Fifty-three 18- to 20-year-old unmarried women
(51 freshmen, two sophomores) lived on the fl oor
for at least part of the year. No one opted out of the
ethnographic study. All but two identifi ed as hetero-
sexual.
3
All participants were white, a result of low
racial diversity on campus overall and racial segre-
gation in campus housing. Sixty-eight percent
came from middle-, upper-middle-, or upper-class
backgrounds; 32 percent came from working- or
lower-middle-class backgrounds. Forty-fi ve per-
cent were from out of state; all of these women
were from upper-middle-class or upper-class fami-
lies. Thirty-six percent, mostly wealthier women,
joined sororities in their fi rst year.
Assessment of class background was based on
parental education and occupation, student em-
ployment during the school year, and receipt of
student loans. We refer to those from middle-,
upper- middle-, or upper-class backgrounds as
“more privileged” and those from working- or
lower-middle-class backgrounds as “less privi-
leged.” There were distinct differences between
women in these groups. Less privileged women
did not have parents with college degrees and
more women than men fi nd hooking up to be a
negative experience (Bogle 2008, 173; Owen et al.
2008) and focus on ways that hookups may be
harmful to women (Eshbaugh and Gute 2008;
Grello, Welsh, and Harper 2006).
This work assumes distinct and durable gender
differences at the individual level. Authors draw, if
implicitly, from evolutionary psychology, social-
ization, and psychoanalytic approaches to gender—
depicting women as more relationally oriented and
men as more sexually adventurous (see Wharton
2005 for a review). For example, despite only ask-
ing about hookup experiences, Bogle (2008, 173)
describes a “battle of the sexes” in which women
want hookups to “evolve into some semblance of a
relationship,” while men prefer to “hook up with no
strings attached” (also see Glenn and Marquardt
2001; Stepp 2007).
The battle of the sexes view implies that if
women could simply extract commitment from
men rather than participating in hookups, gender
inequalities in college sexuality would be allevi-
ated. Yet this research—which often fails to exam-
ine relationships—ignores the possibility that
women might be the losers in both hookups and
relationships. Research suggests that young hetero-
sexual women often suffer the most damage from
those with whom they are most intimate: Physical
battery, emotional abuse, sexual assault, and stalk-
ing occur at high rates in youthful heterosexual re-
lationships (Campbell et al. 2007; Dunn 1999).
This suggests that gender inequality in college sex-
uality is systemic, existing across social forms.
Current research also tends to see hooking up
as solely about gender, without fully considering
the signifi cance of other dimensions of inequality.
Some scholars highlight the importance of the col-
lege environment and traditional college students’
position in the life course (Bogle 2008; Glenn and
Marquardt 2001). However, college is treated pri-
marily as a context for individual sexual behavior
rather than as a key location for class reproduc-
tion. Analyzing the role of social class in sex and
relationships may help to illuminate the appeal of
hookups for both college women and men.
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on the interactional contexts in which preferences
are formed and expressed. We show that gender be-
liefs about what women should and should not do
posed problems for our participants in both hook-
ups and relationships.
The “Slut” Stigma
Women did not fi nd hookups to be unproblematic.
They complained about a pervasive sexual double
standard. As one explained, “Guys can have sex
with all the girls and it makes them more of a man,
but if a girl does then all of a sudden she’s a ho, and
she’s not as quality of a person” (10-1

*

emphasis
added). Another complained, “Guys, they can go
around and have sex with a number of girls and
they’re not called anything” (6-1). Women noted
that it was “easy to get a reputation” (11-1) from
“hooking up with a bunch of different guys” (8-1)
or “being wild and drinking too much” (14-3).
Their experiences of being judged were often
painful; one woman told us about being called a
“slut” two years after the incident because it was so
humiliating (42-3).
Fear of stigma constrained women’s sexual be-
havior and perhaps even shape their preferences.
For example, several indicated that they probably
would “make out with more guys” but did not be-
cause “I don’t want to be a slut” (27-2). Others
wanted to have intercourse on hookups but instead
waited until they had boyfriends. A couple hid their
sexual activity until the liaison was “offi cial.” One
said, “I would not spend the night there [at the fra-
ternity] because that does not look good, but now
everyone knows we’re boyfriend/girlfriend, so it’s
like my home now” (15-1). Another woman, who
initially seemed to have a deep aversion to hooking
up, explained, “I would rather be a virgin for as
much as I can than go out and do God knows who.”
She later revealed a fear of social stigma, noting
that when women engage in nonromantic sex, they
“get a bad reputation. I know that I wouldn’t want
that reputation” (11-1). Her comments highlight the
struggled to afford college. In contrast, more priv-
ileged women had at least one, and more often
two, parents with degrees. They received a great
deal of parental support, keeping their loans to a
minimum and allowing most to avoid working
during the year.
The residence hall in which they lived was iden-
tifi ed by students and staff as one of several “party
dorms.” The term refers to the presumed social ori-
entation of the modal resident, not to partying
within the dorm itself. Students reported that they
requested these dormitories if they were interested
in drinking, hooking up, and joining the Greek sys-
tem. This orientation places them in the thick of
American youth culture. Few identifi ed as femi-
nist, and all presented a traditionally feminine ap-
pearance (e.g., not one woman had hair shorter
than chin length). Most planned to marry and have
children.
We observed throughout the academic year, in-
teracting with participants as they did with each
other—watching television, eating meals, helping
them dress for parties, sitting in as they studied, and
attending fl oor meetings. We let the women guide
our conversations, which often turned to “boys,”
relationships, and hooking up. We also refrained
from revealing our own predispositions, to the ex-
tent that women openly engaged in homophobic
and racist behaviors in front of us. Our approach
made it diffi cult for women to determine what we
were studying, which behaviors might be interest-
ing to us, and in which ways we might be judgmen-
tal. Consequently, we believe they were less likely
to either underreport or exaggerate sexual behavior,
minimizing the effects of social desirability. . . .
THE POWER OF GENDER
BELIEFS
A battle of the sexes approach suggests that women
have internalized a relational orientation but are un-
able to establish relationships because hooking
up—which men prefer—has come to dominate col-
lege sexual culture. Rather that accepting stated
individual-level preferences at face value we focus * Number indicates participant and wave of the interview.
READING 29: Gendered Sexuality in Young Adulthood 289
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290 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
the “dumb girl idea”—the notion “that every girl
wants a boy to sweep her off her feet and fall in
love” (42-2). The expectation that women should
want to be in relationships was so pervasive that
many found it necessary to justify their single sta-
tus to us. For example, when asked if she had a
boyfriend, one woman with no shortage of admir-
ers apologetically explained, “I know this sounds
really pathetic and you probably think I am lying,
but there are so many other things going on right
now that it’s really not something high up on my
list. . . . I know that’s such a lame-ass excuse, but
it’s true” (9-3). Another noted that already having a
boyfriend was the only “actual, legitimate excuse”
to reject men who expressed interest in a relation-
ship (34-3).
Certainly, many women wanted relationships and
sought them out. However, women’s interest in rela-
tionships varied, and almost all experienced periods
during which they wanted to be single. Nonetheless,
women reported pressure to be in relationships
all  the time. We found that women, rather than
struggling to get into relationships, had to work to
avoid them.
The relational imperative was supported by the
belief that women’s relational opportunities were
scarce and should not be wasted. Women described
themselves as “lucky” to fi nd a man willing to com-
mit, as “there’s not many guys like that, in college”
(15-1). This belief persisted despite the fact that
most women were in relationships most of the time.
As one woman noted, “I don’t think anyone really
wants to be in a serious relationship, but most, well
actually all of us, have boyfriends” (13-1). Belief in
the myth of scarcity also led women to stay in rela-
tionships when they were no longer happy. A
woman who was “sick of” her confl ict-ridden rela-
tionship explained why she could not end it: “I feel
like I have to meet somebody else. . . . I go out and
they’re all these asshole frat guys. . . . That’s what
stops me. . . . Boys are not datable right now be-
cause . . . all they’re looking for is freshman girls to
hook up with. . . . [So] I’m just stuck. I need to do
something about it, but I don’t know what” (30-3).
feedback between social judgment and internalized
preference.
Gender beliefs were also at the root of women’s
other chief complaint about hookups—the disre-
spect of women in the hookup scene. The notion
that hooking up is okay for men but not for women
was embedded in the organization of the Greek sys-
tem, where most parties occurred: Sorority rules
prohibited hosting parties or overnight male visi-
tors, refl ecting notions about proper feminine be-
havior. In contrast, fraternities collected social fees
to pay for alcohol and viewed hosting parties as a
central activity. This disparity gave fraternity men
almost complete control over the most desirable
parties on campus—particularly for the underage
crowd (Boswell and Spade 1996; Martin and
Hummer 1989).
Women reported that fraternity men dictated
party transportation, the admittance of guests, party
themes such as “CEO and secretary ho,” the fl ow of
alcohol, and the movement of guests within the
party (Armstrong, Hamilton, and Sweeney 2006).
Women often indicated that they engaged in strate-
gies such as “travel[ing] in hordes” (21-1) and not
“tak[ing] a drink if I don’t know where it came
from” (15-1) to feel safer at fraternity parties. Even
when open to hooking up, women were not com-
fortable doing so if they sensed that men were try-
ing to undermine their control of sexual activity
(e.g., by pushing them to drink too heavily, barring
their exit from private rooms, or refusing them rides
home). Women typically opted not to return to
party venues they perceived as unsafe. As one
noted, “I wouldn’t go to [that house] because I
heard they do bad things to girls” (14-1). Even
those interested in the erotic competition of party
scenes tired of it as they realized that the game was
rigged. . . .
The Relationship Imperative
Women also encountered problematic gender be-
liefs about men’s and women’s different levels of
interest in relationships. As one noted, women fi ght
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her boyfriend, “He is a very controlling person. . . .
He’s like, ‘What are you wearing tonight?’. . . It’s
like a joke but serious at the same time” (32-4).
Women also became jealous; however, rather
than trying to control their boyfriends, they often
tried to change themselves. One noted that she
would “do anything to make this relationship
work.” She elaborated, “I was so nervous being
with Dan because I knew he had cheated on his
[prior] girlfriend . . . [but] I’m getting over it. When
I go [to visit him] now . . . I let him go to the bar,
whatever. I stayed in his apartment because there
was nothing else to do” (39-3). Other women
changed the way they dressed, their friends, and
where they went in the attempt to keep boyfriends.
When women attempted to end relationships,
they often reported that men’s efforts to control
them escalated. We heard 10 accounts of men using
abuse to keep women in relationships. One woman
spent months dealing with a boyfriend who accused
her of cheating on him. When she tried to break up,
he cut his wrist in her apartment (9-2). Another
tried to end a relationship but was forced to fl ee the
state when her car windows were broken and her
safety was threatened (6-4). Men often drew on ro-
mantic repertoires to coerce interaction after rela-
tionships had ended. One woman told us that her
ex-boyfriend stalked her for months—even show-
ing up at her workplace, showering her with fl owers
and gifts, and blocking her entry into work until the
police arrived (25-2).
INTERSECTIONALITY:
CONTRADICTIONS BETWEEN
CLASS AND GENDER
Existing research about college sexuality focuses
almost exclusively on its gendered nature. We con-
tend that sexuality is shaped simultaneously by
multiple intersecting structures. In this section, we
examine the sexual and romantic implications
of  class beliefs about how ambitious young peo-
ple  should conduct themselves during college.
It took her another year to extract herself from this
relationship. Despite her fears, when she decided
she was ready for another relationship, she quickly
found a boyfriend.
Women also confronted the belief that all women
are relationally insatiable. They often told stories of
men who acted entitled to relationships, expected
their relational overtures to be accepted, and be-
came angry when rebuffed—sometimes stalking
the rejecting woman. As one explained about a
friend, “Abby was having issues with this guy who
likes her. He was like, ‘You have to like me. . . . I’m
not gonna take no for an answer. I’m gonna do
whatever it takes to date you’ ” (24-3). Another
noted that “last semester, this guy really wanted to
date me, and I did not want to date him at all. He
fl ipped out and was like, ‘This is ridiculous, I don’t
deserve this’” (12-3). A third eventually gave in
when a man continually rejected her refusals: “I
was like, if I go [out with him]. . . maybe he’ll stop.
Because he wouldn’t stop.” She planned to act “ex-
tremely conservative” as a way to convince him
that he did not want to be with her (39-4).
Gender beliefs may also limit women’s control
over the terms of interaction within relationships. If
women are made to feel lucky to have boyfriends,
men are placed in a position of power, as presum-
ably women should be grateful when they commit.
Women’s reports suggest that men attempted to use
this power to regulate their participation in college
life. One noted, “When I got here my fi rst semester
freshman year, I wanted to go out to the parties . . .
and he got pissed off about it. . . . He’s like, ‘Why
do you need to do that? Why can’t you just stay
with me?’ ” (4-2). Boyfriends sometimes tried to
limit the time women spent with their friends and
the activities in which they participated. As a
woman explained, “There are times when I feel like
Steve can get . . . possessive. He’ll be like . . . ‘I feel
like you’re always with your friends over me.’ He
wanted to go out to lunch after our class, and I was
like, ‘No, I have to come have this interview.’ And
he got so upset about it” (42-3). Men’s control even
extended to women’s attire. Another told us about
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292 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
only time that you don’t have obligations to anyone
but yourself. . . . I want to get settled down and
fi gure out what I’m doing with my life before [I]
dedicate myself to something or someone else”
(14-4). Another emphasized the value of invest-
ment in human capital: “I’ve always been someone
who wants to have my own money, have my own
career so that, you know, 50 percent of marriages
fail. . . . If I want to maintain the lifestyle that I’ve
grown up with . . . I have to work. I just don’t see
myself being someone who marries young and
lives off of some boy’s money” (42-4). To become
self-supporting, many privileged women indicated
they needed to postpone marriage. One told us, “I
don’t want to think about that [marriage]. I want to
get secure in a city and in a job. . . . I’m not in any
hurry at all. As long as I’m married by 30, I’m
good” (13-4). Even those who wanted to be sup-
ported by husbands did not expect to fi nd them in
college, instead setting their sights on the more ac-
complished men they expected to meet in urban
centers after college.
More privileged women often found committed
relationships to be greedy—demanding of time and
energy. As one stated, “When it comes to a serious
relationship, it’s a lot for me to give into that. [What
do you feel like you are giving up?] Like my every-
thing. . . . There’s just a lot involved in it” (35-3).
These women feared that they would be devoured
by relationships and sometimes struggled to keep
their self-development projects going when they
did get involved. As an upper-class woman told us,
“It’s hard to have a boyfriend and be really excited
about it and still not let it consume you” (42-2).
This situation was exacerbated by the gender be-
liefs discussed earlier, as women experienced pres-
sure to fully devote themselves to relationships.
Privileged women reported that committed rela-
tionships detracted from what they saw as the main
tasks of college. They complained, for example,
that relationships made it diffi cult to meet people.
As an upper-middle-class woman who had just
ended a relationship described, “I’m happy that I’m
able to go out and meet new people. . . . I feel like
I’m doing what a college student should be doing.
Although all of our participants contended with
class beliefs that contradicted those of gender, ex-
periences of this structural intersection varied by
class location. More privileged women struggled to
meet gender and class guidelines for sexual behav-
ior, introducing a diffi cult set of double binds. Be-
cause these class beliefs refl ected a privileged path
to adulthood, less privileged women found them
foreign to their own sexual and romantic logics.
More Privileged Women and the
Experience of Double Binds
The Self-development Imperative and the
Relational Double Bind The four-year uni-
versity is a classed structural location. One of the
primary reasons to attend college is to preserve or
enhance economic position. The university culture
is thus characterized by the self-development im-
perative, or the notion that individual achievement
and personal growth are paramount. There are also
accompanying rules for sex and relationships: Stu-
dents are expected to postpone marriage and par-
enthood until after completing an education and
establishing a career.
For more privileged women, personal expecta-
tions and those of the university culture meshed.
Even those who enjoyed relationships experienced
phases in college where they preferred to remain
single. Almost all privileged women (94 percent)
told us at one point that they did not want a boy-
friend. One noted, “All my friends here . . . they’re
like, ‘I don’t want to deal with [a boyfriend] right
now. I want to be on my own’” (37-1). Another elo-
quently remarked, “I’ve always looked at college as
the only time in your life when you should be a
hundred percent selfi sh. . . . I have the rest of my
life to devote to a husband or kids or my job . . . but
right now, it’s my time” (21-2).
The notion that independence is critical during
college refl ected class beliefs about the appropriate
role for romance that opposed those of gender. Dur-
ing college, relational commitments were supposed
to take a backseat to self-development. As an
upper-middle-class woman noted, “College is the
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As a sexual solution for the demands of college,
hooking up became incorporated into notions of
what the college experience should be. When asked
which kinds of people hook up the most, one woman
noted, “All. . . . The people who came to college to
have a good time and party” (14-1). With the help of
media, alcohol, and spring break industries, hook-
ing up was so institutionalized that many took it for
granted. One upper-middle-class woman said, “It
just happens. It’s natural” (15-1). They told us that
learning about sexuality was something they were
supposed to be doing in college. Another described,
“I’m glad that I’ve had my one-night stands and my
being in love and having sex. . . . Now I know what
it’s supposed to feel like when I’m with someone
that I want to be with. I feel bad for some of my
friends. . . . They’re still virgins” (29-1).
High rates of hooking up suggest genuine inter-
est in the activity rather than simply accommoda-
tion to men’s interests. Particularly early in college,
privileged women actively sought hookups. One
noted, “You see a lot of people who are like, ‘I just
want to hook up with someone tonight.’. . . It’s al-
ways the girls that try to get the guys” (41-1). Data
from the OCSLS also suggest that college women
like hooking up almost as much as men and are not
always searching for something more. Nearly as
many women as men (85 percent and 89 percent,
respectively) report enjoying the sexual activity of
their last hookup “very much” or “somewhat,” and
less than half of women report interest in a relation-
ship with their most recent hookup.
In private, several privileged women even used
the classed logic of hooking up to challenge ste-
reotyped portrayals of gender differences in sexu-
ality. As one noted, “There are girls that want
things as much as guys do. There are girls that
want things more, and they’re like, ‘Oh it’s been a
while [since I had sex].’ The girls are no more in-
nocent than the guys. . . . People think girls are
jealous of relationships, but they’re like, ‘What? I
want to be single’” (34-1). When asked about the
notion that guys want sex and girls want relation-
ships another responded, “I think that is the abso-
lute epitome of bullshit. I know so many girls who
I don’t need to be tied down to my high school boy-
friend for two years when this is the time to be
meeting people” (14-3). A middle-class woman
similarly noted that her relationship with her boy-
friend made it impossible to make friends on the
fl oor her fi rst year. She explained, “We were to-
gether every day. . . . It was the critical time of mak-
ing friends and meeting people, [and] I wasn’t
there” (21-2).
Many also complained that committed rela-
tionships competed with schoolwork (also see
Holland and Eisenhart 1990). An upper-middle-
class woman remarked, “[My boyfriend] doesn’t
understand why I can’t pick up and go see him all
the time. But I have school. . . . I just want to be
a college kid” (18-3). Another told us that her
major was not compatible with the demands of a
boyfriend. She said, “I wouldn’t mind having a
boyfriend again, but it’s a lot of work. Right now
with [my major] and everything . . . I wouldn’t
have time even to see him” (30-4). She did not
plan to consider a relationship until her workload
lessened.
With marriage far in the future, more privi-
leged women often worried about college rela-
tionships getting too serious too fast. All planned
to marry—ideally to men with greater earnings—
but were clear about the importance of temporary
independence. . . .
The Appeal of Hookups and the Sexual
Double Bind In contrast, hookups fi t well with
the self-development imperative of college. They
allowed women to be sexual without the demands
of relationships. For example, one upper-class
woman described hooking up as “fun and non-
threatening.” She noted, “So many of us girls, we
complain that these guys just want to hook up all
the time. I’m going, these guys that I’m attracted
to . . . get kind of serious.” She saw her last hookup
as ideal because “we were physical, and that was
it. I never wanted it to go anywhere” (34-2). Many
privileged women understood, if implicitly, that
hooking up was a delay tactic, allowing sex without
participation in serious relationships.
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294 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
the more privileged classes. Less privileged women
arrived at college with their own orientation to sex
and romance, characterized by a faster transition
into adulthood. They often attempted to build both
relationships and career at the same time. As a re-
sult, the third of the participants from less privi-
leged backgrounds often experienced the hookup
culture as foreign in ways that made it diffi cult to
persist at the university.
Less privileged women had less exposure to the
notion that the college years should be set aside
solely for educational and career development.
Many did not see serious relationships as incompat-
ible with college life. Four were married or engaged
before graduating—a step that others would not
take until later. One reminisced, “I thought I’d get
married in college. . . . When I was still in high
school, I fi gured by my senior year, I’d be engaged
or married or something. . . . I wanted to have kids
before I was 25” (25-4). Another spoke of her plans
to marry her high school sweetheart: “I’ll be 21 and
I know he’s the one I want to spend the rest of my
life with. . . . Really, I don’t want to date anybody
else” (6-1).
Plans to move into adult roles relatively quickly
made less privileged women outsiders among their
more privileged peers. One working-class woman
saw her friendships dissolve as she revealed her de-
sire to marry and have children in the near future.
As one of her former friends described,
She would always talk about how she couldn’t wait to
get married and have babies. . . . It was just like,
Whoa. I’m 18. . . . Slow down, you know? Then she
just crazy dropped out of school and wouldn’t contact
any of us. . . . The way I see it is that she’s from a re-
ally small town, and that’s what everyone in her town
does . . . get married and have babies. That’s all she
ever wanted to do maybe? . . . I don’t know if she was
homesick or didn’t fi t in. (24-4)
This account glosses over the extent to which
the working-class woman was pushed out of the
university—ostracized by her peers for not accli-
mating to the self-development imperative and, as
honestly go out on a Friday night and they’re like,
‘I hope I get some ass tonight.’ They don’t wanna
have a boyfriend! They just wanna hook up with
someone. And I know boys who want relation-
ships. I think it goes both ways” (42-2). These
women drew on gender-neutral understandings of
sexuality characteristic of university culture to
contradict the notion of women’s sexuality as in-
evitably and naturally relational.
For more privileged women, enjoyment of hook-
ups was tightly linked to the atmosphere in which
they occurred. Most were initiated at college parties
where alcohol, music, attractive people, sexy out-
fi ts, and fl irting combined to generate a collective
erotic energy. As one woman enthusiastically noted,
“Everyone was so excited. It was a big fun party”
(15-1). Privileged women often “loved” it when
they had an “excuse to just let loose” and “grind”
on the dance fl oor. They reported turning on their
“make-out radar” (18-1), explaining that “it’s fun to
know that a guy’s attracted to you and is willing to
kiss you” (16-1). The party scene gave them a
chance to play with adult sexualities and interact
for purely sexual purposes—an experience that
one  middle-class woman claimed “empowered”
her (17-1).
Hookups enabled more privileged women to
conduct themselves in accordance with class ex-
pectations, but as we demonstrated earlier, the en-
forcement of gender beliefs placed them at risk of
sanction. This confl ict gets to the heart of a sexual
double bind: While hookups protected privileged
women from relationships that could derail their
ambitions, the double standard gave men greater
control over the terms of hooking up, justifi ed the
disrespectful treatment of women, supported sexual
stigma, and produced feelings of shame.
Less Privileged Women and the
Experience of Foreign Sexual Culture
Women’s comfort with delaying commitment and
participating in the hookup culture was shaped by
class location. College culture refl ects the beliefs of
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connected with [my fi ancé], I think I would have
been more strongly connected to [the college
town], and I think I probably would have stayed”
(2-4). Another described her hometown boy-
friend: “He’ll be like, ‘I want to see you. Come
home.’ . . . The stress he was putting me under
and me being here my fi rst year. I could not take
it” (7-2). The following year, she moved back
home. A third explained about her husband, “He
wants me at home. . . . He wants to have control
over me and . . . to feel like he’s the dominant one
in the relationship. . . . The fact that I’m going to
school and he knows I’m smart and he knows that
I’m capable of doing anything that I want . . . it
scares him” (6-4). While she eventually ended
this relationship, it cost her an additional semes-
ter of school.
Women were also pulled back home by the slut
stigma, as people there—perhaps out of frustra-
tion or jealousy—judged college women for any
association with campus sexual culture. For in-
stance, one woman became distraught when a
virulent sexual rumor about her circulated around
her hometown, especially when it reached her
parents. Going home was a way of putting sexual
rumors to rest and reaffi rming ties that were
strained by leaving.
Thus, less privileged women were often caught
between two sexual cultures. Staying at the univer-
sity meant abandoning a familiar logic and adopt-
ing a privileged one—investing in human capital
while delaying the transition to adulthood. As one
explained, attending college led her to revise her
“whole plan”: “Now I’m like, I don’t even need to
be getting married yet [or] have kids. . . . All of
[my brother’s] friends, 17- to 20-year-old girls,
have their . . . babies, and I’m like, Oh my God. . . .
Now I’ll be able to do something else for a couple
years before I settle down . . . before I worry about
kids” (25-3). These changes in agendas required
them to end relationships with men whose life
plans diverged from theirs. For some, this also
meant cutting ties with hometown friends. One
resolute woman, whose friends back home had
noted below, to the campus sexual climate. In fact,
40 percent of less privileged women left the univer-
sity, compared to 5 percent of more privileged
women. In all cases, mismatch between the sexual
culture of women’s hometowns and that of college
was a factor in the decision to leave.
Most of the less privileged women found the
hookup culture to be not only foreign but hostile.
As the working-class woman described above
told us,
I tried so hard to fi t in with what everybody else was
doing here. . . . I think one morning I just woke up and
realized that this isn’t me at all; I don’t like the way I
am right now. . . . I didn’t feel like I was growing up.
I felt like I was actually getting younger the way I was
trying to act. Growing up to me isn’t going out and
getting smashed and sleeping around. . . . That to me
is immature. (28-1)
She emphasized the value of “growing up” in col-
lege. Without the desire to postpone adulthood,
less privileged women often could not understand
the appeal of hooking up. As a lower-middle-class
woman noted, “Who would be interested in just
meeting somebody and then doing something that
night? And then never talking to them again? . . .
I’m supposed to do this; I’m supposed to get drunk
every weekend. I’m supposed to go to parties
every weekend . . . and I’m supposed to enjoy it
like everyone else. But it just doesn’t appeal to
me” (5-1). She reveals the extent to which hook-
ing up was a normalized part of college life: For
those who were not interested in this, college life
could be experienced as mystifying, uncomfort-
able, and alienating.
The self-development imperative was a re-
source women could use in resisting the gendered
pull of relationships. Less privileged women did
not have as much access to this resource and were
invested in settling down. Thus, they found it hard
to resist the pull back home of local boyfriends,
who—unlike the college men they had met—
seemed interested in marrying and having chil-
dren soon. One woman noted after transferring
to  a branch campus, “I  think if I hadn’t been
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296 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
NOTES
1. Online College Social Life Survey data collection is ongo-
ing. Thus, numbers vary slightly according to the version
of the data set. This article references data prepared and
distributed by Reuben J. Thomas on February 26, 2009.
2. This number is consistent with that reported by Paul,
McManus, and Hayes (2000). Glenn and Marquardt
(2001) found lower rates, perhaps because they include
students attending religious and commuter colleges. Re-
cently, Owen et al. (2008) found that white students,
those who drink, and students with higher parental in-
come are more likely to hook up.
3. The two women who identifi ed as lesbian or bisexual are
included as they also had sex with men. How the women
on this fl oor responded to lesbianism is explored else-
where (Hamilton 2007).
REFERENCES
Armstrong, Elizabeth A., Paula England, and Alison C. K.
Fogarty. 2009. Orgasm in college hookups and relation-
ships. In Families as they really are, edited by B. Risman.
New York: Norton.
Bogle, Kathleen A. 2008. Hooking up: Sex, dating, and rela-
tionships on campus. New York: New York University
Press.
Campbell, Jacquelyn C. Nancy Glass, Phyllis W. Sharps,
Kathryn Laughon, and Tina Bloom. 2007. Intimate part-
ner homicide. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse 8:246–69.
Dunn, Jennifer L. 1999. What love has to do with it: The cul-
tural construction of emotion and sorority women’s re-
sponses to forcible interaction. Social Problems 46:
440–59.
England, Paula, Emily Fitzgibbons Shafer, and Alison C.K.
Fogarty. 2007. Hooking up and forming romantic rela-
tionships on today’s college campuses. In The gendered
society reader, edited by M. Kimmel. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Glenn, Norval, and Elizabeth Marquardt. 2001. Hooking
up, hanging out, and hoping for Mr. Right: College
women on mating and dating today. New York: Institute
for American Values.
Manning, Wendy D., Peggy C. Giordano, and Monica A.
Longmore. 2006. Hooking up: The relationship contexts
of “nonrelationship” sex. Journal of Adolescent Research
21:459–83.
Paul, Elizabeth L., Brian McManus, and Allison Hayes.
2000. “Hookups”: Characteristics and correlates of col-
lege students’ spontaneous and anonymous sexual experi-
ences. Journal of Sex Research 37:76–88.
Risman, Barbara J. 2004. Gender as a social structure: The-
ory wrestling with activism. Gender & Society 18: 429–50.
turned on her, noted, “I’m just sick of it. There’s
nothing there for me anymore. There’s absolutely
nothing there” (22-4).
DISCUSSION
Public gender beliefs are a key source of gender
inequality in college heterosexual interaction. They
undergird a sexual double standard and a relational
imperative that justify the disrespect of women
who hook up and the disempowerment of women in
relationships—reinforcing male dominance across
social forms. Most of the women we studied cycled
back and forth between hookups and relationships,
in part because they found both to be problematic.
These fi ndings indicate that an individualist, battle
of the sexes explanation not only is inadequate but
may contribute to gender inequality by naturalizing
problematic notions of gender difference.
We are not, however, claiming that gender differ-
ences in stated preferences do not exist. Analysis of
the OCSLS fi nds a small but signifi cant difference
between men and women in preferences for relation-
ships as compared to hookups: After the most recent
hookup, 47 percent of women compared to 37 per-
cent of men expressed some interest in a relation-
ship. These differences in preferences are consistent
with a multilevel perspective that views the internal-
ization of gender as an aspect of gender structure
(Risman 2004). As we have shown, the pressure to
internalize gender-appropriate preferences is consid-
erable, and the line between personal preferences
and the desire to avoid social stigma is fuzzy. How-
ever, we believe that widely shared beliefs about
gender difference contribute more to gender inequal-
ity in college heterosexuality than the substantively
small differences in actual preferences. . . .
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What are the ways that social class shapes sexu-
ality for college men as well as for college
women?
2. What problems and advantages follow from the
self-development and relationship imperatives?
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READING 30: Sexual Orientation and Sex in Women’s Lives 297
obvious to the reader and to both women that they
are sexually attracted to each other, the suspense
builds as to whether or not Leslie and Sara will
“consummate” their relationship—that is, become
genitally sexual. Whether or not the women do “it”
will affect the reader’s perception as to whether the
book had a happy ending (they became lovers) or
an unhappy one (they remained “just friends”).
It  will also determine whether Sara “becomes” a
lesbian.
What is sexual orientation? What does it mean
to be a heterosexual, bisexual, or lesbian woman?
Are these terms on a continuum or separate catego-
ries? Can all women categorize themselves in one
of these three ways? This article will discuss con-
ceptual issues of sexual orientation in women.
R E A D I N G 3 0
Sexual Orientation and Sex in
Women’s Lives: Conceptual and
Methodological Issues
Esther D. Rothblum
In the novel Never Say Never (Hill, 1996), two
coworkers, Leslie, who is a lesbian, and Sara, who
is heterosexual, become close friends. Though it is
P E R S O N A L A C C O U N T
Living Invisibly
For me, coming out is a Sisyphean task. Because of my
invisible differences, I constantly have to reveal different
parts of my identity. It’s not an easy task, either. When I
come out as a lesbian/queer woman, people are often
surprised because I don’t “look” queer. I can count on
one hand the number of times I have been recognized
by a stranger as part of the LGBT “family.” Some peo-
ple are also surprised to learn that I’m half Taiwanese. I
am also half-white, and often assumed to be white, mak-
ing my race another invisible identity. Because of this,
there have been times when people have made racist
jokes—either about Asians or other groups—because
they thought I was white, and thus thought that these
were “acceptable” jokes to tell in my presence.
Invisible identities work differently from other differ-
ences. I am lucky not to be harassed on the street be-
cause of my race, and since I don’t appear queer to your
average passerby, I don’t usually get harassed for that. I
benefit from the privilege of passing as a straight and
white, but most days I wish that I could give up that
privilege. It is extremely difficult to live your life where
some of the most important things about you are hidden.
For example, I never know when it is appropriate to
come out as queer in class, and almost feel guilty if I
never do, even though it may not always be necessary
or appropriate. Because I am invisible, I bear the burden
of disclosure. When someone assumes that I’m hetero-
sexual, I have to correct her or him (my mother still
doesn’t believe that I’m queer). When someone as-
sumes that I’m white, I do the same. Regardless, I come
out all the time to new people in my life, and each time
I do, I hope that they will be able to handle the informa-
tion with care and respect.
Most people respond well when I come out to them,
and I can breathe another sigh of relief when my peers
accept me. College, especially, has been a (mostly) safe
space for me to be out and proud about my race and
sexuality. Living with my multiple invisible identities has
taught me to be more assertive in all areas of my life, and
I have learned to take risks. I know quite well how privi-
lege works, and how that privilege can be taken away in
an instant. I am also proud of all of my identities. The
difficulty of coming out is well worth the satisfaction and
pride I have of living my life the way that I have always
wanted to.
Tara S. Ellison
Esther D. Rothblum is a professor of women’s studies at San
Diego State University.
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298 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
heterosexual feminists vacate their relationships with
men seemed to me then and seem to me still both
cruel and impossible. . . . The impossibility, for
women like me, is akin to the impossibility I would
feel if, in obedience to political fi at, I were asked to
change my fi ngerprints. (Bartky, 1992, p. 426)
This quotation is noteworthy for highlighting
several issues usually assumed about sexual orien-
tation: that it forms at an early age, that it involves
sexual attraction, and that it can’t be changed. The
quote is unusual in that heterosexual women are
rarely asked to describe their own sexuality, since
heterosexuality is the “default” sexual orientation
in Western societies.
Let us assume that sexual orientation is categor-
ical. This would imply that there is a distinct bound-
ary between being a lesbian on the one hand and a
heterosexual woman on the other. At one extreme,
we could picture a woman who has felt sexual/
affectional desire only toward females since she
was a girl. Similarly, this woman has had sexual
relations only with other females. She considers
herself a lesbian and has integrated into the lesbian
community.
In reality, few women fi t this image. Young
girls who are attracted to other girls and women
quickly learn to hide these feelings from others
and even from themselves. They may date boys
and even get married in order to fi t the dominant
heterosexual lifestyles. Women who do have the
courage to express sexual desire and relations
with other women may avoid using the term
“lesbian” to describe themselves because of its
negative connotations.
At the other extreme, a woman may always have
been attracted to males and had sexual relations
only with men. Yet we know little about heterosexu-
ality among women. Media images of women de-
pict them as very sexual, but in passive, objectifi ed
roles (see Umiker-Sebeok, 1981, for a review of this
literature). At the same time, there may be pressure
by parents and schools for young women to remain
celibate, and there are few approved roles for
women to be heterosexually active outside of mar-
riage (see Hyde and Jaffee, 2000). Consequently,
Closely related to sexual orientation is the concept
of sexual behavior. Sexual orientation is usually de-
fi ned in terms of the gender of one’s sexual partner.
This article will ask the question, what is “sex” for
women? Finally, there has been so little research
addressing these concepts that some methodologi-
cal issues for future research will be presented.
CONCEPTUAL ISSUES IN
SEXUAL ORIENTATION
Dichotomous Defi nitions
Fehr (1988) views categorical defi nitions as “classical”
in the sense that they are defi ned by specifi c inclusion
and exclusion criteria. She states:
Category membership is therefore an all-or-none phe-
nomenon; any instance that meets the criterion is a
member; all others are non-members. Boundaries
between concepts are thus clearly defi ned. Because
each member must possess the particular set of attri-
butes that is the criterion for category inclusion, all
members have a full and equal degree of membership
and therefore are equally representative of the cate-
gory. (p. 558)
Similarly, Rosch (1978) has argued that catego-
ries in language can be structured into a model of
best fi ts, followed by examples that resemble these
best fi ts to some extent.
In a categorical defi nition of sexual orientation,
all aspects of sexual orientation—desire, behavior,
and identity—are presumed to be congruent. The
terms “heterosexual” and “lesbian” are often used
in ways that presume these are unidimensional.
When a woman says that she is a “lesbian,” we may
take for granted that this identity includes homoge-
neity of sexual behavior, sexual fantasies, and par-
ticipation in a lesbian community, for example.
Consider the following quotation:
I have been heterosexual as some homosexuals say
they have been homosexual: forever. Already, at the
age of 5, I was attracted (in some diffuse sense of “at-
tract”) to male movie stars in ways that were different
from my fascination with female stars. Demands by
lesbian separatists earlier in the Second Wave that
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been either a “lesbian” or a “bisexual.” What I am—
and have been for as long as I can remember—is
someone whose gender and sexuality have just never
seemed to mesh very well with the available cultural
categories, and that —rather than my presumed
heterosexuality—is what has most profoundly in-
formed my feminist politics (Bem, 1992. p. 436)
This statement describes the experience of many
women who have unsuccessfully tried to “fi t” into
categorical defi nitions. Even as new terminology
has entered counterculture vocabularies (e.g.,
“queer” to describe people who do not have a main-
stream sexual orientation), these individuals con-
tinue to feel marginalized and disenfranchised. . . .
In sum, from a continuous perspective, sexual
orientation is a multidimensional concept that var-
ies in degree and intensity. Sexual orientation is
viewed as diverse, with each individual having a
unique template of erotic and affectional identity,
behavior, fantasies, relationships (including rela-
tionship status), and emotional attachments, all of
which can change over time (Garnets & Kimmel,
1993). These components can be (and often are)
incongruous, so there is no simple relationship
among behavior, identity, and desire. For example,
many more people engage in same-gender sexual
behavior than those who identify as lesbian, gay, or
bisexual.
RESEARCH ON SEXUAL
ORIENTATION
Most research in this area has used categorical
defi nitions of sexual orientation, such as asking
participants to check off whether they are lesbian,
bisexual, or heterosexual. Furthermore, a survey
entitled “Lesbian Mental Health Survey” (Oetjen &
Rothblum, 2000) is unlikely to obtain many
respondents who identify as bisexual or hetero-
sexual. Nor will it interest women who are sexu-
ally involved with women but who do not identify
as lesbian. Such categorical methods introduce a
level of artifi ciality that may not in fact corre-
spond with the identity or experiences of women
respondents. . . .
even heterosexual women may know little about
their own sexual desire and attraction.
Some of the earliest writings about sexual ori-
entation focused on “stages” that gay men and les-
bians go through in the process of coming out.
Generally these stages described an initial sense
of difference and identity confusion that eventu-
ally was replaced by identity acceptance and syn-
thesis (see Cass, 1979; Coleman, 1981). In this
way, lesbians were presumed to move from lack
of congruence to congruence between identity
and behavior.
How would a categorical defi nition of sexual
orientation include bisexuality? Bisexuality may be
viewed as a separate category for women who are
attracted to and have sexual relationships with
women and men. In the past, categorical defi nitions
of sexual orientation would have excluded bisexu-
ality, viewing bisexuals as women in transition to
be lesbians, or as lesbians who wanted a less stig-
matizing self-description (Rust, 2000b). Develop-
ment of a strong bisexual movement and bisexual
communities has demonstrated that bisexuality is
not transient and in fact may be an even more stig-
matized term than lesbianism.
In sum, a dichotomous defi nition of sexual ori-
entation is bipolar, with heterosexual women and
lesbians as opposite constructs. Bisexuality is seen
as either nonexistent or as a transitional phase
between being heterosexual and lesbian (this point
is discussed in detail by Rust, 2000a). There is con-
gruence between sexual identity, behavior, and
desire. Thus, if a woman experiences any same-
gender behavior or attraction, she is presumed to be
a lesbian with a same-gender identity as well.
Continuous Defi nitions
On the other hand, sexual orientation can be concep-
tualized as multifaceted. Consider this quotation:
How does my heterosexuality contribute to my femi-
nist politics? That is an impossible question for me to
answer because, although I have lived monogamously
with a man I love for over 26 years, I am not and never
have been a “heterosexual.” But neither have I  ever
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300 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
dimensions. This raises the question whether sex-
ual orientation for women should be defi ned on the
basis of sexual activity/attraction and, if so, what
does sex mean for women?
CONCEPTUAL ISSUES IN
FEMALE SEXUAL ACTIVITY
In the United States, the concept of “sex” is so
closely linked with genital intercourse that most het-
erosexual women will not “count” experiences that
didn’t include this aspect of sexual activity. When
asked when they fi rst had “sex,” women who have
sex with men will often “count” the fi rst time they
had sexual intercourse with a man, even if this expe-
rience was not particularly sexual for them and even
if they had prior sexual experiences that were quite
arousing and even led to orgasm (see Rothblum,
1994, for a review). Loulan (1993) has described
how female adolescents who have engaged in a vari-
ety of sexual activities but have not had intercourse
will say that they have not “gone all the way.” Thus,
women’s defi nition of what constitutes sexual activ-
ity with a male partner is often separate from their
own sexual arousal and desire.
“Sex” when both partners are female is even
more complex. On the one hand, lesbians and
bisexual women will say that sex between women
allows for a greater variety of sexual expression,
exactly because it is not focused on intercourse (see
Rothblum, 1999, for a review). On the other hand,
sexual activity between women is socially con-
structed in the lesbian/bisexual communities to
mean certain activities and not others. Two women
who are “just” kissing and cuddling, for example,
have not “gone all the way” (Rothblum, 1999).
Interestingly, the current Vermont Youth Behavior
Risk Survey (Vermont Department of Health, 1999)
asks respondents whether they have had “inter-
course” with males only, females only, both males
and females, or neither. It is diffi cult to say how
female adolescents will conceptualize “inter-
course” between two females, but the wording
of this item refl ects the salience of the word “inter-
course” to mean sexual activity in research.
In a recent study, Jessica Morris and I (1999)
examined the interrelationships among various di-
mensions of sexual orientation. The study examined
the way in which over 2,000 women who answered
a “Lesbian Wellness Survey” were distributed on
fi ve aspects of lesbian sexuality and the coming out
process. The fi ve aspects were sexual orientation on
the “Kinsey Scale” (Kinsey, Pomeroy, & Martin,
1948; Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin, & Gebhard, 1953);
years out (length of time of self- identity as lesbian/
gay/bisexual); outness/disclosure (amount of disclo-
sure of sexual orientation to others); sexual experi-
ence (proportion of sexual relationships with women
compared to men); and lesbian activities (extent of
participation in lesbian community events). The in-
tercorrelations among these dimensions were quite
low, indicating that being lesbian is not a homoge-
neous experience.
Closer examination by the demographic charac-
teristics of race/ethnicity and age revealed a diver-
sity of experience. African American, Native
American, and Latina respondents had moderate
correlations among the aspects of the lesbian expe-
rience, whereas the intercorrelations of White and
Asian American respondents tended to be mild or
nonsignifi cant. The results indicate that researchers
who are studying one aspect of the lesbian experi-
ence (e.g., outness to others) need to ensure that
they are not assuming such behavior based on other
dimensions (such as frequent participation in les-
bian community activities or years of being out),
especially among White and Asian American lesbi-
ans. Most studies of sexual orientation have fo-
cused on members of the visible gay and lesbian
communities (there is still relatively little research
on people who are bisexual). By recruiting partici-
pants at lesbian community events or using mailing
lists of lesbian newsletters, for example, research-
ers are stratifying by lesbian self – identity . . . .
The limited research on dimensions of women’s
sexual orientation, whether conducted directly
in  lesbian/bisexual women’s communities or via
national surveys, indicates that identity as lesbian
or bisexual, sexual activity with women, and sexual
desire are separate and (somewhat) overlapping
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CONCEPTUAL ISSUES IN
FEMALE SEXUAL DESIRE
The lack of congruence between female sexual
behavior and desire implies that sexual behavior
per se may not be what is most important to women
and may not defi ne their sexual identity. On the one
hand, women in Western societies live in a culture
of sex (Rothblum, 1994) in which images of women
being sexual are everywhere in the media and are
used to promote a wide range of products in the
economy. On the other hand, the overemphasis on
sex ignores the reality that women have related
passionately and emotionally to other women all
their lives.
Some years ago, Kathy Brehony and I ( Rothblum &
Brehony, 1993) interviewed self- identifi ed lesbians
who considered themselves to be in a couple but
who were not currently sexual with their partners
(and may never have had sex with these partners).
Here are some examples of the ways of relating that
we found (all names are pseudonyms):
Laura became attracted to her heterosexual
roommate, Violet. Violet seemed to encourage the
relationship in multiple ways, such as having
heart-shaped tattoos made with each other’s names
and telling Laura it was okay that people mistook
them for lovers. When Laura suggested they
become lovers, Violet said she couldn’t do it.
Laura was devastated.
Elizabeth and Marianne were briefl y genitally
sexual, then Marianne broke that off, saying that
the age difference of 20 years was too great for her.
Marianne, the younger of the two, became involved
sexually with another woman, Eve, and Elizabeth
decided to move out of state to get away. Elizabeth
and Marianne continued their relationship over the
telephone, and both agree that they are the most
important people in each other’s lives. Elizabeth
says about Eve, Marianne’s sexual partner, “she
will never have access to the total person that
I have.”
Sarah and Hannah have a primary relationship,
but without sex. They have an agreement that
they can have other lovers, but only men. Sarah is
Research on female sexuality has found lesbians
to engage in sexual activity with relatively low fre-
quency. A major survey of sexual activity among
12,000 people (Blumstein & Schwartz, 1983) indi-
cated that lesbians are less likely to have genital sex
than are married heterosexual, cohabiting hetero-
sexual, or gay male couples. Loulan (1988) sur-
veyed over 1,500 lesbians and found the majority
(78%) to have been celibate for some period of
time. Most had been celibate for less than 1 year,
35% had been celibate from 1 to 5 years, and 8%
for 6 years or more. The national survey by
Laumann et al. (1994) similarly found women to be
lower than men on rates of sexual behavior.
The results of these surveys were interpreted as
refl ecting women’s lack of socialization to initiate
sexual encounters. Survey authors also indicated
that lesbians, being women, placed more focus on
love, affection, and romance than on genital sexual
activity (e.g., Klinkenberg & Rose, 1994). Thus,
heterosexual and bisexual women may have sex
more often because men are more likely to want
and initiate sexual activity.
It is diffi cult to obtain accurate data on sexual
behavior. Sexual activity is private, and women in
particular are not socialized to discuss details of
sexual activity. This issue is confounded for lesbi-
ans and bisexual women, who may live in areas
where same-gender sexual activity is against the
law and who may lose their jobs or custody of their
children if such knowledge became public. Most
sex surveys have been criticized for being of ques-
tionable accuracy, as people may not respond hon-
estly for a variety of reasons (see Laumann et al.,
1994, for a discussion).
Certainly the low rates of sexual “activity”
found in these surveys may in part be due to how
sexual behavior is traditionally defi ned. What are
the implications of lesbians engaging in genital sex
less than heterosexual women or than men, yet at
the same time using a genital-based defi nition to
defi ne “sex”? Is there a way that women of all sex-
ual orientations should discuss the relative devalua-
tion of alternatives to genital sex? Can we reclaim
erotic, nongenital experiences as “real” sex?
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302 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
of being in sexual relationships. Even for women
who are heterosexual, little is known about this
“mainstream” group, such as how they came to be
heterosexual, the ways that they might question
their heterosexuality, and how their sexual desire
and attraction differs from those of women who are
bisexual or lesbian. Women’s sexuality is an area in
which we don’t even know what most of the ques-
tions are, let alone the answers.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What assumptions about women’s sexuality
does this article encourage us to question?
2. Should “sex” be defi ned as only genital inter-
course?
REFERENCES
Bartky, S. L. (1992). Hypatia unbound: A confession.
Feminism & Psychology , 2, 426–428.
Bem, S. L. (1992). On the inadequacy of our sexual catego-
ries: A personal perspective. Feminism & Psychology , 3 ,
436–437.
Blumstein, P., & Schwartz, P. (1983). American couples.
New York: William Morrow.
Cass, V. C. (1979). Homosexual identity formation: A theo-
retical model. Journal of Homosexuality, 4 , 219–235.
Coleman, E. (1981). Developmental stages of the coming
out process. Journal of Homosexuality , 4 , 31–43.
Fehr, B. (1988). Prototype analysis of the concepts of love
and commitment. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology , 55 (4), 557–579.
Garnets, L. D., & Kimmel, D. C. (1993). Introduction:
Lesbian and gay male dimensions in the psychological
study of human diversity. In L. D. Garnets & D. C. Kimmel
(Eds.), Psychological perspectives on lesbian and gay
male experiences (pp. 1–51). New York: Columbia
University Press.
Hill, L. (1996). Never say never . Tallahassee, FL: Naiad Press.
Hyde, J. S., & Jaffee, S. R. (2000). Becoming a heterosexual
adult: The experiences of young women. Journal of So-
cial Issues , 56 (2), 283–296.
Kinsey, A. C., Pomeroy, W., & Martin, C. (1948). Sex-
ual behavior in the human male . Philadelphia: W. B.
Saunders.
Kinsey, A. C., Pomeroy, W. B., Martin, C. F., & Gebhard, P. H.
(1953). Sexual behavior in the human female . Philadelphia:
Saunders.
Klinkenberg, D., & Rose, S. (1994). Dating scripts of lesbi-
ans and gay men. Journal of Homosexuality, 26, 23–35.
confused because she is a lesbian, and now her
friends only see her with male lovers. It has shaken
her whole identity as a lesbian. Hannah is primarily
heterosexual. They are both afraid that sex would
make them even more intense, given their closeness
already.
These examples bring up a number of themes
related to sexual desire. When two members of a
couple disagree on what constitutes sex and thus
whether or not they are having sex, they may also
differ on whether or not they are in a real relation-
ship. Even when both members of the couple agree
that their genitally asexual relationship makes them
a real couple, society in general may not agree with
this defi nition. The couple may hide their asexual-
ity from their community in much the same way
that women in past centuries hid their sexuality
from the community at large. Societal validation is
especially important for women who are not het-
erosexual, in light of the fact that many of these
women felt invisible to society at large when grow-
ing up or while coming out. Furthermore, the ex-
amples above came from self-identifi ed lesbians;
others may exist among women who are passionate
about women yet who are married to men, in celi-
bate religious orders, or extremely closeted even to
themselves.
METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES
FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
. . . In conclusion, what can we say about female
sexuality at the end of the millennium? Sexual be-
havior is still defi ned in genital ways that may not
accurately refl ect the totality of women’s sexual ex-
periences. Sexual behavior is only one dimension
of women’s sexuality, and not highly interrelated
with sexual desire, attraction, sexual orientation,
and so on. There is increasing knowledge that even
the concept of gender itself is fl exible, complex,
and multidimensional, so that knowing who is a
“woman” is not as clear-cut as once believed. Far
fewer women may be heterosexual in the traditional
sense, indicating that more research on women’s
sexuality is necessary to learn about women’s ways
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READING 31: Cause of Death: Inequality 303
Rothblum, E. D. (1994). I only read about myself on bath-
room walls: The need for research on the mental health of
lesbians and gay men. Journal of Consulting and Clinical
Psychology , 62 , 213–220.
Rothblum, E. D. (1999). Poly-friendships. Journal of
Lesbian Studies , 3 , 71–83.
Rothblum, E. D., & Brehony, K. A. (Eds.). (1993). Boston
marriages: Romantic but asexual relationships among
contemporary lesbians . Amherst, MA: University of
Massachusetts.
Rust, P. C. (2000a). Bisexuality: A contemporary paradox
for woman. Journal of Social Issues , 56 (2), 205–221.
Rust, P. C. (2000b). Bisexuality in the United States: A
reader and guide to the literature . New York: Columbia
University Press.
Umiker-Sebeok, J. (1981). The seven ages of woman:
A  view from American magazine advertisements. In
C. Mayo & N. M. Henley (Eds.), Gender and nonverbal
behavior (pp. 209–252). New York: Springer-Verlag.
Vermont Department of Health. (1999). Vermont Youth Be-
havior Risk Survey. Unpublished survey currently in
progress.
Laumann, E. O., Gagnon, J. H., Michael, R. T., &
Michaels, S. (1994). The social organization of sexuality:
Sexual practices in the United States . Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
Loulan. J. (1988). Research on the sex practices of 1566
lesbians and the clinical applications. Women and Ther-
apy, 7 , 221–234.
Loulan, J. (1993). Celibacy. In E. D. Rothblum & K. A. Bre-
hony (Eds.), Boston marriages: Romantic but asexual re-
lationships among contemporary lesbians . Amherst, MA:
University of Massachusetts Press.
Morris, J. F., & Rothblum, E. D. (1999). Who fi lls out a
“lesbian” questionnaire? The interrelationship of sexual
orientation, years out, disclosure of sexual orientation,
sexual experience with women, and participation in the
lesbian community. Psychology of Women Quarterly ,
23 (3), 537–557.
Oetjen, H., & Rothblum, E. D. (2000). When lesbians aren’t
gay: Factors affecting depression among lesbians. Journal
of Homosexuality , 39 (1), 49–73.
Rosch, E. (1978). Principles of categorization. In E. Rosch
& B. B. Lloyd (Eds.), Cognition and categorization
(pp. 27–48). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
SOCIAL CLASS
R E A D I N G 3 1
Cause of Death: Inequality
Alejandro Reuss
You won’t see inequality on a medical chart or a
coroner’s report under “cause of death.” You won’t
see it listed among the top killers in the United
States each year. All too often, however, it is social
inequality that lurks behind a more immediate
cause of death, be it heart disease or diabetes, ac-
cidental injury or homicide. Few of the top causes
of death are “equal opportunity killers.” Instead,
they tend to strike poor people more than rich
people, the less educated more than the highly
educated, people lower on the occupational ladder
more than those higher up, or people of color more
than white people.
Statistics on mortality and life expectancy do
not provide a perfect map of social inequality.
For example, the life expectancy for women in
the United States is about six years longer than
the life expectancy for men, despite the many
ways in which women are subordinated to men.
Take most indicators of socioeconomic status,
however, and most causes of death, and it’s a
strong bet that you’ll fi nd illness and injury (or
“morbidity”) and mortality increasing as status
decreases.
Men with less than 12 years of education are
more than twice as likely to die of chronic diseases
(e.g., heart disease), more than three times as likely
to die as a result of injury, and nearly twice as likely
to die of communicable diseases, compared to
those with 13 or more years of education. Women
Alejandro Reuss is co-editor of Dollars & Sense and an instruc-
tor at the Labor Relations and Research Center at the University
of Massachusetts, Amherst.
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304 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
with family incomes below $10,000 are more than
three times as likely to die of heart disease and
nearly three times as likely to die of diabetes, com-
pared to those with family incomes above $25,000.
African Americans are more likely than whites to
die of heart disease; stroke; lung, colon, prostate,
and breast cancer, as well as all cancers combined;
liver disease; diabetes; AIDS; accidental injury;
and homicide. In all, the lower you are in a social
hierarchy, the worse your health and the shorter
your life are likely to be.
THE WORSE OFF IN THE UNITED
STATES ARE NOT WELL OFF
BY WORLD STANDARDS
You often hear it said that even poor people in
rich countries like the United States are rich com-
pared to ordinary people in poor countries. While
that may be true when it comes to consumer
goods like  televisions or telephones, which are
widely available even to poor people in the United
States, it’s completely wrong when it comes to
health.
In a 1996 study published in The New England
Journal of Medicine , University of Michigan re-
searchers found that African-American females liv-
ing to age 15 in Harlem had a 65% chance of
surviving to age 65, about the same as women in
India. Meanwhile, Harlem’s African-American
males had only a 37% chance of surviving to age
65, about the same as men in Angola or the Demo-
cratic Republic of Congo. Among both African-
American men and women, infectious diseases and
diseases of the circulatory system were the prime
causes of high mortality.
It takes more income to achieve a given life
expectancy in a rich country like the United States
than it does to achieve the same life expectancy in
a less affl uent country. So the higher money income
of a low-income person in the United States, com-
pared to a middle-income person in a poor country,
does not necessarily translate into a longer life
span. The average income per person in African-
American families, for example, is more than fi ve
times the per capita income of El Salvador. The life
expectancy for African-American men in  the
United States, however, is only about 67 years, the
same as the average life expectancy for men in El
Salvador.
HEALTH INEQUALITIES IN THE
UNITED STATES ARE NOT JUST
ABOUT ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE
Nearly one-sixth of the U.S. population lacks
health insurance, including about 44% of poor
people. A poor adult with a health problem is
only half as likely to see a doctor as a high-
income adult. Adults living in low-income areas
are more than twice as likely to be hospitalized
for a health problem that could have been effec-
tively treated with timely outpatient care, com-
pared with adults living in high-income areas.
Obviously, lack of access to health care is a major
health problem.
But so are environmental and occupational
hazards; communicable diseases; homicide and
fi rearm-related injuries; and smoking, alcohol con-
sumption, lack of exercise, and other risk factors.
These dangers all tend to affect lower-income peo-
ple more than higher-income, less educated people
more than more-educated, and people of color more
than whites. African-American children are more
than twice as likely as white children to be hospital-
ized for asthma, which is linked to air pollution.
Poor men are nearly six times as likely as high-in-
come men to have elevated blood-lead levels, which
refl ect both residential and workplace environmen-
tal hazards. African-American men are more than
seven times as likely to fall victim to homicide as
white men; African-American women, more than
four times as likely as white women. The less edu-
cation someone has, the more likely they are to
smoke or to drink heavily. The lower someone’s
income, the less likely they are to get regular
exercise.
Michael Marmot, a pioneer in the study of social
inequality and health, notes that so-called diseases
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High  levels of social cohesion are associated with
good health outcomes for several reasons. For ex-
ample, people in highly cohesive societies are more
likely to be active in their communities, reducing
social isolation, a known health risk factor. (See
Thad Williamson, “Social Movements Are Good
for Your Health”)
Numerous researchers have criticized Wilkin-
son’s conclusions, arguing that the real reason
income inequality tends to be associated with
worse health outcomes is that it is associated with
high er rates of poverty. But even if they are right
and income inequality causes worse health sim-
ply by bringing about greater poverty, that hardly
makes for a defense of inequality. Poverty and
inequality are like partners in crime. “[W]hether
public policy focuses primarily on the elimina-
tion of poverty or on reduction in income dispar-
ity,” argue Wilkinson critics Kevin Fiscella and
Peter Franks, “neither goal is likely to be achieved
in the absence of the other.”
DIFFERENCES IN STATUS
MAY BE JUST AS IMPORTANT
AS INCOME LEVELS
Even after accounting for differences in income,
education, and other factors, the life expectancy for
African Americans is less than that for whites. U.S.
researchers are beginning to explore the relation-
ship between high blood pressure among African
Americans and the racism of the surrounding soci-
ety. African Americans tend to suffer from high
blood pressure, a risk factor for circulatory disease,
more often than whites. Moreover, studies have
found that, when confronted with racism, African
Americans suffer larger and longer-lasting in-
creases in blood pressure than when faced with
other stressful situations. Broader surveys relating
blood pressure in African Americans to perceived
instances of racial discrimination have yielded
complex results, depending on social class, gender,
and other factors.
Stresses cascade down social hierarchies and
accumulate among the least empowered. Even
of affl uence—disorders, like heart disease, associ-
ated with high calorie and high-fat diets, lack of
physical activity, etc.—are most prevalent among
the least affl uent people in rich societies. While rec-
ognizing the role of such “behavioral” risk factors
as smoking in producing poor health, he argues, “It
is not suffi cient . . . to ask what contribution smok-
ing makes to generating the social gradient in ill
health, but we must ask, why is there a social gradi-
ent in smoking?” What appear to be individual
“lifestyle” decisions often refl ect a broader social
epidemiology.
GREATER INCOME INEQUALITY
GOES HAND IN HAND WITH
POORER HEALTH
Numerous studies suggest that the more unequal
the income distribution in a country, state, or city,
the lower the life expectancies for people at all
income levels. One study published in the Ameri-
can Journal of Public Health, for example, shows
that U.S. metropolitan areas with low per capita
incomes and low levels of income inequality have
lower mortality rates than areas with high median
incomes and high levels of income inequality.
Meanwhile, for a given per capita income range,
mortality rates always decline as inequality
declines.
R. G. Wilkinson, perhaps the researcher most
responsible for relating health outcomes to overall
levels of inequality (rather than individual income
levels), argues that greater income inequality causes
worse health outcomes independent of its effects on
poverty. Wilkinson and his associates suggest sev-
eral explanations for this relationship. First, the
bigger the income gap between rich and poor, the
less inclined the well off are to pay taxes for pub lic
services they either do not use or use in low propor-
tion to the taxes they pay. Lower spending on public
hospitals, schools, and other basic services does not
affect wealthy people’s life expectancies very
much, but it affects poor people’s life expectancies
a great deal. Second, the bigger the income gap,
the  lower the overall level of social cohesion.
READING 31: Cause of Death: Inequality 305
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306 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What explanation can you offer for why the
rich are less likely to support public services in
communities with a wide income gap between
the rich and poor?
2. Why do you think there might be social class
differences in smoking, drinking, or exercise?
REFERENCES
Lisa Berkman, “Social Inequalities and Health: Five Key
Points for Policy-Makers to Know,” February 5, 2001,
Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
Kevin Fiscella and Peter Franks, “Poverty or income
inequality as predictors of mortality: longitudinal cohort
study,” British Medical Journal 314: 1724–8, 1997.
Arline T. Geronimus, et al., “Excess Mortality among Blacks
and Whites in the United States,” The New England Jour-
nal of Medicine 335 (21), November 21, 1996.
Health, United States, 1998, with Socioeconomic Status and
Health Chartbook, National Center for Health Statistics,
www.cdc.gov/nchs.
Human Development Report 2000, UN Development
Programme.
Ichiro Kawachi, Bruce P. Kennedy, and Richard G.
Wilkinson, eds., The Society and Population Health
Reader , Volume I : Income Inequality and Health, 1999.
Nancy Krieger, Ph.D., and Stephen Sidney, M.D., “Racial
Discrimination and Blood Pressure: The CARDIA Study
of Young Black and White Adults,” American Journal of
Public Health 86 (10), October 1996.
Michael Marmot, “Social Differences in Mortality: The
Whitehall Studies,” Adult Mortality in Developed Coun-
tries: From Description to Explanation, Alan D. Lopez,
Graziella Caselli, and Tapani Valkonen, eds., 1995.
Michael Marmot, “The Social Pattern of Health and Dis-
ease,” Health and Social Organization: Towards a Health
Policy for the Twenty First Century, David Blane, Eric
Brunner, and Richard Wilkinson, eds., 1996.
Thad Williamson, “Social Movements Are Good for Your
Health,” Dollars and Sense, May/June, 2001.
World Development Indicators 2000, World Bank.
researchers focusing on social inequality and
health, however, have been surprised by the large
effects on mortality. Over 30 years ago, Michael
Marmot and his associates undertook a landmark
study, known as Whitehall I, of health among
British civil servants. Since the civil servants
shared many characteristics regardless of job
classifi cation—an offi ce work environment, a high
degree of job security, etc.—the researchers ex-
pected to fi nd only modest health differences
among them. To their surprise, the study revealed a
sharp increase in mortality with each step down the
job hierarchy—even from the highest grade to the
second highest. Over ten years, employees in
the lowest grade were three times as likely to die as
those in the highest grade. One factor was that peo-
ple in lower grades showed a higher incidence of
many “lifestyle” risk factors, like smoking, poor
diet, and lack of exercise. Even when the research-
ers controlled for such factors, however, more than
half the mortality gap remained.
Marmot noted that people in the lower job grades
were less likely to describe themselves as having
“control over their working lives” or being “satisfi ed
with their work situation,” compared to those higher
up. While people in higher job grades were more
likely to report “having to work at a fast pace,” lower-
level civil servants were more likely to report feel-
ings of hostility, the main stress-related risk factor
for heart disease. Marmot concluded that “psycho-
social” factors—the psychological costs of being
lower in the hierarchy—played an important role in
the unexplained mortality gap. Many of us have
probably said to ourselves, after a trying day on the
job, “They’re killing me.” Turns out it’s not just a
fi gure of speech. Inequality kills—and it starts at the
bottom.
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READING 32: Why Are Droves of Unqualifi ed, Unprepared Kids Getting into Our Top Colleges? 307
At the University of Pennsylvania, 66 percent of
legacies were admitted last year—thanks in part to
an autonomous “offi ce of alumni admissions” that
actively lobbies for alumni children before the ad-
missions committee. “One can argue that it’s an ac-
cident, but it sure doesn’t look like an accident,”
admits Yale Dean of Admissions Worth David.
If the legacies’ big edge seems unfair to the tens
of thousands who get turned away every year, Ivy
League administrators have long defended the in-
nocence of the legacy stat. Children of alumni are
just smarter; they come from privileged back-
grounds and tend to grow up in homes where par-
ents encourage learning. That’s what Harvard Dean
of Admissions William Fitzsimmons told the cam-
pus newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, when it fi rst
reported on the legacy preference last year. Depart-
ing Harvard President Derek Bok patiently ex-
plained that the legacy preference worked only as a
“tie-breaking factor” between otherwise equally
qualifi ed candidates.
Since Ivy League admissions data is a notori-
ously classifi ed commodity, when Harvard offi cials
said in previous years that alumni kids were just
better, you had to take them at their word. But then
federal investigators came along and pried open
those top-secret fi les. The Harvard guys were lying.
This past fall, after two years of study, the U.S.
Department of Education’s Offi ce for Civil Rights
(OCR) found that, far from being more qualifi ed
or  even equally qualifi ed, the average admitted
legacy at Harvard between 1981 and 1988 was
signifi cantly less qualifi ed than the average admit-
ted nonlegacy. Examining admissions offi ce ratings
on academics, extracurriculars, personal qualities,
recommendations, and other categories, the OCR
concluded that “with the exception of the athletic
rating, [admitted] nonlegacies scored better than
legacies in all areas of comparison.”
Exceptionally high admission rates, lowered ad-
mission standards, preferential treatment . . .
hmmm. These sound like the cries heard in the
growing fury over affi rmative action for racial
minorities in America’s elite universities. Only no
one is outraged about legacies.
R E A D I N G 3 2
Why Are Droves of Unqualifi ed,
Unprepared Kids Getting into
Our Top Colleges? Because Their
Dads Are Alumni
John Larew
Growing up, she heard a hundred Harvard stories. In
high school, she put the college squarely in her sights.
But when judgment day came, the Harvard admis-
sions guys were frankly unimpressed. Her academic
record was solid—not special. Extracurriculars, in-
terview, recommendations? Above average, but not
by much. “Nothing really stands out” one admissions
offi cer scribbled on her application folder. Wrote an-
other, “Harvard not really the right place.”
At the hyperselective Harvard, where high
school valedictorians, National Merit Scholar fi nal-
ists, musical prodigies—11,000 ambitious kids in
all—are rejected annually, this young woman didn’t
seem to have much of a chance. Thanks to Har-
vard’s largest affi rmative action program, she got in
anyway. No, she wasn’t poor, black, disabled, His-
panic, native American, or even Aleutian. She got
in because her mom went to Harvard.
Folk wisdom at Harvard holds that “Mother
Harvard does not coddle her young.” She sure treats
her grandkids right, though. For more than 40 years,
an astounding one-fi fth of Harvard’s students have re-
ceived admissions preference because parents
attended the school. Today, these overwhelmingly af-
fl uent, white children of alumni—“legacies”—are
three times more likely to be accepted to Harvard than
high school kids who lack that handsome lineage.
Yalies, don’t feel smug: Offspring of the Old
Blue are two-and-a-half times more likely to be ac-
cepted than their unconnected peers. Dartmouth
this year admitted 57 percent of its legacy
applicants, compared to 27 percent of nonlegacies.
John Larew wrote this article when he was editor of Harvard’s
student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson .
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308 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
grade point average perfectly refl ect the character,
judgment, and drive of a student, tips like these aren’t
just nice, they’re fair. Unfortunately, the extent of the
legacy privilege in elite American colleges suggests
something more than the occasional tie-breaking tip.
Forget meritocracy. When 20 percent of Harvard’s
student body gets a legacy preference, aristocracy is
the word that comes to mind.
A CASTE OF THOUSANDS
If complaining about minority preferences is fash-
ionable in the world of competitive colleges,
bitching about legacies is just plain gauche, sug-
gesting an unhealthy resentment of the privileged.
But the effects of the legacy trickle down. For
every legacy that wins, someone—usually some-
one less privileged—loses. And higher education
is a high-stakes game.
High school graduates earn 59 percent of the in-
come of four-year college graduates. Between high
school graduates and alumni of prestigious colleges,
the disparity is far greater. A Fortune study of
American CEOs shows the usual suspects—
graduates of Yale, Princeton, and Harvard—leading
the list. A recent survey of the Harvard Class of
1940  found that 43 percent were worth more than
$1 million. With some understatement, the report
concludes, “A picture of highly advantageous cir-
cumstances emerges here, does it not, compared with
American society as a whole?”
An Ivy League diploma doesn’t necessarily
mean a fi ne education. Nor does it guarantee future
success. What it does represent is a big head start in
the rat race—a fact Harvard will be the fi rst to tell
you. When I was a freshman, a counselor at the
Offi ce of Career Services instructed a group of us to
make the Harvard name stand out on our résumés:
“Underline it, boldface it, put it in capital letters.”
Of course, the existence of the legacy preference
in this fi erce career competition isn’t exactly news.
According to historians, it was a direct result of the
infl ux of Jews into the Ivy League during the
twenties. Until then, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale
had admitted anyone who could pass their entrance
• In his recent book, Preferential Policies, Thomas
Sowell argues that doling out special treatment
encourages lackluster performance by the fa-
vored and resentment from the spurned. His far-
ranging study fl its from Malaysia to South Africa
to American college campuses. Legacies don’t
merit a word.
• Dinesh D’Souza, in his celebrated jeremiad
Illiberal Education, blames affi rmative action in
college admissions for declining academic standards
and increasing racial tensions. Lowered standards
for minority applicants, he hints, may soon destroy
the university as we know it. Lowered standards for
legacies? The subject doesn’t come up.
• For all his polysyllabic complaints against pref-
erential admissions, William F. Buckley Jr. (Yale
50) has never bothered to note that son Chris
(Yale 75) got the benefi t of a policy that more
than doubled his chance of admission.
With so much silence on the subject, you’d be ex-
cused for thinking that in these enlightened times he-
reditary preferences are few and far between. But
you’d be wrong. At most elite universities during the
eighties, the legacy was by far the biggest piece of the
preferential pie. At Harvard, a legacy is about twice as
likely to be admitted as a black or Hispanic student.
As sociologists Jerome Karabel and David Karen
point out, if alumni children were admitted to Harvard
at the same rate as other applicants, their numbers in
the class of 1992 would have been reduced by about
200. Instead, those 200 marginally qualifi ed legacies
outnumbered all black, Mexican-American, native
American, and Puerto Rican enrollees put together. If
a few marginally qualifi ed minorities are undermining
Harvard’s academic standards as much as conserva-
tives charge, think about the damage all those legacies
must be doing.
Mind you, colleges have the right to give the oc-
casional preference—to bend the rules for the bril-
liant oboist or the world-class curler or the guy whose
remarkable decency can’t be measured by the SAT. (I
happened to benefi t from a geographical edge: It’s
easier to get into Harvard from West Virginia than
from New England.) And until standardized tests and
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READING 32: Why Are Droves of Unqualifi ed, Unprepared Kids Getting into Our Top Colleges? 309
equation makes this a case which (assuming
positive TRs [teacher recommendations] and
Alum  IV [alumnus interview]) is well worth
doing.”
• “Lineage is main thing.”
• “Not quite strong enough to get the clean tip.”
• “Classical case that would be hard to explain
to dad.”
• “Double lineage but lots of problems.”
• “Not a great profi le, but just strong enough #’s
and grades to get the tip from lineage.”
• “Without lineage, there would be little case. With
it, we’ll keep looking.”
In every one of these cases, the applicant was
admitted.
Of course, Harvard’s not doing anything other
schools aren’t. The practice of playing favorites with
alumni children is nearly universal among private
colleges and isn’t unheard of at public institutions,
either. The rate of admission for Stanford’s alumni
children is “almost twice the general population,”
according to a spokesman for the admissions offi ce.
Notre Dame reserves 25 percent of each freshman
class for legacies. At the University of Virginia,
where native Virginians make up two-thirds of each
class, alumni children are automatically treated as
Virginians even if they live out of state—giving them
a whopping competitive edge. The same is true of
the University of California at Berkeley. At many
schools, Harvard included, all legacy applications
are guaranteed a read by the dean of admissions him-
self—a privilege nonlegacies don’t get.
LITTLE WHITE ELIS
Like the Harvard deans, offi cials at other universities
dismiss the statistical disparities by pointing to the
superior environmental infl uences found in the homes
of their alums. “I bet that, statistically, [legacy quali-
fi cations are] a little above average, but not by much,”
says Paul Killebrew, associate director of admissions
at Dartmouth. “The admitted group [of legacies]
would look exactly like the profi le of the class.”
James Wickenden, a former dean of admissions at
Princeton who now runs a college consulting fi rm,
exams, but suddenly Jewish kids were outscoring
the WASPs. So the schools began to use nonaca-
demic criteria—“character,” “solidity,” and, even-
tually, lineage—to justify accepting low-scoring
blue bloods over their peers. Yale implemented its
legacy preference fi rst, in 1925—spelling it out in a
memo four years later: The school would admit
“Yale sons of good character and reasonably good
record . . . regardless of the number of applicants
and the superiority of outside competitors.” Har-
vard and Princeton followed shortly thereafter.
Despite its ignoble origins, the legacy preference
has only sporadically come under fi re, most notably
in 1978’s affi rmative action decision, University of
California Board of Regents v . Bakke. In his concur-
rence, Justice Harris Blackmun observed, “It is
somewhat ironic to have us so deeply disturbed over
a program where race is an element of conscious-
ness, and yet to be aware of the fact, as we are, that
institutions of higher learning . . . have given con-
ceded preferences to the children of alumni.”
If people are, in fact, aware of the legacy prefer-
ence, why has it been spared the scrutiny given other
preferential policies? One reason is public ignorance
of the scope and scale of those preferences—an ig-
norance carefully cultivated by America’s elite insti-
tutions. It’s easy to maintain the fi ction that your
legacies get in strictly on merit as long as your ad-
missions bureaucracy controls all access to student
data. Information on Harvard’s legacies became
publicly available not because of any fi t of disclosure
by the university, but because a few civil rights types
noted that the school had a suspiciously low rate of
admission for Asian-Americans, who are statisti-
cally stronger than other racial groups in academics.
While the ensuing OCR inquiry found no evi-
dence of illegal racial discrimination by Harvard, it
did turn up some embarrassing information about
how much weight the “legacy” label gives an other-
wise fl imsy fi le. Take these comments scrawled by
admissions offi cers on applicant folders:
• “Double lineage who chose the right parents.”
• “Dad’s [deleted] connections signify lineage of
more than usual weight. That counted into the
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310 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
each class on the assumption that, hey, their parents
might give us money, Fitzsimmons’s defense
doesn’t quite ring true. The “Save the Scholarship
Fund” line is a variation on the principle of “Fire-
men First,” whereby bureaucrats threatened with a
budget cut insist that essential programs rather than
executive perks and junkets will be the fi rst to be
slashed. Truth be told, there is just about nothing
that Harvard, the richest university in the world,
could do to jeopardize needs-blind admissions, pro-
vided that it placed a high enough priority on them.
But even more unclear is how closely alumni
giving is related to the acceptance of alumni kids.
“People whose children are denied admission are
initially upset,” says Wickenden, “and maybe for a
year or two their interest in the university wanes.
But typically they come back around when they
see that what happened was best for the kids.”
Wickenden has put his money where his mouth is:
He rejected two sons of a Princeton trustee in-
volved in a $420 million fundraising project, not to
mention the child of a board member who man-
aged the school’s $2 billion endowment, all with
no apparent ill effect.
Most university administrators would be loath
to take such a chance, despite a surprising lack
of  evidence of the legacy/largess connection.
Fitzsimmons admits Harvard knows of no empiri-
cal research to support the claim that diminishing
legacies would decrease alumni contributions,
relying instead on “hundreds, perhaps thousands
of conversations with alumni whose sons and
daughters applied.”
No doubt some of Fitzsimmons’s anxiety is
founded: It’s only natural for alumni to want their
kids to have the same privileges they did. But the
historical record suggests that alumni are far more
tolerant than administrators realize. Admit women
and blacks? Well , we would, said administrators ear-
lier this century— but the alumni just won’t have it.
Fortunately for American universities, the bulk of
those alumni turned out to be less craven than ad-
ministrators thought they’d be. As more blacks and
women enrolled over the past two decades, the funds
kept pouring in, reaching an all-time high in the
eighties.
suspects otherwise. Wickenden wrote of “one Ivy
League university” where the average combined
SAT score of the freshman class was 1,350 out of a
possible 1,600, compared to 1,280 for legacies. “At
most selective schools, [legacy status] doubles, even
trebles the chances of admission,” he says. Many col-
leges even place admitted legacies in a special “Not
in Profi le” fi le (along with recruited athletes and
some minority students), so that when the school’s
SAT scores are published, alumni kids won’t pull
down the average.
How do those kids fare once they’re enrolled?
No one’s telling. Harvard, for one, refuses to keep
any records of how alumni children stack up
academically against their nonlegacy classmates—
perhaps because the last such study, in 1956,
showed Harvard sons hogging the bottom of the
grade curve.
If the test scores of admitted legacies are a
mystery, the reason colleges accept so many is not.
They’re afraid the alumni parents of rejected
children will stop giving to the colleges’ unending
fundraising campaigns. “Our survival as an
institution depends on having support from alumni,”
says Richard Steele, director of undergraduate
admissions at Duke University, “so according
advantages to alumni kids is just a given.”
In fact, the OCR exonerated Harvard’s legacy
preference precisely because legacies bring in
money. (OCR cited a federal district court ruling that
a state university could favor the children of out-of-
state alumni because “defendants showed that the
alumni provide monetary support for the univer-
sity.”) And there’s no question that alumni provide
signifi cant support to Harvard: Last year, they raised
$20 million for the scholarship fund alone.
In a letter to OCR defending his legacies,
Harvard’s Fitzsimmons painted a grim picture of a
school where the preference did not exist—a place
peeved alumni turned their backs on when their
kids failed to make the cut. “Without the fundrais-
ing activities of alumni,” Fitzsimmons warned
darkly, “Harvard could not maintain many of its
programs, including needs-blind admissions.”
Ignoring, for the moment, the question of how
“needs-blind” a system is that admits one-fi fth of
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READING 32: Why Are Droves of Unqualifi ed, Unprepared Kids Getting into Our Top Colleges? 311
What’s most surprising is the indifference of mi-
nority activists. With the notable exception of a few
vocal Asian-Americans, most have made peace
with the preference for well-off whites.
Mecca Nelson, the president of Harvard’s Black
Students Association, leads rallies for the hiring of
more minority faculty. She participated in an illegal
sit-in at an administration building in support of
Afro-American studies. But when it comes to the
policy that Asian-American activist Arthur Hu calls
“a 20-percent-white quota,” Nelson says, “I don’t
have any really strong opinions about it. I’m not
very clear on the whole legacy issue at all.”
Joshua Li, former co-chair of Harvard’s Asian-
American Association, explains his complacency
differently: “We understand that in the future
Asian-American students will receive these tips
as well.”
At America’s elite universities, you’d expect a
somewhat higher standard of fairness than that—
especially when money is the driving force be-
hind the concept. And many Ivy League types do
advocate for more just and lofty ideals. One of
them, as it happens, is Derek Bok. In one of Har-
vard’s annual reports, he warned that the modern
university is slowly turning from a truth-seeking
enterprise into a money-grubbing corporation—
at the expense of the loyalty of its alums. “Such
an institution may still evoke pride and respect
because of its intellectual achievements,” he said
rightly. “But the feelings it engenders will not be
quite the same as those produced by an institution
that is prepared to forgo income, if need be, to
preserve values of a nobler kind.”
Forgo income to preserve values of a nobler
kind —it’s an excellent idea. Embrace the prefer-
ences for the poor and disadvantaged. Wean alumni
from the idea of the legacy edge. And above all, stop
the hypocrisy that begrudges the great unwashed a
place at Harvard while happily making room for the
less qualifi ed sons and daughters of alums.
After 70 years, it won’t be easy to wrest the leg-
acy preference away from the alums. But the
long-term payoff is as much a matter of message as
money. When the sons and daughters of today’s
college kids fi ll out their applications, the legacy
Another signifi cant historical lesson can be drawn
from the late fi fties, when Harvard’s selectiveness in-
creased dramatically. As the number of applications
soared, the rate of admission for legacies began de-
clining from about 90 percent to its current 43  percent.
Administration anxiety rose inversely, but Harvard’s
fundraising machine has somehow survived. That
doesn’t mean there’s no correlation between alumni
giving and the legacy preference, obviously; rather, it
means that the people who would withhold their
money at the loss of the legacy privilege were far
outnumbered by other givers. “It takes time to get the
message out,” explains Fitzsimmons, “but eventually
people start responding. We’ve had to make the case
[for democratization] to alumni, and I think that they
generally feel good about that.”
HEIR CUT
When justice dictates that ordinary kids should
have as fair a shot as the children of America’s elite,
couldn’t Harvard and its sister institutions trouble
themselves to “get the message out” again? Of
course they could. But virtually no one—liberal or
conservative—is pushing them to do so.
“There must be no goals or quotas for any spe-
cial group or category of applicants,” reads an ad-
vertisement in the right-wing Dartmouth Review.
“Equal opportunity must be the guiding policy.
Males, females, blacks, whites, Native Americans,
Hispanics . . . can all be given equal chance to ma-
triculate, survive, and prosper based solely on indi-
vidual performance.”
Noble sentiments from the Ernest Martin Hopkins
Institute, an organization of conservative Dartmouth
alumni. Reading on, though, we fi nd these “concerned
alumni” aren’t sacrifi cing their young to the cause.
“Alumni sons and daughters,” notes the ad further
down, “should receive some special consideration.”
Similarly, Harvard’s conservative Salient has
twice in recent years decried the treatment of
Asian-Americans in admissions, but it attributes
their misfortune to favoritism for blacks and His-
panics. What about legacy university favoritism—a
much bigger factor? Salient writers have twice
endorsed it.
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312 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
P E R S O N A L A C C O U N T
That Moment of Visibility
I never realized how much my working-class back-
ground and beliefs played a role in my education. My
family, friends, and neighbors never placed much im-
portance on college. Instead, we were strongly encour-
aged to find work immediately after high school so
we could support ourselves financially. My sisters and I
were encouraged to do secretarial work until we mar-
ried. There was no particular positive status attached to
obtaining a degree except maybe the chance of making
a lot of money. In fact, friends who went to college were
looked at somewhat suspiciously. Among my reference
group, college was often seen as a way to get out of
having to work.
No one in my family had ever gone to college. It was
not financially feasible and a college environment was
equal to the unknown. It really was scary terrain. When I
decided to go to a local community college after having
worked for five years in a secretarial position, family and
friends could not understand my decision. Why would I
choose college when I already had a job? I could pay
bills, buy what I needed, and I had a savings account. So
I started by taking a course a semester—and I barely got
through the first course. Although I received a good
grade, I felt incredibly isolated, like I was an impostor
who did not belong in a classroom. I had no idea how
someone in college was supposed to act. I stayed silent,
scared, and consciously invisible most of the time. I was
not even close to making a commitment to a college edu-
cation when I signed up for a second course—but be-
cause my job paid for it (one of the benefits), I felt I had
nothing to lose. I signed up for Introduction to Juvenile
Delinquency and midway through, our class received an
assignment to do a fifteen-page self-analysis applying
some of the theories we were learning. The thought of
consciously revealing myself when I was trying so hard
not to look, act, or be different was not something I was
willing (or, I think, able at the time) to do. When I dis-
cussed the assignment with the people close to me, they
agreed that the assignment was too personal and reveal-
ing. I decided not to do it and I also decided that college
was probably not for me.
I went to see my professor (who was the only woman
in her department) to let her know that I was refusing to
do the assignment and would not complete the course.
We had spoken two or three times outside of class and
she knew a little about me. I knew that she was also from
a working-class background and had returned to school
after working some years. I felt the least I could do was
tell her I was quitting the class. When I said  that I was
unwilling to do the assignment, she stared at me for
some time, and then asked me what I would prefer to
write about. I was stunned that I was noticed and was
being asked what I would like to do. When I had no reply,
she asked if I would write a paper on the importance of
dissent. All I could think to say was yes. I completed the
course successfully and found an ally in my department.
I can’t overstate the importance of that moment of ac-
knowledgment. It was the first time I felt listened to. It was
the moment when you feel safe enough to reveal who
you are, the deep breath you can finally take when you
figure out that the person you’re talking to understands,
appreciates, and may even share your identity.
I think of this experience as a turning point for me—
when I realized that despite all my conscious efforts to be
invisible and to “pass,” it was that moment of visibility and
acknowledgment that kept me in school.
Rose B. Pascarell
preference should seem not a birthright, but a long-
gone relic from the Ivy League’s inequitable past.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Do you think legacy preferences are unfair?
Why or why not? How do you think they com-
pare to minority preferences?
2. John Larew, then editor of the Harvard Crimson,
was the fi rst to bring the subject of legacy pref-
erence to national attention. Since then, these
preferences have received a good deal of media
attention. Do you think that legacy admissions
are now stigmatized admissions like affi rmative
action admissions?
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READING 33: The Myth of the “Culture of Poverty” 313
R E A D I N G 3 3
The Myth of the “Culture
of Poverty”
Paul Gorski
As the students fi le out of Janet’s classroom, I sit
in the back corner, scribbling a few fi nal notes.
Defeat in her eyes, Janet drops into a seat next to
me with a sigh.
“I love these kids,” she declares, as if trying
to convince me. “I adore them. But my hope is
fading.”
“Why’s that?” I ask, stuffi ng my notes into a
folder.
“They’re smart. I know they’re smart, but . . .”
And then the defi cit fl oodgates open: “They
don’t care about school. They’re unmotivated. And
their parents—I’m lucky if two or three of them
show up for conferences. No wonder the kids are
unprepared to learn.”
At Janet’s invitation, I spent dozens of hours in her
classroom, meeting her students, observing her teach-
ing, helping her navigate the complexities of an urban
midwestern elementary classroom with a growing
percentage of students in poverty. I observed power-
ful moments of teaching and learning, caring and
support. And I witnessed moments of internal confl ict
in Janet, when what she wanted to believe about her
students collided with her prejudices.
Like most educators, Janet is determined to cre-
ate an environment in which each student reaches
his or her full potential. And like many of us, de-
spite overfl owing with good intentions, Janet has
bought into the most common and dangerous myths
about poverty.
Chief among these is the “culture of poverty”
myth—the idea that poor people share more or less
monolithic and predictable beliefs, values, and
behaviors. For educators like Janet to be the best
Paul Gorski is a professor of integrative studies at George Mason
University.
teachers they can be for all students, they need to
challenge this myth and reach a deeper understand-
ing of class and poverty.
ROOTS OF THE CULTURE
OF POVERTY CONCEPT
Oscar Lewis coined the term culture of poverty in his
1961 book The Children of Sanchez. Lewis based his
thesis on his ethnographic studies of small Mexican
communities. His studies uncovered approximately
50 attributes shared within these communities: fre-
quent violence, a lack of a sense of history, a neglect
of planning for the future, and so on. Despite study-
ing very small communities, Lewis extrapolated his
fi ndings to suggest a universal culture of poverty.
More than 45 years later, the premise of the culture of
poverty paradigm remains the same: that people in
poverty share a consistent and observable “culture.”
Lewis ignited a debate about the nature of pov-
erty that continues today. But just as important—
especially in the age of data-driven decision
making—he inspired a fl ood of research. Research-
ers around the world tested the culture of poverty
concept empirically (see Billings, 1974; Carman,
1985; Jones & Luo, 1999). Others analyzed the
overall body of evidence regarding the culture of
poverty paradigm (see Abell & Lyon, 1979; Ortiz &
Briggs, 2003; Rodman, 1977).
These studies raise a variety of questions and
come to a variety of conclusions about poverty. But
on this they all agree: There is no such thing as a
culture of poverty. Differences in values and behav-
iors among poor people are just as great as those
between poor and wealthy people.
In actuality, the culture of poverty concept is
constructed from a collection of smaller stereo-
types which, however false, seem to have crept into
mainstream thinking as unquestioned fact. Let’s
look at some examples.
• MYTH: Poor people are unmotivated and have
weak work ethics.
• The Reality: Poor people do not have weaker
work ethics or lower levels of motivation than
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314 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
refer to as Black English Vernacular—are no less
sophisticated than so-called “standard English.”
• MYTH: Poor people tend to abuse drugs and
alcohol.
• The Reality : Poor people are no more likely
than their wealthier counterparts to abuse alco-
hol or drugs. Although drug sales are more visi-
ble in poor neighborhoods, drug use is equally
distributed across poor, middle class, and
wealthy communities (Saxe, Kadushin, Tighe,
Rindskopf, & Beveridge, 2001). Chen, Sheth,
Krejci, and Wallace (2003) found that alcohol
consumption is signifi cantly higher among up-
per middle class white high school students than
among poor black high school students. Their
fi nding supports a history of research showing
that alcohol abuse is far more prevalent among
wealthy people than among poor people (Diala,
Muntaner, & Walrath, 2004; Galea, Ahern,
Tracy, & Vlahov, 2007). In other words, consid-
ering alcohol and illicit drugs together, wealthy
people are more likely than poor people to be
substance abusers.
THE CULTURE OF CLASSISM
The myth of a “culture of poverty” distracts us
from a dangerous culture that does exist—the
culture of classism. This culture continues to
harden in our schools today. It leads the most well
intentioned of us, like my friend Janet, into low
expectations for low-income students. It makes
teachers fear their most powerless pupils. And,
worst of all, it diverts attention from what people
in poverty do have in common: inequitable access
to basic human rights.
The most destructive tool of the culture of clas-
sism is defi cit theory. In education, we often talk
about the defi cit perspective—defi ning students by
their weaknesses rather than their strengths. Defi cit
theory takes this attitude a step further, suggesting
that poor people are poor because of their own
moral and intellectual defi ciencies (Collins, 1988)
Defi cit theorists use two strategies for propagating
this world view: (1) drawing on well-established
wealthier people (Iversen & Farber, 1996; Wil-
son, 1997). Although poor people are often ste-
reotyped as lazy, 83 percent of children from
low-income families have at least one employed
parent; close to 60 percent have at least one par-
ent who works full-time and year-round (Na-
tional Center for Children in Poverty, 2004). In
fact, the severe shortage of living-wage jobs
means that many poor adults must work two,
three, or four jobs. According to the Economic
Policy Institute (2002), poor working adults
spend more hours working each week than their
wealthier counterparts.
• MYTH: Poor parents are uninvolved in their
children’s learning, largely because they do not
value education.
• The Reality : Low-income parents hold the
same attitudes about education that wealthy
parents do (Compton-Lilly, 2003; Lareau &
Horvat, 1999; Leichter, 1978). Low-income
parents are less likely to attend school functions
or volunteer in their children’s classrooms (Na-
tional Center for Education Statistics, 2005)—
not because they care less about education but
because they have less access to school involve-
ment than their wealthier peers. They are more
likely to work multiple jobs, to work evenings,
to have jobs without paid leave, and to be unable
to afford child care and public transportation. It
might be said more accurately that schools that
fail to take these considerations into account do
not value the involvement of poor families as
much as they value the involvement of other
families.
• MYTH: Poor people are linguistically defi cient.
• The Reality : All people, regardless of the lan-
guages and language varieties they speak, use a
full continuum of language registers (Bomer,
Dworin, May, & Semingson, 2008). What’s
more, linguists have known for decades that all
language varieties are highly structured with
complex grammatical rules (Gee, 2004; Hess,
1974; Miller, Cho, & Bracey, 2005). What often
are assumed to be defi cient varieties of English—
Appalachian varieties, perhaps, or what some
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READING 33: The Myth of the “Culture of Poverty” 315
suffer from cockroach or rat infestation, dirty or in-
operative student bathrooms, large numbers of
teacher vacancies and substitute teachers, more
teachers who are not licensed in their subject areas,
insuffi cient or outdated classroom materials, and in-
adequate or nonexistent learning facilities, such as
science labs.
Here in Minnesota, several school districts offer
universal half-day kindergarten but allow those
families that can afford to do so to pay for full-day
services. Our poor students scarcely make it out of
early childhood without paying the price for our
culture of classism. Defi cit theory requires us to
ignore these inequities—or worse, to see them as
normal and justifi ed.
What does this mean? Regardless of how much
students in poverty value education, they must
overcome tremendous inequities to learn. Perhaps
the greatest myth of all is the one that dubs educa-
tion the “great equalizer.” Without considerable
change, it cannot be anything of the sort.
WHAT CAN WE DO?
The socioeconomic opportunity gap can be elimi-
nated only when we stop trying to “fi x” poor stu-
dents and start addressing the ways in which our
schools perpetuate classism. This includes destroy-
ing the inequities listed above as well as abolishing
such practices as tracking and ability grouping, seg-
regational redistricting, and the privatization of pub-
lic schools. We must demand the best possible
education for all students—higher-order pedagogies,
innovative learning materials, and holistic teaching
and learning. But fi rst, we must demand basic
human rights for all people; adequate housing and
health care, living-wage jobs, and so on.
Of course, we ought not tell students who suffer
today that, if they can wait for this education
revolution, everything will fall into place. So as we
prepare ourselves for bigger changes, we must
• Educate ourselves about class and poverty.
• Reject defi cit theory and help students and col-
leagues unlearn misperceptions about poverty.
stereotypes, and (2) ignoring systemic conditions,
such as inequitable access to high-quality school-
ing, that support the cycle of poverty.
The implications of defi cit theory reach far be-
yond individual bias. If we convince ourselves that
poverty results not from gross inequities (in which
we might be complicit) but from poor people’s own
defi ciencies, we are much less likely to support au-
thentic antipoverty policy and programs. Further, if
we believe, however wrongly, that poor people
don’t value education, then we dodge any responsi-
bility to redress the gross education inequities with
which they contend. This application of defi cit
theory establishes the idea of what Gans (1995)
calls the undeserving poor —a segment of our soci-
ety that simply does not deserve a fair shake.
If the goal of defi cit theory is to justify a system
that privileges economically advantaged students at
the expense of working-class and poor students,
then it appears to be working marvelously. In our
determination to “fi x” the mythical culture of poor
students, we ignore the ways in which our society
cheats them out of opportunities that their wealthier
peers take for granted. We ignore the fact that poor
people suffer disproportionately the effects of
nearly every major social ill. They lack access to
health care, living-wage jobs, safe and affordable
housing, clean air and water, and so on (Books,
2004)—conditions that limit their abilities to
achieve to their full potential.
Perhaps most of us, as educators, feel powerless
to address these bigger issues. But the question is
this: Are we willing, at the very least, to tackle the
classism in our own schools and classrooms?
This classism is plentiful and well documented
(Kozol, 1992). For example, compared with their
wealthier peers, poor students are more likely to at-
tend schools that have less funding (Carey, 2005);
lower teacher salaries (Karoly, 2001); more limited
computer and Internet access (Gorski, 2003); larger
class sizes; higher student-to-teacher ratios; a
less-rigorous curriculum; and fewer experienced
teachers (Barton, 2004). The National Commission
on Teaching and America’s Future (2004) also
found that low-income schools were more likely to
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316 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
too often fall to the temptation of the quick fi x, the
easily digestible framework that never requires us
to consider how we comply with the culture of
classism.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Why do you think the culture of poverty myth
has persisted despite research to the contrary?
2. Have you seen the operation of “defi cit theory”
in schools you have attended?
3. Would you agree that ability-tracking perpetu-
ates the culture of classism?
REFERENCES
Abell, T., & Lyon, L. (1979). Do the differences make a
difference? An empirical evaluation of the culture of pov-
erty in the United States. American Anthropologist, 6(3),
602–621.
Barton, P E. (2004). Why does the gap persist? Educational
Leadership, 62(3), 8–13.
Billings, D. (1974). Culture and poverty in Appalachia: A
theoretical discussion and empirical analysis. Social
Forces, 53(2), 315–323.
Bomer, R., Dworin, J. E., May, L, & Semingson, P (2008).
Miseducating teachers about the poor: A critical analysis
of Ruby Payne’s claims about poverty. Teachers College
Record, 110(11). Available: www.tcrecord.org/Print
Conteni.asp?ContentID=14591
Books, S. (2004). Poverty and schooling in the U.S.:
Contexts and consequences. Mahway, NJ: Erlbaum.
Carey, K. (2005). The funding gap 2004: Many states
still  shortchange low-income and minority students.
Washington, DC: Education Trust.
Carmon, N. (1985). Poverty and culture. Sociological
Perspectives, 28(4), 403–418.
Chen, K., Sheth, A., Krejci, J., & Wallace, J. (2003, August).
Understanding differences in alcohol use among high
school students in two different communities. Paper pre-
sented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological
Association, Atlanta, GA.
Collins, J. (1988). Language and class in minority education.
Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 19(4), 299–326.
Compton-Lilly, C. (2003). Reading families: The literate
lives of urban children. New York: Teachers College
Press.
Diala, C. C., Muntaner, C., & Walrath, C. (2004). Gender,
occupational, and socioeconomic correlates of alcohol
and drug abuse among U.S. rural, metropolitan, and urban
• Make school involvement accessible to all
families.
• Follow Janet’s lead, inviting colleagues to ob-
serve our teaching for signs of class bias.
• Continue reaching out to low-income families even
when they appear unresponsive (and without assum-
ing, if they are unresponsive, that we know why).
• Respond when colleagues stereotype poor stu-
dents or parents.
• Never assume that all students have equitable access
to such learning resources as computers and the In-
ternet, and never assign work requiring this access
without providing in-school time to complete it.
• Ensure that learning materials do not stereotype
poor people.
• Fight to keep low-income students from being
assigned unjustly to special education or low aca-
demic tracks.
• Make curriculum relevant to poor students, draw-
ing on and validating their experiences and intel-
ligences.
• Teach about issues related to class and poverty—
including consumer culture, the dissolution of
labor unions, and environmental injustice—and
about movements for class equity.
• Teach about the antipoverty work of Martin
Luther King Jr., Helen Keller, the Black Panthers,
César Chávez, and other U.S. icons—and about
why this dimension of their legacies has been
erased from our national consciousness.
• Fight to ensure that school meal programs offer
healthy options.
• Examine proposed corporate-school partner-
ships, rejecting those that require the adoption of
specifi c curriculums or pedagogies.
Most important, we must consider how our own
class biases affect our interactions with and expec-
tations of our students. And then we must ask our-
selves, where, in reality, does the defi cit lie? Does it
lie in poor people, the most disenfranchised people
among us? Does it lie in the education system
itself—in, as Jonathan Kozol says, the savage
inequalities of our schools? Or does it lie in us—
educators with unquestionably good intentions who
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READING 34: Public Transit 317
Lareau, A., & Horvat, E. (1999). Moments of social inclusion
and exclusion: Race, class, and cultural capital in family-
school relationships. Sociology of Education, 72, 37–53.
Leichter, H. J. (Ed.). (1978). Families and communities as
educators. New York: Teachers College Press.
Lewis, O. (1961). The children of Sanchez: Autobiography
of a Mexican family. New York: Random House.
Miller, P. J., Cho, G. E., & Bracey. J. R. (2005). Working-
class children’s experience through the prism of personal
storytelling. Human Development, 48, 115–135.
National Center for Children in Poverty. (2004). Parental
employment in low-income families. New York: Author.
National Center for Education Statistics. (2005). Parent and
family involvement in education; 2002–03. Washington,
DC: Author.
National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future.
(2004). Fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education:
A two-tiered education system. Washington, DC:
Author.
Ortiz, A. T., & Briggs, L. (2003). The culture of poverty,
crack babies, and welfare cheats: The making of the
“healthy white baby crisis.” Social Text, 21(3), 39–57.
Rodman, R. (1977). Culture of poverty: The rise and fall of
a concept. Sociological Review, 25(4), 867–876.
Saxe, L., Kadushin, C., Tighe, E., Rindskopf, D., &
Beveridge, A. (2001). National evaluation of the fi ghting
back program: General population surveys, 1995–1999.
New York: City University of New York Graduate Center.
Wilson, W. J. (1997). When work disappears. New York:
Random House.
residents. American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse,
30(2), 409–428.
Economic Policy Institute. (2002). The state of working
class America 2002–03. Washington, DC: Author.
Galea, S., Ahem, J., Tracy. M., & Vlahov, D. (2007). Neigh-
borhood income and income distribution and the use of
cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana. American Journal of
Preventive Medicine, 32(6), 195–202.
Gans, H. J. (1995). The war against the poor: The under-
class and antipoverty policy. New York: Basic Books.
Gee, J. P. (2004). Situated language and learning: A critique
of traditional schooling. New York: Routledge.
Gorski, P. C. (2003). Privilege and repression in the digital
era: Rethinking the sociopolitics of the digital divide.
Race, Gender and Class, 10(4), 145–176.
Hess, K. M. (1974). The nonstandard speakers in our
schools: What should be clone? The Elementary School
Journal, 74(5), 280–290.
Iversen, R. R., & Farber, N. (1996). Transmission of family
values, work, and welfare among poor urban black
women. Work and Occupations, 23(4), 437–460.
Jones, R. K., & Luo, Y. (1999). The culture of poverty and
African-American culture: An empirical assessment.
Sociological Perspectives, 42(3), 439–458.
Karoly, L. A. (2001). Investing in the future: Reducing pov-
erty through human capital investments. In S. Danzinger
& R. Haveman (Eds.), Understanding poverty (pp. 314–
356). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Kozol, J. (1992). Savage inequalities: Children in America’s
schools. New York: HarperCollins.
City, even on Christmas Eve. I had taken a cab from
midtown to Riverside Church on the west side of
Manhattan only to fi nd that my information about a
Christmas Eve service there was mistaken. The
church was padlocked, which I only discovered
after getting out of the cab into the forty-mile-
an-hour wind and the twenty-degree weather. I tried
all of the doors of the church and found myself
alone at close to midnight, without a taxi, on
December 24 at 122d Street and Riverside Drive.
I was wearing a wool sports jacket and a heavy
scarf, but no outer jacket. There were no cars on the
street. Being wrong about the service and having
come all the way uptown was more than a little
frustrating. I suspected that I was not in the best
R E A D I N G 3 4
Public Transit
John Hockenberry
New York was not like Iran.
It was a shock to return to the United States in
1990, where it routinely took an act of God to hail
a taxi. There was nothing religious about New York
DISABILITY
John Hockenberry is a journalist and author. He is the author of
Moving Violations: War Zones, Wheelchairs, and Declarations
of Independence.
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318 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
The trouble with this idea was that other people
often did not have the same righteous attitude that I
did about tire puncturing in Manhattan traffi c, and
using knives to get freelance revenge in New York
City under any circumstances. Most of my friends
put me in the same league with subway vigilante
Bernard Goetz, and concluded that I needed serious
help. So I had stopped using the Swiss army knife
and was without it that Christmas Eve on 122nd
and Riverside Drive.
The fi rst cab drove toward me and slowed down;
the driver stared, then quickly drove by. A second
cab approached. I motioned emphatically. I smiled
and tried to look as credible as I could. Out in this
December wind, I was just another invisible parti-
cle of New York misery. The driver of the second
cab shook his head as he passed with the lame,
catch-all apologetic look New York cabbies use to
say, “No way, Mac. Sorry, no way I can take you.”
I had one advantage. At least I was white. Black
males in New York City have to watch at least as
many cabs go by as someone in a wheelchair does
before getting a ride. Black male friends of mine
say they consciously have to rely on their ritzy
trench coats or conservative “Real Job” suits to
counter skin color in catching a cab. If I could look
more white than crippled, I might not freeze
to  death on Christmas Eve. I was a psychotic,
twentieth-century hit man named Tiny Tim, imag-
ining all sorts of gory ways to knock off a cabbie
named Scrooge. The wind was blowing furiously
off the Hudson, right up over Riverside Drive.
A third cab drove by. I wondered if I could force
a cab to stop by blocking the road. I wished I had a
baseball bat. For a period of a few minutes, there
was no traffi c. I turned and began to roll down Riv-
erside. After a block, I turned around, and there was
one more empty cab in the right lane coming to-
ward me. I raised my hand. I was sitting directly
under a streetlight. The cabbie clearly saw me,
abruptly veered left into the turn lane, and sat there,
signaling at the red light.
I rolled over to his cab and knocked on the
window. “Can you take a fare?” The driver was
pretending I had just landed there from space, but
psychological condition to watch the usual half-
dozen or so New York cabs pass me by and pretend
not to see me hailing them. I knew the most impor-
tant thing was to try and not look like a panhandler.
This was always hard. Many times in New York I
had hailed a cab only to have the driver hand me a
dollar. Once I was so shocked that I looked at the
cabbie and said, as though I were correcting his
spelling, “No, I give you the money.”
“You want a ride?” he said. “Really?”
The worst were the taxis that stopped but had
some idea that the wheelchair was going to put it-
self into the trunk. After you hopped into the back-
seat, these drivers would look at you as though you
were trying to pull a fast one, tricking them into
having to get out of their cabs and load something
in the trunk that you had been cleverly hiding.
Some cabbies would say that I should have brought
someone with me to put the chair in, or that it was
too heavy for them to lift. My favorite excuse was
also the most frequent, “Look, buddy, I can’t lift
that chair. I have a bad back.”
“I never heard of anyone who became paralyzed
from lifting wheelchairs,” I’d say. My favorite reply
never helped. If the drivers would actually load the
chair, you could hear them grumbling, throwing it
around to get it to fi t, and smashing the trunk lid
down on it. When we would arrive at our destination,
the driver would throw the chair at me like it was a
chunk of nuclear waste and hop back behind the
wheel. The only thing to do in these situations was to
smile, try not to get into a fi ght, and hope the anger
would subside quickly so you could make it wher-
ever you were going without having a meltdown.
There were some drivers who wouldn’t load the
chair at all. For these people, at one time, I carried
a Swiss army knife. The rule was, if I had to get
back out of a cab because a driver wouldn’t load my
chair, then I would give the driver a reason to get
out of his cab shortly after I was gone. I would use
the small blade of the knife to puncture a rear tire
before the cab drove away, then hail another one. A
few blocks ahead, when the fi rst driver had discov-
ered his diffi culties, he was generally looking in his
trunk for the tire jack when I passed by, waving.
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READING 34: Public Transit 319
hands, who felt no pain and who surfed down a
wave of hatred to settle the score. This soul had
done the arithmetic and chosen the weapons.
I would have to live with the consequences.
I rolled over to the driver’s seat and grabbed the
window next to his face. I could see that he was
absolutely terrifi ed. It made me want to torture him.
I hungered for his fear; I wanted to feel his pre-
sumptions of power and physical superiority in my
hands as he sank up to his neck in my rage, my fi sts
closed around his throat. I attacked his half-open
window. It cracked, and as I hauled my arm back to
fi nish it, I saw large drops of blood on the driver’s
face. I looked at him closely. He was paralyzed
with fear and spattered with blood. There was blood
on his window, as well. A voice inside me screamed,
“I didn’t touch you, motherfucker. You’re not bleed-
ing. Don’t say that I made you bleed. You fucking
bastard. Don’t you dare bleed!”
I rolled back from the cab. It was my own blood
shooting from my thumb. It gushed over the white
leather of my glove: I had busted an artery at the
base of my thumb, but I couldn’t see it because it
was inside the glove. Whatever had sliced my
thumb had gone neatly through the leather fi rst, and
as I rolled down the street I could hear the cabbie
saying behind me, “You’re crazy, man, you’re fuck-
ing crazy.” I rolled underneath a street lamp to get a
closer look. It was my left hand, and it had several
lacerations in addition to the one at the base of my
thumb. It must have been the headlight glass. The
blood continued to gush. Wind blew it off my fi n-
gers in festive red droplets, which landed stiffl y on
the frozen pavement under the street lamp. Merry
Christmas.
Up the street, a police squad car had stopped
next to the cab, which still had its right rear door
jammed open. I coasted farther down the street to
see if I could roll the rest of the way home. With
each push of my hand on the wheel rim of my
chair, blood squirted out of my glove. I could feel
it fi lled with blood inside. The cops pulled up be-
hind me. “Would you like us to arrest that cabbie?
Did he attack you?” All I could think of was the
indignity of being attacked by him. I thought about
I  was freezing and needed a ride, so I tried not to
look disgusted. He nodded with all of the enthusi-
asm of someone with an abscessed tooth. I opened
the door and hopped onto the backseat. I folded the
chair and asked him to open the trunk of his cab.
“Why you want me to do that?” he said.
“Put the chair in the trunk, please.” I was half-
sitting in the cab, my legs still outside. The door
was open and the wheelchair was folded next to the
cab. “No way, man,” he said. “I’m not going to do
that. It’s too damn cold.” I was supposed to under-
stand that I would now simply thank him for his
trouble, get back in my wheelchair, and wait for
another cab. “Just put the chair in the trunk right
now. It’s Christmas Eve, pal. Why don’t you just
pretend to be Santa for fi ve fucking minutes?” His
smile vanished. I had crossed a line by being angry.
But he also looked relieved, as though now he could
refuse me in good conscience. It was all written
clearly on his face. “You’re crazy, man. I don’t have
to do nothing for you.” I looked at him once more
and said, “If you make me get back into this chair,
you are going to be very sorry.” It was a moment of
visceral anger. There was no turning back now. “Go
away, man. It’s too cold.”
I got back into the chair. I placed my backpack
with my wallet in it on the back of my chair for
safekeeping. I grabbed his door and, with all of my
strength, pushed it back on its hinges until I heard a
loud snap. It was now jammed open. I rolled over to
his passenger window, and two insane jabs of my
right fi st shattered it. I rolled around to the front of
the cab, and with my fi st in my white handball
glove took out fi rst one, then the other headlight.
The light I was bathed in from the front of the cab
vanished. The face of the driver could now be seen
clearly, illuminated by the dashboard’s glow.
I could hear myself screaming at him in a voice
that sounded far away. I knew the voice, but the
person it belonged to was an intruder in this place.
He had nothing to do with this particular cabbie and
his stupid, callous insensitivity; rather, he was the
overlord to all such incidents that had come before.
Whenever the gauntlet was dropped, it was this
interior soul, with that screaming voice and those
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320 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
When I arrived, everything stopped. Police offi –
cers are always an object of curiosity, signaling the
arrival of a shooting victim or something more
spectacular. For a Christmas Eve, the gushing ar-
tery at the base of my thumb was spectacular
enough. The men sitting around the emergency
room shook their heads. The overdose patient with
the sunken cocaine eyes staggered over to inspect
the evening’s best carnage. “Where did you get that
wheelchair?” She looked around as though she was
familiar with all of the wheelchairs in this emer-
gency room from previous visits. “It’s my own,” I
replied. “That’s a good idea,” she said. “Why didn’t
I think of that?”
I got nine stitches from a doctor who suggested
politely that whatever my complaint with the taxi
driver, I was one person on the planet who could ill
afford to lose a thumb. The deep laceration was just
a few millimeters from the nerve and was just as
close to the tendon. Severing either one would have
added my thumb to an already ample chorus of
numbness and paralysis. The thought of losing the
use of my thumb was one thing, but what was really
disturbing was the thought of its isolation on my
hand, numb in the wrong zone. Trapped on a func-
tional hand, a numb and paralyzed thumb would
have no way of communicating with my numb and
paralyzed feet. It would be not only paralyzed, it
would be in exile: an invader behind enemy lines,
stuck across the checkpoint on my chest.
Today, there is a one-inch scar that traces a half
circle just to the left of my knuckle. The gloves
were a total loss, but they no doubt saved my thumb.
Nothing could save my pride, but pride is not al-
ways salvageable in New York City. I have taken
thousands of cabs, and in each case the business of
loading and unloading delivers some small verdict
on human nature. Often it is a verdict I am in no
mood to hear, as was the case on that Christmas
Eve. At other times, the experience is eerie and sub-
lime. At the very least, there is the possibility that I
will make a connection with a person, not just stare
at the back of an anonymous head.
In my life, cabbies distinguish themselves by
being either very rude and unhelpful or sympathetic
screaming, “That piece of human garbage attacked
me? No way. Maybe it was me who attacked him
as a public service. Did you donut eaters ever think
of that? I could have killed the bastard. I was trying
to kill him, in fact. I insist that you arrest me for
attempted murder right now, or I will sue the
NYPD under the Americans with Disabilities Act.”
I thought better of this speech. Intense pain had
returned my mind to practical matters. Spending
the night in jail for assaulting a cabbie after brag-
ging about it while bleeding to death seemed like a
poor way to cap off an already less than stellar
Christmas Eve.
“Everything’s fi ne, offi cer. I’ll just get another
taxi.” I continued to roll one-handed and dripping
down Riverside Drive. The cops went back to talk
to the cabbie, who was screaming now. I began to
worry that he was going to have me arrested, but the
cops drove back again. Once more, the offi cer
asked if I wanted to fi le a complaint against the cab-
bie. As more blood dripped off my formerly white
glove, the offi cers suggested that I go to the hospi-
tal. They had fi gured out what had happened. As I
started to explain, they told me to get in the squad
car. “Let’s just say it was an unfortunate accident,”
one offi cer said. “I don’t think he’ll ever stop for
someone in a wheelchair again. If we can get you to
the emergency room in time, maybe you won’t lose
your thumb.”
I got in the backseat while the cops put the chair
in the trunk. Seven blocks away was the emergency
room of St. Luke’s Hospital. Christmas Eve ser-
vices at St. Luke’s included treatment of a young
woman’s mild overdose. An elderly man and his
worried-looking wife were in a corner of the treat-
ment room. His scared face looked out from be-
neath a green plastic oxygen mask. A number of
men stood around watching CNN on the waiting-
room television. A woman had been brought in
with fairly suspicious-looking bruises on her face
and arms. One arm was broken and being set in a
cast. She sat quietly while two men talked about
football in loud voices. The forlorn Christmas dec-
orations added to the hopelessness of this little
band of unfortunates in the emergency room.
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READING 34: Public Transit 321
light. He said he knew many boys with no legs who
could use such a chair. There were no good wheel-
chairs in Afghanistan.
“Afghanistan, you know about the war in
Afghanistan?” he asked.
I said I knew about it. He said he wasn’t talking
about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the
American efforts to see that the Soviets were de-
feated. He said that the war was really a religious
war. “It is the war for Islam.” On a lark, in my bro-
ken, rudimentary Arabic, I asked him where he was
from. He turned around abruptly and asked, “Where
did you learn Arabic?” I told him that I had learned
it from living in the Middle East. I apologized for
speaking so poorly. He laughed and said that my
accent was good, but that non-Muslims in America
don’t speak Arabic unless they are spies. “Only the
Zionists really know how to speak,” he said, his
voice spitting with hatred.
I thanked him for picking me up. He removed
my chair from his trunk, and as I hopped back into
it I explained to him that it was diffi cult sometimes
to get a cab in New York. He said that being in
America was like being in a war where there are
only weapons, no people. “In Islam,” he said, “the
people are the weapons.”
“Why are you here?” I asked him.
“I have kids, family.” He smiled once, and the
freckles wrinkled on his nose and face, making
him look like Tom Sawyer in a Muslim prayer cap.
The scowl returned as he drove away. He turned up
the cassette. The Arabic voice was still audible a
block away.
The second time I saw him, I remembered him
and he remembered me. He had no cassettes this
time. There were no books in the car, and there was
plenty of room in the trunk for my chair this time.
Where were all of the books? He said he had
fi nished studying. I asked him about peace in
Afghanistan and the fact that Iran and Iraq were no
longer at war. He said something about Saddam
Hussein I didn’t catch, and then he laughed. He
seemed less nervous but still had the good-natured
intensity I remembered from before. “Are you from
Iran?” I asked him, and this time he answered.
and righteous. Mahmoud Abu Holima was one of
the latter. It was his freckles I remembered, along
with his schoolboy nose and reddish-blond hair,
which made his Islamic tirades more memorable.
He was not swarthy like other Middle Eastern cab-
bies. He had a squeaky, raspy voice. He drove like
a power tool carving Styrofoam. He used his horn a
lot. He made constant references to the idiots he
said were all around him.
He was like a lot of other New York cabbies. But
out of a sea of midtown yellow, Mahmoud Abu
Holima was the one who stopped one afternoon in
1990, and by stopping for me he wanted to make it
clear to everyone that he was not stopping for any-
one else, especially the people in expensive- looking
suits waiting on the same street corner I was. His
decision to pick me up was part of some protest
Mahmoud delivered to America every day he drove
the streets of Manhattan.
His cab seemed to have little to do with trans-
porting people from place to place. It was more like
an Islamic institute on wheels. A voice in Arabic
blared from his cassette player. His front seat was
piled with books in Arabic and more cassettes.
Some of the books were dog-eared Korans. There
were many uniformly bound blue and green books
open, marked, and stacked in cross-referenced
chaos, the arcane and passionate academic studies
of a Muslim cabbie studying hard to get ahead and
lose his day job, interrupting his studies in midsen-
tence to pick up a man in a wheelchair.
I took two rides with him. The fi rst time I was
going somewhere uptown on Third Avenue. Four
cabs had passed me by. He stopped. He put the
chair in the trunk and, to make more space there,
brought stacks of Arabic books from the trunk into
the front seat. He wore a large, knit, dirty-white
skullcap and was in constant motion. He seemed
lost in the ideas he had been reading about before I
got in. At traffi c lights, he would read. As he drove,
he continually turned away from the windshield to
make eye contact with me. His voice careened from
conversation to lecture, like his driving. He ignored
what was going on around him on the street. He
told me he thought my wheelchair was unusually
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322 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
the rapid transit trains in Chicago. Pumping my
arms up the incline of the bridge toward Manhattan
and then coasting down the other side in 1990,
I  imagined that I would be able physically to
accomplish everything I had theorized about the
subway in Chicago in those fi rst days of being a
paraplegic back in 1976. In the Middle East, I had
climbed many stairways and hauled myself and
the  chair across many fi lthy fl oors on my way to
interviews, apartments, and news conferences.
I  had also lost my fear of humiliation from living
and working there. I was even intrigued with the
idea of taking the train during the peak of rush hour
when the greatest number of people of all kinds
would be underground with me.
I would do it just the way I had told Donna back
in the rehab hospital. But this time, I would wire
myself with a microphone and a miniature cassette
machine to record everything that happened along
the way. Testing my own theory might make a good
commentary for an upcoming National Public
Radio program about inaccessibility. Between the
Carroll Street station and city hall, there were stairs
leading in and out of the stations as well as to
transfer from one line to another inside the larger
stations. To get to Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall, I had
to make two transfers, from the F to the A, then
from the A to the 5, a total of nearly 150 stairs.
I rolled up to the Brooklyn Carroll Street stop on
the F train carrying a rope and a backpack and
wired for sound. Like most of the other people on
the train that morning I was on my way to work.
Taking the subway was how most people crossed
the East River, but it would have been hard to come
up with a less practical way, short of swimming, for
a paraplegic to cover the same distance. Fortu-
nately, I had the entire morning to kill. I was confi –
dent that I had the strength for it, and unless I ended
up on the tracks, I felt sure that I could get out of
any predicament I found myself in, but I was pre-
pared for things to be more complicated. As usual,
trouble would make the story more interesting.
The Carroll Street subway station has two stair-
cases. One leads to the token booth, where the fare
is paid by the turnstiles at the track entrance, the
other one goes directly down to the tracks. Near the
He  told me he was from Egypt. He asked me if
I  knew about the war in Egypt, and I told him
I didn’t.
Before he dropped me off, he said that he wanted
me to know when we would lose the war against
Islam. He said that we won’t know when we have
lost. “Americans never say anything that’s impor-
tant.” He looked out the window. His face did not
express hatred as much as disappointment. He
shook his head. “It is quiet now.”
He ran a red light and parked squarely in the
middle of an intersection, stopping traffi c to let me
out. Cars honked and people yelled as I got into the
wheelchair. He scowled at them and laughed. I
laughed too. I think I said to him, “ Salaam, ” the
Arabic word for peace and good-bye. He said
something that sounded like “ Mish Salaam fi
Amerika, ” no peace in America. Then he said,
“ Sa ’ at.” In Arabic, it means diffi cult. He got into
his cab, smiled, and drove away. On February 26,
1993, cabbie, student of Islam, and family man
Mahmoud Abu Holima, along with several others,
planted a bomb that blew up in the World Trade
Center. Today, he is serving a life sentence in a New
York prison. . . .
When I returned to New York City from the
Middle East in 1990, I lived in Brooklyn, just two
blocks from the Carroll Street subway stop on the
F train. It was not accessible, and as there appeared
to be no plans to make it so, I didn’t think much
about the station. When I wanted to go into
Manhattan, I would take a taxi, or I would roll
up  Court Street to the walkway entrance to the
Brooklyn Bridge and fl y into the city on a ribbon
of oak planks suspended from the bridge’s webs of
cable that appeared from my wheelchair to be
woven into the sky itself. Looking down, I could
see the East River through my wheelchair’s spokes.
Looking up, I saw the clouds through the spokes of
the bridge. It was always an uncommon moment of
physical integrity with the city, which ended when
I came to rest at the traffi c light on Chambers
Street, next to city hall.
It was while rolling across the bridge one
day  that I remembered my promise to Donna, my
physical therapist, about how I would one day ride
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READING 34: Public Transit 323
I got down on the fl oor again, and began lower-
ing the chair. I realized that getting the chair back
up again was not going to be as simple as this low-
ering maneuver. Most of my old theory about riding
the trains in Chicago had pertained to getting up to
the tracks, because the Chicago trains are elevated.
Down was going well, as I expected, but up might
be more diffi cult.
Around me walked the stream of oblivious com-
muters. Underneath their feet, the paper cups and
straws and various other bits of refuse they dropped
were too soiled by black subway fi lth to be recog-
nizable as having any connection at all to their
world above. Down on the subway fl oor, they
seemed evil, straws that could only have hung from
diseased lips, plastic spoons that could never have
carried anything edible. Horrid puddles of liquid
were swirled with chemical colors, sinister black
mirrors in which the bottoms of briefcases sailed
safely overhead like rectangular airships. I was
freshly showered, with clean white gloves and
black jeans, but in the refl ection of one of these
puddles, I too looked as foul and discarded as the
soda straws and crack vials. I looked up at the peo-
ple walking by, stepping around me, or watching
me with their peripheral vision. By virtue of the
fact that my body and clothes were in contact with
places they feared to touch, they saw and feared me
much as they might fear sudden assault by a mug-
ger. I was just like the refuse, irretrievable, present
only as a creature dwelling on the rusty edge of a
dark drain. By stepping around me as I slid, two
steps at a time, down toward the tracks, they created
a quarantined space, just for me, where even the air
seemed depraved.
I rolled to the platform to wait for the train with
the other commuters. I could make eye contact
again. Some of the faces betrayed that they had
seen me on the stairs by showing relief that I had
not been stuck there, or worse, living there. The
details they were too afraid to glean back there by
pausing to investigate, they were happy to take as a
happy ending which got them off the hook. They
were curious as long as they didn’t have to act on
what they had learned. As long as they didn’t have
to act, they could stare.
entrance is a newsstand. As I rolled to the top of the
stairs, the man behind the counter watched me
closely and the people standing around the news-
stand stopped talking. I quickly climbed out of my
chair and down onto the top step.
I folded my chair and tied the length of rope
around it, attaching the end to my wrist. I moved
down to the second step and began to lower the
folded chair down the steps to the bottom. It took
just a moment. Then, one at a time, I descended the
fi rst fl ight of stairs with my backpack and seat
cushion in my lap until I reached a foul-smelling
landing below street level. I was on my way. I
looked up. The people at the newsstand who had
been peering sheepishly down at me looked away.
All around me, crowds of commuters with brief-
cases and headphones walked by, stepping around
me without breaking stride. If I had worried about
anything associated with this venture, it was that I
would just be in the way. I was invisible.
I slid across the fl oor to the next fl ight of stairs,
and the commuters arriving at the station now came
upon me suddenly from around a corner. Still, they
expressed no surprise and neatly moved over to
form an orderly lane on the side of the landing op-
posite me as I lowered my chair once again to the
bottom of the stairs where the token booth was.
With an elastic cord around my legs to keep them
together and more easily moved (an innovation
I hadn’t thought of back in rehab), I continued down
the stairs, two steps at a time, and fi nally reached the
chair at the bottom of the steps. I stood it up, unfolded
it, and did a two-armed, from-the-fl oor lift back onto
the seat. My head rose out of the sea of commuter
legs, and I took my place in the subway token line.
“You know, you get half price,” the tinny voice
through the bulletproof glass told me, as though
this were compensation for the slight inconve-
nience of having no ramp or elevator. There, next to
his piles of tokens, the operator had a stack of offi –
cial half-price certifi cates for disabled users. He
seemed thrilled to have a chance to use them. “No,
thanks, the tokens are fi ne.” I bought two and rolled
through the rickety gate next to the turnstiles and to
the head of the next set of stairs. I could hear the
trains rumbling below.
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324 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
that all I had to do was roll to the other side and
catch the inbound train. The subway maps gave
no indication of this, and the commuters I at-
tempted to query on the subject simply ignored
me or seemed not to understand what I was ask-
ing. Another black woman with a large shopping
bag and a brown polka-dotted dress was sitting in
a seat across the car and volunteered that Franklin
Avenue was the station I wanted. “No stairs
there,” she said.
At this point, every white person I had encoun-
tered had ignored me or pretended that I didn’t
exist, while every black person who had come upon
me had offered to help without being asked.
I looked at the tape recorder in my jacket to see if it
was running. It was awfully noisy in the subway,
but if any voices at all were recorded, this radio
program was going to be more about race than it
was going to be about wheelchair accessibility. It
was the fi rst moment that I suspected the two were
deeply related in ways I have had many occasions
to think about since.
At Franklin Avenue I crossed the tracks and
changed direction, feeling for the fi rst time that I
was a part of the vast wave of migration in and out
of the Manhattan that produced the subway, all the
famous bridges, and a major broadcast industry in
traffi c reporting complete with network rivals and
local personalities, who have added words like rub-
bernecking to the language. I rolled across the plat-
form like any other citizen and onto the train with
ease. As we pulled away from the station, I thought
how much it would truly change my life if there
were a way around the stairs, if I could actually
board the subway anywhere without having to be
Sir Edmund Hillary.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. As Hockenberry notes, black men and disabled
people share the inability to get cabs to pick
them up. Why does that experience make them
so angry?
2. Why do people shun interaction with the
disabled?
I had a speech all prepared for the moment any-
one asked if I needed help. I felt a twinge of satis-
faction over having made it to the tracks without
having to give it. My old theory, concocted while
on painkillers in an intensive care unit in
Pennsylvania, had predicted that I would make it.
I  was happy to do it all by myself. Yet I hadn’t
counted on being completely ignored. New York is
such a far cry from the streets of Jerusalem, where
Israelis would come right up to ask how much you
wanted for your wheelchair, and Arabs would insist
on carrying you up a fl ight of stairs whether you
wanted to go or not. . . .
I rolled to the stairs and descended into a corri-
dor crowded with people coming and going. “Are
you all right?” A black woman stopped next to my
chair. She was pushing a stroller with two seats, one
occupied by a little girl, the other empty, presum-
ably for the little boy with her, who was standing
next to a larger boy. They all beamed at me, waiting
for further orders from Mom.
“I’m going down to the A train,” I said. “I think
I’ll be all right, if I don’t get lost.”
“You sure you want to go down there?” She
sounded as if she was warning me about something.
“I know all the elevators from having these kids,”
she said. “They ain’t no elevator on the A train,
young man.” Her kids looked down at me as if to
say, What can you say to that? I told her that I knew
there was no elevator and that I was just seeing how
many stairs there were between Carroll Street and
city hall. “I can tell you, they’s lots of stairs.” As
she said good-bye, her oldest boy looked down at
me as if he understood exactly what I was doing,
and why. “Elevators smell nasty,” he said.
Once on the A train, I discovered at the next stop
that I had chosen the wrong side of the platform and
was going away from Manhattan. If my physical
therapist, Donna, could look in on me at this point
in my trip, she might be more doubtful about my
theory than I was. By taking the wrong train, I had
probably doubled the number of stairs I would have
to climb.
I wondered if I could fi nd a station not too far
out where the platform was between the tracks, so
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READING 35: “Can You See the Rainbow?” 325
not see. Basically they were confused and unable to
cope with the ambiguities of partial sight and were
not prepared to take instruction on the matter from
a mere child. One example of this occurred in the
tiny country primary school that I attended. On
warm, sunny days we had our lessons outdoors
where, because of the strong sunlight, I could not
see to read, write or draw. It was only when the two
teachers realized I was having similar diffi culties
eating my dinner that they began to doubt their in-
terpretation that I was a malingerer. On several oc-
casions I was told off by opticians when I failed to
discriminate between the different lenses they
placed before my eyes. I am not sure whether they
really disbelieved me or whether their professional
pride was hurt when nothing they could offer
seemed to help; whatever it was I rapidly learned to
say “better” or “worse,” even though all the lenses
looked the same.
It was also very diffi cult to tell the adults, when
they had scraped together the money and found the
time to take me to the pantomime or wherever, that
it was a frustrating and boring experience. I had a
strong sense of spoiling other people’s fun, just as
a sober person among a group of drunken friends
may have. As a child, explaining my situation
without appearing disagreeable, sullen and rude
was so problematic that I usually denied my dis-
ability and suffered in silence. All of this taught me
from a very early age that, while the adults were
working themselves up about whether or not I
could see rainbows, my own anxieties must never
be shared.
These anxieties were numerous and centered on
getting lost, being slow, not managing and, above
all, looking stupid and displaying fear. I tried very
hard to be “normal,” to be anonymous and to merge
with the crowd. Beaches were a nightmare; fi nding
my way back from the sea to specifi c people in the
absence of landmarks was almost impossible, yet
giving in to panic was too shameful to contemplate.
Anticipation of diffi culties could cause even greater
anguish than the diffi culties themselves and was
suffi cient to ruin whole days. The prospect of out-
ings with lots of sighted children to unfamiliar
R E A D I N G 3 5
“Can You See the Rainbow?”
The Roots of Denial
Sally French
Some of my earliest memories are of anxious rela-
tives trying to get me to see things. I did not under-
stand why it was so important that I should do so,
but was acutely aware of their intense anxiety if
I  could not. It was aesthetic things like rainbows
that bothered them most. They would position me
with great precision, tilting my head to precisely
the right angle, and then point to the sky saying
“Look, there it is; look, there, there . . . THERE!”
As far as I was concerned there was nothing there,
but if I said as much their anxiety grew even more
intense; they would rearrange my position and the
whole scenario would be repeated.
In the end, despite a near total lack of color
vision and a complete indifference to the rainbow’s
whereabouts, I would say I could see it. In that way
I was able to release the mounting tension and
escape to pursue more interesting tasks. It did not
take long to learn that in order to avert episodes
such as these and to protect the feelings of the
people around me, I had to deny my disability.
The adults would also get very perturbed if ever
I looked “abnormal.” Being told to open my eyes
and straighten my face, when all I was doing was
trying to see, made me feel ugly and separate.
Having adults pretend that I could see more than
I  could, and having to acquiesce in the pretence,
was a theme throughout my childhood.
Adults who were not emotionally involved with
the issue of whether or not I could see also led me
along the path of denial. This was achieved by
their  tendency to disbelieve me and interpret my
behavior as “playing up” when I told them I could
Sally French is a lecturer at the Open University in the United
Kingdom.
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326 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
The sighted adults who looked after us were few in
number with purely custodial roles, and although
they seemed to be in a permanent state of anger,
provided we stayed out of trouble we were basi-
cally ignored. We lived peer-orientated, confi ned
and unchallenging lives where lack of sight rarely
as much as entered our heads.
Although the reality of our disabilities was not
openly denied in this situation, the only thing guar-
anteed to really enthuse the staff was the slightest
glimmer of hope that our sight could be improved.
Contact lenses were an innovation at this time, and
children who had previously been virtually ignored
were nurtured, encouraged and congratulated, as
they learned to cope with them, and were told how
good they looked without their glasses on. After I
had been at the school for about a year, I was se-
lected as one of the guinea pigs for the experimen-
tal “telescopic lenses” which were designed, at
least in part, to preserve our postures (with which
there was obsessive concern) by enabling us to read
and write from a greater distance. For most of us
they did not work.
I remember being photographed wearing the
lenses by an American man whom I perceived to be
very important. First of all he made me knit while
wearing them, with the knitting held right down on
my lap. This was easy as I could in any case knit
without looking. He was unduly excited and enthu-
siastic and told me how much the lenses were help-
ing. I knew he was wrong. Then he asked me to
read, but this changed his mood completely; he be-
came tense, and before taking the photograph he
pushed the book, which was a couple of inches
from my face, quite roughly to my knees. Although
I knew he had cheated and that what he had done
was wrong, I still felt culpable for his displeasure
and aware that I had failed an important test.
We were forced to use equipment like the tele-
scopic lenses even though it did not help, and
sometimes actually made things worse; the behav-
ior of the adults clearly conveyed the message,
“You are not acceptable as you are.” If we dared to
reject the equipment we were reminded of the cost,
and asked to refl ect on the clever and dedicated
places was enough to make me physically ill, and
with a bewildering mix of remorse and relief, I
would stay at home.
Brownie meetings were worrying if any degree
of independent movement was allowed; in the sum-
mer when we left the confi nes and safety of our hut
to play on the nearby common, the other children
would immediately disperse, leaving me alone
among the trees, feeling stupid and frightened and
wondering what to do next. The adults were always
adamant that I should join in, that I should not miss
out on the fun, but how much they or the other chil-
dren noticed my diffi culties I do not know; I was
never teased or blamed for them, they were simply
never discussed, at least not with me. This lack of
communication gave me a powerful unspoken mes-
sage that my disability must be denied.
By denying the reality of my disability I pro-
tected myself from the anxiety, disapproval, frus-
tration and disappointment of the adults in my life.
Like most children I wanted their acceptance, ap-
proval and warmth, and quickly learned that this
could best be gained by colluding with their per-
ceptions of my situation. I denied my disability in
response to their denial, which was often motivated
by a benign attempt to integrate me in a world
which they perceived as fi xed. My denial of disabil-
ity was thus not a psychopathological reaction, but
a sensible and rational response to the peculiar situ-
ation I was in.
Special School
Attending special school at the age of nine was, in
many ways, a great relief. Despite the crocodile
walks,
1
the bells, the long separations from home,
the regimentation and the physical punishment, it
was an enormous joy to be with other partially
sighted children and to be in an environment where
limited sight was simply not an issue. I discovered
that many other children shared my world and,
despite the harshness of institutional life, I felt
relaxed, made lots of friends, became more confi –
dent and thrived socially. For the fi rst time in my
life I was a standard product and it felt very good.
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cannot cope with them. I am reminded of a friend
who, at the age of six or seven, was repeatedly
promised expensive toys and new dresses provided
she did not cry when taken back to school; we knew
exactly how we must behave. Protecting the feel-
ings of the adults we cared about became an ardu-
ous responsibility which we exercised with care.
Bravery and stoicism were demanded by the in-
stitution too; any outward expression of sadness
was not merely ridiculed and scorned, it was simply
not allowed. Any hint of dejection led to stern
reminders that, unlike most children, we were
highly privileged to be living in such a splendid
house with such fantastic grounds—an honor which
was clearly not our due. There was no one to turn to
for comfort or support, and any tears which were
shed were, of necessity, silent and private. In con-
trast to this, the institution, normally so indifferent
to life outside its gates, was peculiarly concerned
about our parents’ states of mind. Our letters were
meticulously censored to remove any trace of de-
spondency and the initial letter of each term had a
compulsory fi rst sentence: “I have settled down at
school and am well and happy.” Not only were we
compelled to deny our disabilities, but also the
painful feelings associated with the lifestyles forced
upon us because we were disabled.
Such was our isolation at this school that issues
of how to behave in the “normal” world were rarely
addressed, but at the next special school I attended,
which offered a grammar school education and had
an entirely different ethos, much attention was
paid to this. The headmaster, a strong, resolute
pioneer in the education of partially sighted
children, appeared to have a genuine belief not
only that we were as good as everyone else, but
that we were almost certainly better, and he spent
his life tirelessly battling with people who did not
share his view.
He liked us to regard ourselves as sighted and
steered us away from any connection with blind-
ness; for example, although we were free to go out
by ourselves to the nearby town and beyond, the use
of white canes was never suggested although many
of us use them now. He delighted in people who
people who were tirelessly working for the benefi t
of ungrateful creatures like ourselves. No heed was
ever taken of our own suggestions; my requests to
try tinted lenses were always ignored and it was
not until I left school that I discovered how helpful
they would be.
The only other times that lack of sight became
an issue for us at the school were during the rare
and clumsy attempts to integrate us with able-
bodied children. The worst possible activity, net-
ball,
2
was usually chosen for this. These occasions
were invariably embarrassing and humiliating for
all concerned and could lead to desperate maneu-
vers on the part of the adults to deny the reality of
our situation—namely that we had insuffi cient
sight to compete. I am reminded of one netball
match, with the score around 20/nil, during which
we overheard the games mistress
3
of the opposing
team anxiously insisting that they let us get some
goals. It was a mortifying experience to see the ball
fall through the net while they stood idly by. Very
occasionally local Brownies would join us for ac-
tivities in our extensive grounds. We would be
paired off with them for a treasure hunt through the
woods, searching for milk-bottle tops—the speed at
which they found them was really quite amazing.
They seemed to know about us, though, and would
be very kind and point the “treasure” out, and even
let us pick it up ourselves sometimes, but relying on
their bounty spoiled the fun and we wished we
could just talk to them or play a different game.
Whether the choice of these highly visual activi-
ties was a deliberate denial of our disabilities or
simply a lack of imagination on the part of the
adults, I do not know. Certainly we played such
games successfully among ourselves, and as we
were never seen in any other context, perhaps it was
the latter. It was only on rare occasions such as
these that our lack of sight (which had all but been
forgotten) and the artifi ciality of our world became
apparent.
As well as denying the reality of their disabili-
ties, disabled children are frequently forced to deny
painful feelings associated with their experiences
because their parents and other adults simply
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328 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
such as “I’m all right” or “Don’t worry about me”
become almost automatic.
One of the reasons we react in this way, rather
than being assertive about our disabilities, is to
avoid the disapproval, rejection and adverse label-
ing of others, just as we did when we were children.
Our reactions are viewed as resulting from our im-
pairments rather than from the ways we have been
treated. Thus being “up front” about disability and
the needs which emanate from it can easily lead us
to be labeled “awkward,” “selfi sh” or “warped.”
Such labeling is very diffi cult to endure without be-
coming guilty, anxious and depressed; it eats away
at our confi dence, undermining our courage and
leading us to deny our disabilities.
Disbelief remains a common response of able-
bodied people when we attempt to convey the real-
ity of our disabilities. If, for example, I try to
explain my diffi culty in coping with new environ-
ments, the usual response is, “Don’t worry we all
get lost” or “It looks as if you’re doing fi ne to me.”
Or when I try to convey the feelings of isolation
associated with not recognizing people or not
knowing what is going on around me, the usual re-
sponse is “You will in time” or “It took me ages
too.” This type of response renders disabled people
“just like everyone else.” For those of us disabled
from birth or early childhood, where there is no
experience of “normality” with which to compare
our situation, knowing how different we really are
is problematic and it is easy to become confused
and to have our confi dence undermined when oth-
ers insist we are just the same.
An example of denial through disbelief occurred
when I was studying a statistics component as part
of a course in psychology. I could see absolutely
nothing of what was going on in the lectures and
yet my frequent and articulate requests for help
were met with the response that all students panic
about statistics and that everything would work out
fi ne in the end. As it happens it did, but only after
spending many hours with a private tutor. As people
are generally not too concerned about how we
“got  there,” our successes serve to reinforce the
erroneous assumption that we really are “just like
broke new, visually challenging ground, like accep-
tance at art school or reading degrees in mathemat-
ics, and “blind” occupations, like physiotherapy,
were rarely encouraged. In many ways his attitudes
and behavior were refreshing, yet he placed the
onus to achieve and succeed entirely on ourselves;
there was never any suggestion that the world could
adapt, or that our needs could or should be accom-
modated. The underlying message was always the
same: “Be superhuman and deny your disability.”
ADULTHOOD
In adulthood, most of these pressures to deny dis-
ability persist, though they become more subtle and
harder to perceive. If disabled adults manage to
gain control of their lives, which for many is very
diffi cult, these pressures may be easier to resist.
This is because situations which pose diffi culties,
create anxieties or cause boredom can be avoided,
or alternatively adequate assistance can be sought;
many of the situations I was placed in as a child I
now avoid. As adults we are less vulnerable and
less dependent on other people, we can more easily
comprehend our situation, and our adult status
makes the open expression of other people’s disap-
proval, frustration and disbelief less likely. In addi-
tion, disabled adults arouse less emotion and
misplaced optimism than disabled children, which
serves to dilute the insatiable drive of many profes-
sionals to cure or “improve” us. Having said this,
many of the problems experienced by disabled
adults are similar to those experienced by disabled
children.
Disabled adults frequently provoke anxiety and
embarrassment in others simply by their presence.
Although they become very skillful at dealing with
this, it is often achieved at great cost to themselves
by denying their disabilities and needs. It is not un-
usual for disabled people to endure boredom or dis-
tress to safeguard the feelings of others. They may,
for example, sit through lectures without hearing or
seeing rather than embarrass the lecturer, or endure
being carried rather than demanding an accessible
venue. In situations such as these reassuring phrases
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College
At the age of 19, after working for two years,
I started my physiotherapy training at a special seg-
regated college for blind and partially sighted stu-
dents. For the fi rst time in my life my disability
was, at least in part, defi ned as blindness. Although
about half the students were partially sighted, one
of the criteria for entry to the college was the ability
to read and write braille (which I had never used
before) and to type profi ciently, as, regardless of the
clarity of their handwriting, the partially sighted
students were not permitted to write their essays or
examinations by hand, and the blind students were
not permitted to write theirs in braille. No visual
teaching methods were used in the college and, for
those of us with sight, it was no easy matter learn-
ing subjects like anatomy, physiology and biome-
chanics without the use of diagrams.
The institution seemed unable to accept or
respond to the fact that our impairments varied in
severity and gave rise to different types of disabil-
ity. We were taught to use special equipment which
we did not need and were encouraged to “feel”
rather than “peer” because feeling, it was thought,
was aesthetically more pleasing, especially when
dealing with the poor, unsuspecting public. There
was great concern about the way we looked in our
professional roles; white canes were not allowed
inside the hospitals where we practiced clinically,
even by totally blind students, and guide dogs were
completely banned. It appeared that the blind stu-
dents were expected to be superhuman whereas the
partially sighted students were expected to be blind.
Any attempt to defy or challenge these rules was
very fi rmly quashed so, in the interests of “getting
through,” we outwardly denied the reality of our
disabilities and complied.
Employment
Deciding whether or not to deny disability proba-
bly comes most clearly to the fore in adult life
when we attempt to gain employment. Until very
recently it was not uncommon to be told very
bluntly that, in order to be accepted, the job must
everyone else.” When I fi nally passed the examina-
tion, the lecturer concerned informed me, in a jocu-
lar and patronizing way, that my worries had clearly
been unfounded! When people deny our disabilities
they deny who we really are.
This tendency to disbelieve is exacerbated by
the ambiguous nature of impairments such as par-
tial sight. It is very hard for people to grasp that al-
though I appear to manage “normally” in many
situations, I need considerable help in others. The
knowledge of other people’s perceptions of me is
suffi ciently powerful to alter my behavior in ways
which are detrimental to myself; for example, the
knowledge that fellow passengers have seen me use
a white cane to cross the road, can be enough to
deter me from reading a book on the train. A more
common strategy among people with limited sight
is to manage roads unaided, thereby risking life and
limb to avoid being labeled as frauds.
A further reaction, often associated with the be-
lief that we are really no different, is that because
our problems are no greater than anyone else’s we
do not deserve any special treatment or consider-
ation. People who react in this way view us as
whining and ungrateful complainers whenever we
assert ourselves, explain our disabilities, ask that
our needs be met or demand our rights. My most
recent and overt experience of this reaction oc-
curred during a visit to Whitehall to discuss the lack
of transport for disabled people. Every time I men-
tioned a problem which disabled people encounter,
such as not being able to use the underground sys-
tem or the buses, I was told in no uncertain terms
that many other people have transport problems
too; what about old people, poor people, people
who live in remote areas? What was so special
about disabled people, and was not a lot being done
for them anyway? I was the only disabled person
present in this meeting and my confi dence was un-
dermined suffi ciently to affect the quality of my
argument. Reactions such as this can easily give
rise to feelings of insecurity and doubt; it is, of
course, the case that many people do have prob-
lems, but disabled people are among them and can-
not afford to remain passive or to be passed by.
READING 35: “Can You See the Rainbow?” 329
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330 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
else but disability, which, as well as becoming bor-
ing to ourselves, can lead us to be labeled adversely
or viewed solely in terms of problems. Challenging
disabling attitudes and structures, especially as a
lone disabled person, can become frustrating and
exhausting, and in reality it is often easier and (dare
I say) more functional, in the short term at least, to
cope with inadequate conditions rather than fi ght to
improve them. We must beware of tokenistic ges-
tures which do little but put pressure on us.
CONCLUSION
The reasons I have denied the reality of my disabil-
ity can be summarized as follows:
1. To avoid other people’s anxiety and distress.
2. To avoid other people’s disappointment and
frustration.
3. To avoid other people’s disbelief.
4. To avoid other people’s disapproval.
5. To live up to other people’s ideas of “normality.”
6. To avoid spoiling other people’s fun.
7. To collude with other people’s pretences.
I believe that from earliest childhood denial of
disability is totally rational given the situations we
fi nd ourselves in, and that to regard it as a psycho-
pathological reaction is a serious mistake. We deny
our disabilities for social, economic and emotional
survival and we do so at considerable cost to our
sense of self and our identities; it is not something
we do because of fl aws in our individual psyches.
For those of us disabled from birth or early child-
hood, denial of disability has deeply penetrating
and entangled roots; we need support and encour-
agement to make our needs known, but this will
only be achieved within the context of genuine
structural and attitudinal change.
In this paper I have drawn upon my life
experiences and personal reactions to elucidate the
pressures placed upon disabled people to deny
the  reality of their experience of disability. This
approach is limited inasmuch as personal experi-
ences and responses can never be divorced from
the  personality and biography of the person they
be done in exactly the same way as everyone else.
In many ways this was easier to deal with than the
situation now, where “equal opportunity” policies
have simultaneously raised expectations and
pushed negative attitudes underground, and where,
in reality, little has changed. Although I have no
way of proving it, I am convinced that the denial of
my disability has been absolutely fundamental to
my success in gaining the type of employment
I have had. I have never completely denied it (it is
not hidden enough for that) but rather, in response
to the interviewers’ skeptical and probing ques-
tions, I have minimized the diffi culties I face and
portrayed myself in a way which would swell my
headmaster’s pride.
Curiously, once in the job, people have some-
times decided that certain tasks, which I can per-
form quite adequately, are beyond me, while at the
same time refusing to relieve me of those I cannot
do. At one college where I worked it was consid-
ered impossible for me to cope with taking the min-
utes of meetings, but my request to be relieved of
invigilating large numbers of students, on the
grounds that I could not see them, was not acceded
to; once again the nature of my disability was being
defi ned by other people. On the rare occasions I
have been given “special” equipment or consider-
ation at work it has been regarded as a charitable
act or donation for which I should be grateful and
beholden. This behavior signals two distinct mes-
sages: fi rst that I have failed to be “normal” (and
have therefore failed), and second that I must ask
for nothing more.
In these more enlightened days of “equal oppor-
tunities,” we are frequently asked and expected to
educate others at work about our disabilities. “We
know nothing about it, you must teach us” is the
frequent cry. In some ways this is a positive devel-
opment but, on the other hand, it puts great pressure
on us because few formal structures have been de-
veloped in which this educative process can take
place. In the absence of proactive equal opportunity
policies, we are rarely taken seriously and what we
say is usually forgotten or ignored. Educating oth-
ers in this way can also mean that we talk of little
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READING 36: Not Blind Enough 331
sighted might fail to apprehend how borderland
blind people make sense of the physical world;
what is more, they feel tentative about how to treat
borderland blind people or even to trust that those
who claim the identity of legal blindness are, in
fact, blind.
Unlike totally blind people, borderland blind
people are often accused of fraud because they act
too sighted. John Hull (1990, pp. 67–69) describes
this social phenomenon in a journal entry titled,
“You Bastard! You’re Not Blind.” Hull tells of a
passerby repeatedly yelling at him, insisting that he
was not really blind; Hull’s orientation and mobil-
ity skills failed to replicate societal stereotypes of
how blindness presents itself in everyday life.
Borderland blind people are subjected to pres-
sures that totally blind people do not endure; they
are pushed and pulled back and forth across the
border between sightedness and blindness, result-
ing in disallowance of citizenship in both lands,
which leaves them in a state of what Black American
pacifi st civil rights leader, Bayard Rustin, aptly
called “social dislocation” (D’Emilio 2004).
Totally blind people fall into a discrete stereo-
typed classifi cation of blindness as darkness
(Monbeck 1973), which in many ways is com-
forting to sighted people because they do not have
to guess what the blind person can or cannot see.
In an effort to relieve their own dubiety, sighted
people might try to force borderland blind people
to choose one side or the other—usually pushing
them into the socially preferred land of the
sighted—a land in which they experience egre-
gious inequality. Borderland blind people are vul-
nerable to attempted regulation by disquieted but
well-meaning acquaintances, friends and family,
who yearn for their loved one to be “normal”; in
reaction, borderland blind people might inter-
nally regulate their own behaviour or else suc-
cumb to external pressures as they try to “pass”
even during times when they clearly reside on the
blind side of the pale. The dynamics of such inter-
actions press everyone concerned into denial
(French 1993). Participants in this study reported
experiences which echo these phenomena.
concern. In addition these pressures will vary ac-
cording to the individual’s impairment. But with
these limitations in mind, I am confi dent that most
disabled people will identify with what I have de-
scribed and that only the examples are, strictly
speaking, mine.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What are all the ways that French and those
around her conspire to deny that she is dis-
abled?
2. Would those in other stigmatized statuses have
experiences similar to French’s?
NOTES
1. Walking two-by-two in a long fi le.
2. Girls’ basketball.
3. Physical education teacher.
R E A D I N G 3 6
Not Blind Enough: Living in the
Borderland Called Legal
Blindness
Beth Omansky
. . . Human beings are uncomfortable with uncer-
tainty. For instance, when waiting for medical test
results or news about a missing loved one, how
often we hear people say, “It’s the not knowing
that’s so hard.” The human mind, including sight
and vision, seeks to make order out of chaos—to
organise and categorise, and to fi nd comfort in clo-
sure, which relieves the anxieties of uncertainty.
Moreover, in an ocularcentric world, the predomi-
nant method of making sense of the surrounding
environment is sight (Elkins 1996). After all, social
culture informs us that “seeing is believing.” Be-
cause legal blindness is abundantly ambiguous, the
Beth Omansky is a sociologist, author, disability studies scholar,
and community activist.
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332 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
had just attended my master’s degree graduation
ceremony, one of my relatives walked up and took
my cane from my hand. I understood and appreci-
ated his good intentions, but I didn’t like it. I didn’t
say anything because I didn’t want to cause tension
between us or hurt his feelings. Another time I was
getting my picture taken at the Molly Malone statue
in Dublin, Ireland. The man in charge of the statue
looked through his camera to set the pose, and then
reached up in an attempt to remove my cane from
my hand. I was not as surprised as I was at gradua-
tion, so this time I refused to hand it over and got
my picture taken as I am. I guess they both thought
the cane was unsightly, which, come to think of it,
is a pretty telling word.
Stephen Kuusisto’s (1998, p. 13) family left him
with a mixed message that placed him on the fence
of the border, ill-equipped to fi t in on either side;
fi rst, that he was blind, and next, that he “was taught
to disavow it.” He explains the emotional conse-
quences thus, “I grew bent over like the dry tin-
der  grass. I couldn’t stand up proudly, nor could
I retreat” (Kuusisto 1998, p. 13).
Sighted people do not always attempt to place
blind people on the sighted side: a critical factor is
acceptance of their loved one’s blindness. For ex-
ample, Larry’s daughter accepted his blindness
from the outset, and she understands the limita-
tions of an ocularcentric built environment. Every
year, she sends him a new bright yellow parka be-
cause she wants him to be easily seen by motorists.
Soon after Larry told his family that he had be-
come blind, one of his sons offered to act as driver
on a trip across the country—a role Larry tradi-
tionally assumed. His son told him that he would
drive, and Larry still could take photographs of the
Southwest desertscape, just as he had always done
on previous trips.
RESISTANCE AND CHALLENGE
IN EVERYDAY LIFE
Larry, Catherine, J. R. and I have been subjected
to social treatment based on common myths about
blind people, and we each found various ways to
PATROLLING THE BORDER
. . . This subtheme is consistent with Sally French’s
personal account, “Can You See the Rainbow?”
[Reading 35], which receives the most reprint per-
mission requests of her entire body of work (per-
sonal communication, September 2003). . . .
Two of [one of my informant’s] anecdotes are
consistent with French’s reminiscences. Uncom-
fortable with the contradictions of “border” behav-
iour, a companion requested that Larry refrain from
reading the newspaper in restaurants while his
guide dog lay at his side because it would “con-
fuse” sighted restaurant-goers and give them false
impressions of what blindness is. Perhaps she was
afraid observers would disbelieve Larry’s claim of
blindness, and by association, might just refl ect on
her own character. She also urged him to call co-
lours by the names most commonly used by sighted
people despite the fact that he saw them as another
colour. For example, if he sees a building as brown
even though he knows it’s red, he calls it brown, but
she thinks he should call it red because that’s what
it is to sighted people and also, to how he used to
see it. She is more comfortable with him pretending
to see as sighted people do, and as he used to even
though she did not know him before he went blind.
Colours are important to Larry’s profession as an
artist and photographer; so now he encounters a co-
nundrum common to legal blindness. Which is
more valid? An accurate description of what the
borderland blind person sees, or is the sighted pop-
ulation’s naming and interpretation of things more
valid because it is the majority opinion? And if the
latter is accepted as “truth,” does this place border-
land blind people in the position of having to lie
about their own experience to satisfy sighted peo-
ple’s perception of “reality”—of truth? . . .
I, too, have often experienced people placing me
on the sighted (“normal”) side of the border despite
my own choice to stake my claim on the blindness
side. On two separate occasions, sighted people
grabbed my white cane away from me when my
picture was about to be taken. As I posed in front of
a statue of George Mason on the campus where we
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oppression—a strategy used by many authors (e.g.,
Hull 1990; Knipfel 1999; Kudlick 2005; Kuusisto
1998; Michalko 1998, 1999).
Blind People as Public Property
Frequently, acting blind (i.e., using low vision aids
and other blindness skills) elicits invasive, infantil-
ising questions from strangers such as, “Oh my,
what happened to you?” or, “How do you cross the
street by yourself?” or, “Aren’t you afraid?” Some-
times this line of questioning is followed with
something along the lines of, “Oh, you’re just so
brave,” or, “You’re such an inspiration.” Strangers
seem to have no compunction about prying into pri-
vate medical and even fi nancial matters as if they
have a right to know; and if the blind person refuses
to answer, the strangers either redouble their efforts
or turn away as if they were the ones insulted. Larry
manages blindness questions in different ways
depending upon whether they come from strangers,
acquaintances or family. He said:
It’s like they wonder what it is that you see . . . if it’s
like my niece . . . I’ll take more care in analogies and
stuff like that whereas if it’s my brother or my sister-
in-law or one of the guys I’m with, um, I would just
give them a couple of different things.
Larry reports, however, that as for the general
public, he doesn’t “give a shit what they think.” Be
that as it may, he remains aware of how people
might perceive him.
Borderland blind people report that they make
decisions about whether they should disclose their
visual impairment from moment to moment and
situation to situation. Act sighted or fl aunt blind-
ness? Or should they just do what they need to do to
get around without feeling the need to explain
themselves to anyone? Self-disclosure decisions
are aroused by the needs of embodied consequences
of blindness; by awareness of societal attitudes and
predictable consequences of presenting oneself as
blind; and by issues around identity. All these
factors infl uence how blind (and other disabled)
people negotiate a world “from the vantage point of
the atypical” (Linton 1998, p. 6).
challenge these stereotypes. We all used humour
as a strategy to resist and challenge societal
misperceptions about blindness. J. R. believes that
those who use humour are the ones who “survive”
blindness.
For instance, when Larry shook hands with
someone to whom he was introduced, he made a
“lucky guess” that the person was a piano player.
The person making the introduction cried out in
amazement, “Oh, my God! How did you get that?”
Larry then spun a yarn about how his blindness
gave him special hypersensitivity to touch. Larry
laughed as he told me, “So you know I am defi –
nitely just perpetrating a hoax.”
One of J. R.’s anecdotes speaks directly to the
stereotype that blindness means darkness (Mon-
beck, 1973), and it also highlights what it is like to
be both observer and observed. When J. R. goes to
the optician’s offi ce he observes that people notice
that he wears tinted (not dark) glasses, yet he car-
ries a white cane. He jokes, “They think, ‘Oh you
have glasses you’re not blind.’” But then, there is
the presence of the white cane. J. R. suspects the
observers wonder about the optician’s abilities,
thinking, “This is the best they can do?” His anec-
dote illustrates the cognitive dissonance sighted
people experience when they witness the alterity of
legal blindness. But J. R.’s social commentary was
not as funny to me once I connected the dots back
to when I was fi red from my much-needed recep-
tionist job at the optician’s offi ce because, “It
looked bad” for the optical company.
J. R. told about when he was using his white
cane during an outing, and a child asked her mother,
“Why is that man using that white stick?” The
mother explained that he used the cane because he
is blind. As J. R. passed them, he said to the mother,
“Don’t tell her about the 25 bonus points,” which
refers to the old joke about drivers earning “bonus
points” for running over a blind person. He made
his point that he is well aware of “blind” jokes.
None of the participants reported engaging in
self-demeaning humour; instead, they turned the
joke onto society in the form of social observation,
and they all used humour to resist internalised
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334 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
hallway that inevitably houses the rest rooms,
which are more than likely not clearly marked be-
cause the signs are hung high above eye level, writ-
ten in fancy script, or marked with artistically
gender-specifi c designs with no print as clues:
I cannot count on both hands how many times I’ve
walked into the men’s room in restaurants because no
one was around to whom I could ask direction. When
I see a urinal on the wall, I turn around and head off
into the restroom next door, hoping no one saw me
enter or leave.
ASKING FOR HELP
When borderland blind people ask for impairment-
related assistance, they must identify themselves as
blind. It is very diffi cult to pass as sighted and ask
for help reading a street sign six feet above where
you are standing. Identity is a two-way social pro-
cess; people identify themselves and people are
identifi ed by others (Rosenblum & Travis 1996).
Since borderland blind people may not use typical
blindness artifacts (e.g., white cane, dark glasses)
the sighted public may respond to requests for as-
sistance in demeaning, curt or other unhelpful
ways. Sighted people might be more ready to offer
help to someone who is obviously blind; yet they
may feel intruded upon by an unidentifi able border-
land blind person. Catherine said:
Yeh, you have to ask everyone, and it’s like people,
they can be really—brush you off mean. You have to
be really cordial and demure as a blind person.
Larry’s reluctance to ask for help is bound up in
his desire for self-suffi ciency. He said:
. . . to fi nd out that yeah you know damn it I need help
reading this label because I don’t know if it’s apple
juice or apple vinegar . . . So um, there was a time
when I wouldn’t have bought it. That’s, that’s the
thing that can eat at you. You know?
POLICING ONE’S SELF
The traditional medical establishment, indeed, all
of society, teaches disabled people to act like every-
one else if they hope to lead successful lives—they
As illustration, fast-food restaurants almost al-
ways hang their menus high up on walls several
feet behind the service counter. Blind people can-
not read the sign for two reasons; fi rst, their impair-
ment limits their sensory ability to read print from
a distance; and second, the location, position and
font size of the menu is rendered inaccessible be-
cause the restaurant designers falsely assumed their
customers are all sighted. Faced with the barrier of
an inaccessible menu, borderland blind customers
must decide whether to “ask for help” (request ac-
cess), knowing through past experience their re-
quest might evoke pity, disdain, or that they will be
outright shunned. One alternative I adopted in the
past is to memorize what I wish to order and just
order the same thing every time I go to that restau-
rant. Blind people often choose this option to avoid
making themselves vulnerable to stigmatization,
rudeness, public embarrassment or pity, but the
downside is that they surrender gastronomic variety
(Gordon 1996; Linton 1998).
Restaurants can be particularly troublesome for
borderland blind people because the ocularcentric
environment and the embodied experience bump up
against the pressure of social graces. The fancier
the restaurant, the dimmer the lighting most likely
is. People sit across from each other, so the table
width breaches any possibility of eye contact; add
fl ickering candles, an undercurrent of simultane-
ously humming conversations punctuated with loud
laughter, and now the setting becomes a recipe for
social faux pas and other mishaps. Catherine said:
[t]hey just think you’re absolutely stupid. And it’s just
like you can’t get away from that. That’s your embar-
rassment . . . And then it’s all over. It’s all over.
[Laughs] And then you go to the bathroom and cry . . .
breathe . . . panic attack. It’s like, Christ! Why can’t
anything go right? Why couldn’t the mashed potatoes
be over here? Why couldn’t the butter be . . . ?
Finding the bathroom in a dark restaurant is like
running an obstacle course—wending one’s way
through tables, booths, wait staff carrying head-
level trays, feet and handbags in aisles, coats on
chair backs, swinging kitchen doors with wait
staff moving quickly in all directions, and the dark
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Catherine said she has problems with relation-
ships just because of her vision. She can’t pick up
signals such as body language or a “certain look” to
know, for example, if someone is “getting pissed
off.” In concert with Michalko (1999) and Hull
(1990), Catherine can’t identify people approach-
ing her. She has to learn the sound of their walk.
She said, “I have to know them because you can
feel people’s energy in a way.” But, when border-
land blind people use familiar clues to identify
people or things, sighted people disbelieve their
blindness, and then they have to re-assert that, yes,
they really are blind, which is another social pitfall
distinctive to the borderland. The struggle to be be-
lieved can be emotionally draining because such
disbelief assaults their integrity and essential as
well as social identity. Catherine said:
. . . it’s like you’re always having to confi rm “I’m
blind but I’m not too blind.” It’s like back and forth,
and you’re just like constantly pulling at them and
you don’t realize that; and they don’t realize that you
feel like you’re manipulating the crap out of them and
that they’re invalidating you. And they’re invalidating
your blindness. You’re just like, either way I go they
hate me. [Laughs] It’s like you just feel like you’re
hated even though you know yes, no it’s not about you.
Borderland blind people might attempt to pass
or, at the very least, to remain unnoticed, which
keeps things simpler in social situations. Explain-
ing one’s blindness several times a day to several
different strangers gets tiresome, distracting and
boring. Catherine believes sighted people act like
“little anthropologists” trying to fi gure out blind-
ness culture, and “. . . in the process they’re de-
stroying the living hell out of it and objectifying
your blindness, and objectifying you, and, oh.
This is huge .”
Sometimes borderland blind people deny them-
selves use of access equipment such as white canes
or low vision glasses; or they might take unneces-
sary risks such as not asking a passerby what colour
the traffi c light is at an idle intersection—all to
avoid the attention that a “spoiled identity” attracts
(Goffman 1986). Passing is acting, that is, to prac-
tice in a creative, methodical way, how to perform
have to act “normal,” which requires them to “over-
come” their impairments. But as Linton (1998),
Michalko (2002), and others note, people do not
“overcome” as that is impossible; people live with
their impairments. As Linton (1998) observes:
“overcoming” disability [sic] assumes that there is
something inferior about their group membership,
and the responsibility is left on the individual to work
harder to be successful and to triumph over what oth-
erwise would be a tragic life (p. 17).
Another message in the concept of “overcom-
ing” is that the person has gone beyond societal
expectations of what people with impairments can
achieve; the person has overcome the “social stigma
of having a disability” (Linton 1998, p. 17).
I Can See Clearly Now:
Passing as Sighted
“Passing” is an interactional social tool employed
by all people, in one way or another, as they pro-
duce personal identities within (and infl uenced by)
the cultural contexts in which they live. Some blind
people employ premeditated strategies as they at-
tempt to pass as sighted and/or to engage in social
interaction in ways that are understood and unques-
tioned by sighted people. Michalko (1999) and
Hull (1990) describe intricate ways they negotiate
meeting and greeting oncoming people beyond
their fi eld of vision. Michalko (1998) uses eye con-
tact with sighted people. He stays aware not only of
his seeing, but of how and where he directs his eyes
so that sighted people assume he is making direct
eye contact. If he gazes where he needs to in order
to see them, he appears as though he is not looking
at the other person at all. I have central vision loss,
so when I look at a person’s face, they often think I
am looking behind them or looking at their hair in-
stead of into their eyes:
Depending on where I am and who I’m with, I might
try to appear as if I’m making eye contact. Sometimes
I will tell people that even though it appears I’m not
looking at them, I really am, but I have to feel emo-
tionally ready for an onslaught of nosy questions be-
fore I do that.
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336 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
sighted, and the personal costs can be high.
Catherine said that when she self-discloses her
blindness, she feels vulnerable, and she does her
best to resist falling prey to the negative societal
stereotypes that blind people are “fools” (Monbeck
1973). She said:
[Y]ou don’t see it. And so you’re constantly dealing
with these things that come at you and you don’t
know what it is . . . Um, ah, and you know it’s like
having to explain to people. It’s like yeah I might not
see but . . . you cannot pull one over on me.
Sometimes people choose not to disclose their
blindness, which results in exclusion from activi-
ties not because of sighted people leaving them out,
but because they have left themselves out. On the
other hand, they might disclose their impairments
and ask for what they need despite feeling awkward
and running the risk of being treated as different.
Either way, there is a trade-off. . . .
Just because someone asks for what he or she
needs does not guarantee they will get it. J. R.
talked about people who think they know what
blind people are going through, and say something
like, “Oh gee, my brother knew a friend who was,
had a friend who was blind, or something like
that,” and then proceed to give unwanted or the
wrong kind of assistance. Blind people tell stories
about sighted people grabbing them by the arm at
street corners, and then tugging them across the
street even though they had not asked for assis-
tance or even wanted to go across the street in the
fi rst place. One evening, a woman grabbed me as
I made my way through a theatre aisle and literally
pulled me to where she thought I wanted to go
without ever asking if I needed assistance
(Omansky Gordon 2003, p. 224). Apparently, my
white cane drafted her into do-gooder duty. Rod
Michalko (1998) relates a story about someone
pressing a dollar in his hand as he and his dog
guide stood at a traffi c light together. He told the
man he did not need it, and asked him to take it
back. The man insisted Rod take it. So, he did, and
then gave it to a panhandler. . . .
as something they are not—sighted. Larry said that
his need for perfectionism drives how he presents
himself in public:
Yeah, the challenge is greater; therefore the perfection
has to be greater . . . See, if people come up to you and
say, “Gee I didn’t know you were blind.” I say I hit a
home run.
Catherine hesitates to use her blindness as an
excuse even when it is a quite legitimate reason for
a particular behaviour, explaining, “You don’t want
to blame it on you being blind though, that’s the
problem.” She describes her reticence to be judged
by sighted people:
. . . when a lot of things are caused by not seeing you
don’t want to keep saying it over and over again be-
cause people get kind of like, okay, you’re going to
blame everything on that, you know . . . You have to
be really self-suffi cient sounding, even if you’re kind
of leaving out bits of the reason. . . .
I understand Catherine’s reasoning. I think long
and hard before invoking blindness as a reason for
something I did or did not do because I am
concerned that people will think I’m using my
blindness—as Sally French (1993) writes, “playing
up”; they might think I’m a complainer or not
“adjusted.” Multiple identities further confound the
dilemma. For example:
I think people might misconstrue my holding money
close up to my face to read the denominations on
bills, or feel the edges of coins to tell quarters with
their ridged edges apart from smooth-edged pennies
and nickels. I’m concerned that people will think I’m
doing all this because I am Jewish; that is, inviting
them to invoke stereotypes about Jews having an ex-
treme attachment to money. I guess I’d rather be
thought of as a pitiful blind person than a money-
hungry Jew. So, I try to be inconspicuous.
Personal Costs of Passing
or Coming Out
A lot of thought, creativity, time and energy gets
spent carrying out strategies for passing as
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French, Sally, 1993. Can You See the Rainbow? The Roots
of Denial. In John Swain, Vic Finkelstein, Sally French &
Michael Oliver (eds.), Disabling Barriers, Enabling Envi-
ronments. London: Open University Press.
Goffman, Erving, 1986. Stigma: Notes on the Management
of a Spoiled Identity. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Gordon, Beth. 1996. I am Legally Blind. In Rosenblum,
Karen E. & Toni-Michele C. Travis (eds). The Meaning of
Difference: American Constructions of Race, Sex and
Gender, Social Class, and Sexual Orientation. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Hull, John, 1990. Touching the Rock: An Experience of
Blindness. New York: Pantheon Books.
Knipfel, Jim, 1999. Slack Jaw. New York: Penguin Putnam.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Why would people who are legally blind be
reluctant to ask for help?
2. What are the costs and benefi ts of passing as
sighted?
REFERENCES
D’Emilio, John, 2004. Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of
Bayard Rustin . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Elkins, James, 1996. The Object Stares Back. New York:
Simon & Schuster.
P E R S O N A L A C C O U N T
A Time I Didn’t Feel Normal
I was tested for Learning Disabilities (LD) when I was in
third grade and diagnosed with being ADD and LD be-
cause of short-term memory loss and mild dyslexia.
I thought nothing of it because I didn’t really understand
what it meant. All I knew was it got me out of class to go
work with a woman on my schoolwork. However, the next
year I moved from Ohio to Virginia and discovered that I
was different from most of my peers. It got worse when I
got to fifth grade because I still had to leave class twice a
week to go work with the disabilities counselor with two
other kids in my class. I soon realized that people would
actually talk down to me in my class because I wasn’t
really “one of them,” that I wasn’t as smart. The stereo-
type, even at such a young age, about being LD was not
a good one. The other two kids that were in my LD class
were not exactly popular and a little weird. So because I
was with them, I became one of them. I would get made
fun of and stopped really trying in class because if I
messed up people would look at me as though it was
expected that I would do things wrong. It got so bad that
I told my mom I didn’t want to go back to school. I asked
her to home school me so that I wouldn’t have to deal
with the other kids in my class judging me and making
me feel like I was stupid. My mom refused to do it, so I did
the only other thing I could think of: I forced my way out
of the LD program at my school. I don’t know how I got
them to let me out but I felt that it was the only way for me
to be “normal.” I continued to struggle throughout my
school career but I wasn’t treated as differently, I was
more socially accepted.
Today, I don’t have a problem with telling people
about my “disabilities,” but back then I would never have
admitted it. I have grown to the point where my “disabili-
ties” don’t really affect me all that much. I’ve learned to
cope with them and still do well in school. So, I don’t feel
like an idiot, or stupid, or a lesser student because of my
LD anymore. However, back then I would cry because I
thought I wasn’t as smart as everyone else and that there
was something wrong with me that made me different
from everyone else. I felt isolated at times and envied my
friends who were “normal.” My parents did what they
could to help me with my homework and in overcoming
my difficulties, but no one really stuck up for me at school
or seemed to care how I felt, or even notice how upset I
was. I am a better person today because of this though; I
realize how hard it is for people to be treated as though
there is something wrong with them even though there
really isn’t. Judging people for their “disabilities” is wrong
and cruel and people really need to step back and think
about how their actions affect others.
Heather Callender
READING 36: Not Blind Enough 337
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338 SECTION II: Experiencing Difference
Kudlick, Catherine J., 2005. The Blind Man’s Harley: White
Canes and Gender Identity in America. In Signs: Journal of
Women and Culture in Society, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 1589–1606.
Kuusisto, Stephen, 1998. Planet of the Blind: A Memoir.
New York: G. K. Hall.
Linton, Simi, 1998. Claiming Disability: Knowledge and
Identity. New York: New York University Press.
Michalko, Rod, 1998. Mystery of the Eye and the Shadow of
Blindness. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
———, 1999. The Two in One: Walking with Smokie, Walk-
ing with Blindness. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
———, 2002. The Difference That Disability Makes.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Monbeck, Michael, 1973. The Meaning of Blindness: Atti-
tudes Toward Blindness and Blind People. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press.
Omansky Gordon, Beth, 2003. I am Legally Blind. In
Rosenblum, Karen E. & Toni-Michelle C. Travis (eds.),
The Meaning of Difference: American Constructions of
Race, Sex and Gender, Social Class, and Sexual Orienta-
tion. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Rosenblum, Karen E. & Toni-Michelle C. Travis, 1996,
(eds.). The Meaning of Difference: American Construc-
tions of Race, Sex and Gender, Social Class, and Sexual
Orientation. New York: McGraw-Hill.
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339
S E C T I O N I I I
THE MEANING OF
DIFFERENCE
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340 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
FRAMEWORK ESSAY
In the fi rst framework essay we considered how contemporary American master
statuses are named, dichotomized, and stigmatized. In the second essay, we
focused on the experience of privilege and stigma that accompanies those master
statuses. In this third section, we will look at the meaning that is conferred on
difference. In effect, what difference does difference make?
The readings in this section highlight social institutions that have some of the
strongest effects on what difference ultimately means—the economy, education,
public policy, law, popular culture. The concept of ideology gets special attention
here because it both shapes and is shaped by the operation of these social
institutions.
In looking at the interaction of ideology and social institutions, our approach
parallels the metaphor of the “birdcage” developed by philosopher Marilyn Frye
in her now classic discussion of the concept of oppression.
1
Frye suggests that if
we are to understand how categories of people are “pressed” by social forces, we
must attend to the systematic and systemic nature of this “press.” Using the met-
aphor of a birdcage, she argues that oppression cannot be understood by looking
at only one obstacle or “wire”; one must consider the set of wires that together
form the cage. Ideology, economy, education, policy, law, and popular culture
together and in interaction form the “cage” that people confront. Above and
beyond the construction and experience of difference, these social forces give
difference tangible meaning; they make difference matter.
Ideology
The concept of ideology was fi rst elaborated by Marx and Engels, particularly in
The German Ideology (1846). It is now a concept used throughout the social sci-
ences and humanities. In general, an ideology can be defi ned as a widely shared
belief or idea that has been constructed and disseminated by the powerful, primar-
ily refl ects their experiences, and functions for their benefi t.
Ideologies are anchored in the experiences of their creators; thus, they offer
only a partial view of the world. “Ideologies are not simply false, they can be
‘partly true,’ and yet also incomplete [or] distorted. . . . [They are not] consciously
crafted by the ruling class and then injected into the minds of the majority; [they
are] instead produced by specifi able, complex, social conditions.” 2 Because those
who control the means of disseminating ideas have a better chance of having their
ideas prevail, Marx and Engels concluded that “the ideas of the ruling class are
in every epoch the ruling ideas.” Ideologies have the power to supplant, distort,
or silence the experiences of those outside their production.
The idea that people are rewarded on the basis of their merit is an example
of an ideology. It is an idea promoted by those with power—for example,
teachers and supervisors—and many opportunities are created for the expres-
sion of the belief. Report cards, award banquets, and merit raises are all occa-
sions for the expression of the belief that people are rewarded on the basis of
their merit.
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Framework Essay 341
But certainly, most of us recognize this idea is not really true: as Stephen
McNamee and Robert Miller illustrate in Reading 13, people are not rewarded
only, or even primarily, on the basis of their individual merit. The idea that merit
is rewarded is only partly true and refl ects only some people’s experiences. The
frequent repetition of the idea, however, has the potential to overwhelm contrary
experience. Even those who have not generally experienced people being rewarded
on merit are likely to subscribe to this philosophy, because they hear it so often.
In any event, there are few safe opportunities to describe beliefs to the contrary
or have those beliefs widely disseminated.
Thus, the idea that people are rewarded on the basis of merit is an ideology.
It is a belief that refl ects primarily the experiences of those with power, but it is
presented as universally valid. The idea overwhelms and silences the voices of
those who are outside its production. In effect, ideologies ask us to discount our
own experience.
This confl ict between one’s own experience and the ideas conveyed by an
ideology is implied in W. E. B. Du Bois’s description of the “double conscious-
ness” experienced by African Americans discussed in Framework Essay II. It is
also what many feminists refer to as the double or fractured consciousness
experienced by women. In both cases, the dominant ideas fail to refl ect the
real-life experiences of people in these categories. For example, the actual expe-
rience of poverty, discrimination, teen motherhood, disability, sexual assault, or
life in a black neighborhood or in a gay relationship rarely coincide with the
public discussion of these topics. Because those in stigmatized categories do
not control the production or distribution of the prevailing ideas, their experi-
ence is not likely to be refl ected in them. The ideology not only silences their
experience; it may invalidate it even in their own minds: “ I must be the one
who’s crazy!” In this way, the dominant discourse can invade and overwhelm
our own experience.
3

An ideology that so dominates a culture that it becomes the prevailing and
unquestioned belief was described in the 1920s by Italian political theorist Antonio
Gramsci as the hegemonic, or ruling, ideology. Gramsci argued that social control
was primarily accomplished by the control of ideas and that whatever was con-
sidered to be “common sense” was especially effective as a mechanism of social
control. We are all encouraged to adhere to common sense even when that requires
discounting our own experience. The discussion of natural-law language that fol-
lows highlights that process.
Conveying Ideologies: Natural-Law Language and Stereotypes
Hegemonic, or ruling, ideologies often take the form of natural-law language and
stereotypes.
Natural-Law Language When people use the word natural, they usually
mean that something is inevitable, predetermined, or outside human control.
4

Human nature and instinct are often used in the same way. For example, “It’s
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342 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
only natural to care about what others think,” “It’s human nature to want to get
ahead,” or “It’s just instinctive to be afraid of someone different” all convey the
sense that something is inevitable, automatic, and independent of one’s will.
Thus, it is not surprising when, in discussions about discrimination, someone
says, “It’s only natural for people to be prejudiced,” or “It’s human nature to want
to be with your own kind.” Each of these commonsense ideas conveys a belief in
the inevitability of discrimination and prejudice, as if such processes emerged
independently of anyone’s will.
Even when describing something we oppose, the word natural can convey a
sense of inevitability. For example, “I am against racism, but it’s only natural,”
puts nature on the side of prejudice. Arguing that something is natural because it
happens frequently has the same consequence. “All societies have discriminated
against women,” implies that something that happens frequently is therefore inev-
itable. But in truth, something that happens frequently more likely indicates that
there is an extensive set of social controls ensuring the outcome.
At least three consequences follow from natural-law language. First, it ends
discussion, as if having described something as natural makes any further explo-
ration of the topic unnecessary. This makes sense, given that the word natural is
equated with inevitability: If something is inevitable, there is little sense in ques-
tioning it.
Second, because natural-law language treats behavior as predetermined, it over-
looks the actual cultural and historical variation of human societies. If something
is natural, logically it should always happen. Yet virtually no human behavior
emerges everywhere and always; all social life is susceptible to change. Thus,
natural-law language ignores the variability of social life.
Third, if it is “natural” to dislike those who are different, then there is really
nothing we can do about that feeling. It is no one’s responsibility; it is just natu-
ral. If there is nothing I can do about my own behavior, I can expect to do little
about the behavior of others. Human nature thus is depicted as a limitation beyond
which people cannot expect to move.
5
Describing certain behavior as “only natu-
ral” implies that personal and social change are impossible.
In all these ways—by closing off discussion, masking variation and change,
and treating humans as passive—natural-law language tells us not to question the
world that surrounds us. Natural-law language has this effect whatever its specifi c
content: “It’s only natural to discriminate.” “It’s only natural to want to have
children.” “It’s only natural to marry and settle down.” “Inequality is only natural;
the poor will always be with us.” “Aggression and war are just human nature.”
“Greed is instinctive.” Indeed, in several of the early Supreme Court decisions
described in Reading 37—for example, Dred Scott v. Sanford, Minor v. Happersett,
Plessy v. Ferguson, Elk v. Wilkins— being a slave, black, Native American, and/or
female is treated as a “natural class,” a limited and fi xed “condition” that is unaf-
fected by individual differences or societal change.
Perhaps more important than any of these, however, is the fact that natural-law
language often carries a hidden recommendation about what you ought to do.
If  something is “just natural,” you cannot prevent others from doing it, and you
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Framework Essay 343
are well advised to do it yourself. Thus, natural-law language serves as a forceful
mechanism of social control.
In all, natural-law language is used to reinforce hegemonic ideologies. It
reduces the complexity and historic variability of the social world to a claim for
universal processes, offering a partial and distorted truth that silences those with
contrary experience. Natural-law language can make discrimination appear to be
natural, normal, and inevitable. It tells us simply to accept the world around us
and not seek to improve it. Thus, natural-law language itself creates and maintains
ideas about difference.
An Example of Natural-Law Language: “People just want to be with their
own kind”   As we have said, describing something as “natural” helps us to
ignore how social forces—for example, those of economy, policy, education, and
law—have created the conditions that we attribute to “nature.”
For example, the idea that blacks and whites naturally live in separate neigh-
borhoods because they “like living with their own kind” makes it seem as if these
groups have always been segregated and indeed choose that segregation. But as
Richard Rothstein in Reading 42 describes, the hypersegregation experienced by
African Americans is of fairly recent origin. It is the product of specifi c dis-
criminatory policies initiated and enforced by the federal government, as well as
the failure of federal policies to correct that damage. The policies that have
reduced discrimination in employment and education and generated a broad social
consensus that these are valuable outcomes—have not materialized regarding
residential segregation. The persistence of this residential form of segregation
deeply limits groups’ access to resources for an improved life: education, jobs,
transportation, safety, recreation, nutrition, and health care are all closely con-
nected to where one lives.
A variety of factors contribute to ongoing residential segregation—from the
local “tipping point” at which the nonwhite population in a neighborhood becomes
large enough to prompt white fl ight; to an individual’s willingness to live in a
neighborhood in which there are few others from their race or ethnic group; to
deliberate discrimination on the part of landlords, real estate agents, and mortgage
lenders. Indeed, overt discrimination, continues to be found in housing audits. For
example, black, Hispanic, and Asian renters are told about fewer available units
than equally qualifi ed whites; as potential home buyers, blacks and Asian
Americans learn about and are shown fewer homes than equally qualifi ed whites.
6

In all, the residential segregation that appears “just natural” is constituted not
simply by individual acts of discrimination, but by the social structural forces
of economy, policy, law, and ideology. Though its levels have “modestly
declined” since 1980,
7
residential segregation continues even though “surveys
consistently show that whites and blacks alike prefer integrated neighborhoods
by wide margins.”
8

Similarly, despite the Supreme Court’s 1967 rejection of state laws banning
interracial marriage (in Loving v. Virginia ), those historic prohibitions still con-
tributed to our current ideas that people “just naturally” love and marry others of
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344 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
the same race. Although law no longer bars such marriages, the persistence of
these beliefs about what is “natural” may help explain the low rate of black-white
intermarriage compared to the rates of intermarriage involving Asians and Latinos,
9

as well as the preferences that emerge in online dating sites. As the authors of a
2009 study of Yahoo! Personals found, “Race is one of the main selection criteria
for white Internet daters—whites express racial preferences even more commonly
than religious or educational preferences.”
10

This is the case despite surveys now showing historically high acceptance of
black-white marriages among whites: As of 2013, 96 percent of blacks and
84 percent of whites report that they approve of black-white marriage (the smallest
gap of opinion between blacks and whites since Gallup started asking this ques-
tion in 1968, when the gap was about 40 percentage points).
11
Like the contrast
between actual residential segregation and survey results that affi rm the desire to
live in an integrated neighborhood, here the contrast is between a modestly
increasing but still low rate of actual interracial dating and marriage, and surveys
that show historically high levels of their acceptance.
Why is residential segregation reproduced even when people say they do not
want to live in segregated environments? Why do interracial marriage and dating
remain infrequent despite attitudes that are increasingly tolerant? Although there
are many factors at work, the gap between attitudes and behavior highlights one
of the paradoxes of our time, that “ it is possible to reproduce racial categories
[and hierarchies] even while ostensibly repudiating them. ”
12
Unfortunately, all of
this real complexity is masked by a claim that “it’s only natural for people to
want to stay with their own kind.”
Stereotypes A stereotype is a “prediction that members of a group will behave
in certain ways”—for example, that black men will have athletic ability or that
Asian American students will excel in the sciences.
Stereotypes assume that all the individuals in a category possess the same
characteristics. Stereotypes persist despite evidence to the contrary because they
are not formulated in a way that is testable or falsifi able.
13
In this way, stereotypes
differ from descriptions. Description offers no prediction; it can be tested for
accuracy and rejected when wrong. Description also encourages explanation and
a consideration of historical variability.
For example, “Most great American athletes are African American” is a descrip-
tion. First, there is no prediction that a particular African American can be expected
to be a good athlete, or that someone who is white will be a poor one. Second,
the claim is verifi able; that is, it can be tested for accuracy and proven wrong
(e.g., by asking what proportion of the last two decades’ American Olympic medal
winners were African American). Third, the statement turns our attention to expla-
nation and historical variation: Why might this be the case? Has this always been
the case?
In contrast, “African Americans are good athletes” is a stereotype. It attempts
to characterize a whole population, thus denying the inevitable differences among
the people in the category. It predicts that members of a group will behave in a
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Framework Essay 345
particular way. Further, the stereotype denies the reality of historical and cultural
variation by suggesting that this has always been the case. Thus, stereotypes
essentialize: They assume that if you know something about the physical package
someone comes in, you can predict that person’s behavior.
Both stereotypes and natural-law language offer broad-based predictions about
behavior. Stereotypes predict that members of a particular category will possess
particular attributes; natural-law language predicts that certain behavior is inevi-
table. Neither stereotypes nor natural-law language is anchored in any social or
historical context, and for that reason, both are frequently wrong. Basketball great
Bill Russell’s reaction when asked if he thought African Americans were “natural”
athletes makes clear the similarity of natural-law language and stereotyping. As
Russell said, this was a stereotypic image of African American athletes that
deprecated the skill and effort he brought to his craft—as if he was great because
he was black rather than because of the talent he cultivated in hours of practice.
An Example of Stereotypes: The Model Minority As we have said, stereo-
types explain life outcomes by attributing some essential, shared quality to all those
in a particular category. The current depiction of Asian Americans as a “model
minority” is a good example of this. Apart even from differences between indi-
viduals, this stereotype masks the considerable economic, educational, and occu-
pational heterogeneity among Asian Americans. For example, the proportion of
those holding college degrees varies considerably among Asian American groups,
at rates of 64 percent for Asian Indians, 46 percent for Chinese, 42 percent for
Filipinos, 40 percent for Japanese, 44 percent for Koreans, 26 percent for
Vietnamese, 14 percent for Cambodians and Hmong, and 12 percent for Laotians.
14

These groups differ for many reasons, but one important factor is that some
have arrived as immigrants and others have arrived as refugees. As David Haines
describes in Reading 39, from the horrors that they have been subjected to or
witnessed, to their levels of education and knowledge of the English language,
refugees differ signifi cantly from other immigrants. Whereas it can be said that
immigrants have chosen America and in that sense have been oriented toward it
for some time, refugees more often suddenly fi nd themselves in the country. Thus,
refugees are more different from Americans than other immigrants. Still, they are
often subject to the model minority stereotype.
Finally, it is good to remember that the model minority stereotype is itself a
fairly recent invention. Among those now called “model minority” are groups who
were previously categorized as undesirable immigrants, denied citizenship through
naturalization, and placed in internment camps as potential traitors.
In American culture, stereotypes are often driven by the necessity to explain why
some categories of people succeed more than others. Thus, the model-minority
stereotype is often used to claim that if racism has not been an impediment to Asian
Americans’ success, it could not have hurt African Americans’ likelihood of success.
The myth of the Asian-American “model minority” has been challenged, yet it continues to
be widely believed. One reason for this is its instructional value. For whom are Asian
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346 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
Americans supposed to be a “model”? Shortly after the Civil War, southern planters recruited
Chinese immigrants in order to pit them against the newly freed blacks as “examples” of
laborers willing to work hard for low wages. Today, Asian Americans are again being used
to discipline blacks. . . . Our society needs an Asian-American “model minority” in an era
anxious about a growing black underclass.
15

A brief review of U.S. immigration policy explains the misguided nature of the
comparison between African and Asian Americans. Until 1965, U.S. immigration
was restricted by quotas that set limits on the number of immigrants from each
nation based on the percentage of people from that country residing in the United
States at the time of the 1920 census. This had the obvious and intended effect
of severely restricting immigration from Asia, as well as that from Southern and
Eastern Europe and Africa. The civil rights movement of the 1960s raised national
embarrassment about this quota system
16
such that in 1965, Congress replaced
national-origin quotas with an annual 20,000-person limit for every nation regard-
less of its size. Within that quota, preference went fi rst to those who were relatives
of U.S. citizens and then to those with occupational skills needed in America.
The result was a total increase in immigration and a change in its composition.
Because few individuals from non-European countries could immigrate on the
grounds of having family in America—previous restrictions would have made that
almost impossible—the quotas were fi lled with people meeting designated occu-
pational needs. Thus, those immigrating to the United States since 1965 have had
high educational and occupational profi les. The middle- and upper-class profes-
sionals and entrepreneurs who have immigrated to the United States did not sud-
denly become successful here; rather, they continued their home-country success
here. These high occupational and educational profi les have characterized immi-
grants from African as well as Asian countries.
Interestingly, the contemporary comparison—if Asian Americans can make it,
why can’t African Americans?—echoes an earlier question: If European immi-
grants can make it, why can’t African Americans? The answer to that question is
summarized as follows:
Conditions within the cities to which they had migrated [beginning in the 1920s], not
slavery, strained blacks’ ability to retain two-parent families. Within those cities, blacks
faced circumstances that differed fundamentally from those found earlier by European
immigrants. They entered cities in large numbers as unskilled and semiskilled manufactur-
ing jobs were leaving, not growing. The discrimination they encountered kept them out of
the manufacturing jobs into which earlier immigrants had been recruited. One important
goal of public schools had been the assimilation and “Americanization” of immigrant chil-
dren; by contrast, they excluded and segregated blacks. Racism enforced housing segrega-
tion, and residential concentration among blacks increased at the same time it lessened
among immigrants and their children. Political machines had embraced earlier immigrants
and incorporated them into the system of “city trenches” by which American cities were
governed; they excluded blacks from effective political power until cities had been so
abandoned by industry and deserted by whites that resistance to black political participation
no longer mattered. All the processes that had opened opportunities for immigrants and
their children broke down for blacks.
17

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Framework Essay 347
An Example of Stereotypes: Whites’ Racial Attitudes The relationship
between stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination has long been the subject of
research in the fi eld of social psychology. Like the paradox we noted earlier
between the simultaneous reproduction and repudiation of racial hierarchies, here
we see the simultaneous persistence and disavowal of bias.
Since the inception of research on stereotyping and prejudice, social psychologists have
documented two seemingly contradictory observations: the pervasiveness of these phenom-
ena and the presence of culturally valued norms that repudiate them. A plethora of research
demonstrates that stereotyping and prejudice abound, so much so that they seem to be part
of the cultural fabric. Despite initial assertions that these stereotypes were becoming less
consensual,
18
closer examination indicates wide agreement on the content of ethnic stereo-
types even now.
19
Recent research paints a similar picture, with a Web-based measure that
captures individuals’ less conscious (i.e., implicit) ethnic attitudes. Data gathered from sev-
eral thousand people show that 68% of respondents had more generally negative associations
toward black than toward white people.
20

Thus, in terms of a willingness to endorse principles of integration and job equal-
ity, surveys show a dramatic and sustained improvement in whites’ attitudes.
21

Yet, alongside support for these principles, the research points to pervasive and
persistent negative stereotypes held by whites about blacks.
22

As they have grappled with this inconsistency, some theorists have argued that
the old-fashioned, explicit forms of racism have been replaced by new, more
subtle manifestations. Because these new forms are so unlike the old ways that
prejudice was displayed, dominant group members may not recognize their own
bias. For example, in the readings included here, author Malcolm Gladwell takes
the Implicit Association Test and describes his shock at the levels of unconscious
stereotyping the test reveals (Reading 38).
The obliviousness to prejudice—especially one’s own—is an aspect of what
social psychologists Samuel Gaertner and John Dovidio have described as aver-
sive racism. Unlike those who are overtly prejudiced, white aversive racists are
unaware of their negative attitudes, instead considering themselves unprejudiced
and even supportive of racial equality. Despite endorsing the principles of fair
treatment, they feel personally so uneasy with blacks that they tend to avoid inter-
racial interaction.
When interracial interaction is unavoidable, aversive racists experience anxiety and discom-
fort, and consequently they try to disengage from the interaction as quickly as possible. In
addition, because part of the discomfort that aversive racists experience is due to a concern
about acting inappropriately and appearing prejudiced, aversive racists are motivated primar-
ily by avoiding wrongdoing in interracial interactions.
23

Out of their discomfort and desire to minimize interaction—especially in the
absence of situational norms that compel engagement—aversive racists are likely
to discriminate against blacks but in ways they are unaware of, for example, by
failing to help blacks in emergencies to the same extent that they would help
whites. As Gaertner and Dovidio summarize the research literature, “Taken
together, the results from a substantial number of studies drawing on a range of
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348 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
different paradigms demonstrate the systematic operation of aversive racism pro-
ducing in Whites a failure to help, to hire or admit, and to treat Blacks fairly
under the law.”
24

In the context of an overall change from “old-fashioned” to “modern” racism,
whites are more likely to attribute discrimination to isolated events or individuals,
or to the failings of minorities themselves. For example,
[T]o Whites, the [New York City police] offi cers who tortured Abner Louima constitute a
few bad apples. To Blacks, these offi cers represent only the tip of the iceberg. [Haitian
immigrant Abner Louima was beaten and sexually assaulted by police after he was arrested
outside a Brooklyn nightclub in 1997.]
To Whites, the Texaco tapes are shocking. To Blacks, the tapes merely refl ect that in this
one instance the guilty were caught. [In 1996, a Texaco executive turned over audiotapes of
Texaco executives making racist remarks and plotting to purge the documents in a discrimi-
nation case. Ultimately, Texaco paid more than $115 million for having failed to hire, pro-
mote, and treat its Black staff with general decency.]
But differences in perception cut deeper than this. . . . Although many Whites recognize
that discrimination plays some part in higher rates of unemployment, poverty, and a range
of hardships in life that minorities often face, the central cause is usually understood to be
the level of effort and cultural patterns of the minority group members themselves.
25
For
minorities, especially Blacks, it is understood that the persistence of race problems has
something to do with how our institutions operate. For many Whites, larger patterns of
inequality are understood as mainly something about minorities themselves. . . . [T]he most
popular view holds that Blacks should “try harder,” should get ahead “without special
favors,” and fall behind because they “lack motivation.”
26

Social Institutions and the Support of Ideologies
The specifi c messages carried by natural-law language and stereotypes are often
echoed by social institutions. The term social institution refers to the established
mechanisms by which societies meet their predictable needs. For example, the
need to socialize new members of the society is met by the institutions of the
family and education. In addition to these, social institutions include science, law,
religion, politics, the economy, military, medicine, mass media, and popular cul-
ture. Ideologies—in our case ideologies about the meaning of difference— naturally
play a signifi cant role in the operation of social institutions. In the discussion that
follows, we will consider how late 19th- and early 20th-century science and pop-
ular culture constructed the meaning of race, class, sex, disability, and sexual
orientation differences. Just as Roger Lancaster (Reading 16), Riki Wilchins
(Reading 10), and Sally French (Reading 35) describe for our contemporary era,
in this historic material there is also a troubling congruence among scientifi c
pronouncements, popular culture messages, and the prejudices of the day.
Science The need to explain the meaning of human difference forcefully
emerged when 15th-century Europeans encountered previously unknown regions
and peoples. “Three centuries of exploration brought home as never before the
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Framework Essay 349
tremendous diversity of human behavior and life patterns within environments and
under circumstances dramatically different from those of Europe. . . . Out of that
large laboratory of human experience was born the [idea of the] confl ict between
nature and nurture.”
27

The “nature-nurture” confl ict offered two ways to explain human variation.
Explanations from the nature side stressed that the diversity of human societies,
and the ability of some to conquer and dominate others, argued for signifi cant
biological differences among populations. Explanations from the nurture side
argued that human diversity resulted from historical, environmental, and cultural
difference. From the nature side, humans were understood to act out biologically
driven behaviors. From the nurture side, humans were something of a tabula rasa,
a blank slate, on which particular cultural expectations were inscribed.
Whether nature or nurture was understood to dominate, however, the discussion
of the meaning of human difference always assumed that people could be ranked
as to their worth. Thus, the real question was whether the rankings refl ected in
social hierarchies were the result of nature, and thus inevitable and fi xed, or
whether they could be affected by human action and were thus subject to change.
The question was not merely theoretical. The 1800s in America witnessed appro-
priation of Native American territories and the forced relocation of vast numbers of
people under the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The 1848 signing of the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War and ceded what is now
Texas, New Mexico, California, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, and Arizona to the United
States with 75,000 Mexican nationals residing in those territories becoming
U.S. citizens. The 19th century also included passage of the 1892 Chinese Exclusion
Act; a prolonged national debate about slavery and women’s suffrage; and the arrival
of an unprecedented number of poor and working-class immigrants from Southern
and Eastern Europe. The century closed with the internationally publicized trial of
Irish playwright Oscar Wilde, who was sentenced to two years’ hard labor for “gross
indecency,” which in that case meant homosexuality.
Thus, a profound question was whether social hierarchy refl ected natural, per-
manent, and inherent differences in capability (the nature side) or was the product
of specifi c social and historical circumstances and therefore susceptible to change.
Because Africans were held by whites in slavery, did that mean Africans were by
their nature inferior to whites? Were Native Americans literally “savages” occupy-
ing some middle ground between animals and civilized humans, and did they
therefore benefi t from domination by those who supposedly were more advanced?
Did the dissimilarity of Chinese immigrants from American whites mean they
were not “human” in the way whites were? If homosexuality was congenital as
was the thinking in the 1800s, did that mean homosexuals were profoundly dif-
ferent from heterosexuals? Were women closer to plants and animals than to
civilized men? Were the deaf also “dumb”? Were the poor and working classes
composed of those who not only lacked the talents by which to rise in society
but also passed their defects on to their children? In all, were individuals and
categories of people located in the statuses for which they were best suited? This
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350 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
was the question driving public debate. If one believed that the social order sim-
ply refl ected immutable biological differences, the answer to that question would
probably be “Yes.” That would not have been the case, however, for those who
believed these differences were the outcome of specifi c social and historical pro-
cesses overlaying a shared humanity. In all, the question behind the nature-nurture
debate was about the meaning of what appeared to be natural difference. The
answer to that question was shaped by the hegemonic ideologies of the time—
especially those informed by science.
Charles Darwin’s publication of The Origin of the Species (1859) and The
Descent of Man (1871) shifted the weight of popular and scholarly opinion. In
particular, his conclusions challenged the two central beliefs of the time. First, his
idea of evolutionary change challenged “traditional, Christian belief in a single
episode of creation of a static, perfect, and unchanging world.” The signifi cance
of evolutionary change was clear: “If the world were not created perfect, then
there was no implicit justifi cation for the way things were. . . .”
28

Second, Darwin’s work implied that all humans share a common ancestry. If
differences among birds were the result of their adaptation to distinctive environ-
ments, then their differences existed within an overall framework of similarity and
common ancestry. By analogy, the differences within human populations might also
be understood as “variability within overall similarity”
29
—a shocking possibility at
the time even for Darwin. “It was the age of imperialism and most non-Europeans
were regarded, even by Darwin, as ‘barbarians’; he was astonished and taken aback
by their wildness and animality. The differences among humans seemed so extreme
that the humanity . . . of some living groups was scarcely credible.”
30

Darwin’s idea that change in the physical environment resulted in the perpetu-
ation of some species and demise of others (the idea of natural selection), how-
ever, also bolstered a preexistent concept of “survival of the fi ttest.” This phrase
had been coined by English sociologist Herbert Spencer, who had been consider-
ing the evolutionary principles of human societies several years before Darwin
published The Origin of the Species.
Spencer’s position, eventually called social Darwinism, was extremely popular
in the United States. Spencer strongly believed that modern societies are inevita-
bly improvements over earlier forms of social organization and that progress
would necessarily follow from unimpeded competition for social resources. In all,
social Darwinism argued that those who are more advanced will naturally rise to
the top of any stratifi cation ladder.
Through social Darwinism, the prevailing hierarchies—slave owner over people
held in slavery, white over Mexican and Native American, native born over immi-
grant, upper class over poor, male over female—could be attributed to natural
processes and justifi ed as a refl ection of inherent differences among categories of
people. As one sociologist at the turn of the century framed it, “under the tutelage
of Darwinism the world returns again to the idea that might as evidence of fi tness
has something to do with right. ” 31 Thus, the ideology of social Darwinism was
used to justify slavery, colonialism, immigration restrictions, the criminalization
of  homosexuality, the forced relocation of Native Americans, and the legal
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Framework Essay 351
subordination of women. Because social Darwinism affi rmed that difference meant
defect, it was also compatible with the historical oppression of disabled people.
The social Darwinist position was used by those opposed to providing equal
education for women. Just when American institutions of higher education were
opening to women—Vassar College was founded in 1865, Smith and Wellesley
colleges ten years later, and by 1870 many state universities had become
coeducational—biologist Edward Clarke published Sex in Education (1873), which
argued that the physical energy education required would endanger women’s repro-
ductive abilities (an idea fi rst put forward by Spencer). Clarke’s case was based
on meager and questionable empirical evidence: seven clinical cases, only one of
which actually supported his position.
32
His work was a response to social rather
than scientifi c developments, since it was prompted by no new discoveries in biol-
ogy. Nonetheless, the book was an immediate and enduring success. For the next
thirty years, it was used in the argument against equal education despite the accu-
mulation of evidence refuting its claims. While Clarke’s research should have been
suspect, it instead became infl uential in policymaking. In part, “the reason why
Clarke’s argument seemed so serviceable to those opposed to women’s higher
education was that it was couched in biological terms and thus appeared to offer
a legitimate scientifi c basis for conservative opposition to equal education.”
33

In a similar fashion, science shaped ideas about the meaning of same-sex rela-
tionships. In Europe, by the turn of the century, a gay rights movement had arisen
in Germany and gay themes had emerged in French literature. At the same time,
however, an international move to criminalize sexual relations between men gath-
ered momentum. A revision of the German criminal code increased the penalties
for male homosexuality; the British imprisoned Oscar Wilde; and Europe and the
United States experienced a social reform movement directed against prostitution
and male homosexuality. The possibility of sexual relations between women was
not considered until later.
The move to criminalize homosexuality was countered by physicians arguing,
from a social Darwinist position, that homosexuality is the product of “hereditary
weakness” and is thus beyond individual control. Though their hope was for
increased tolerance, those who took this position offered the idea of “homosexu-
ality as a medical entity and the homosexual as a distinctive kind of person.”
34

Thus, they contributed to the idea that heterosexual and homosexual people were
biologically different from each other.
Science also supported the argument that people of different skin colors were
different in signifi cant, immutable ways. Certainly Spencer’s idea of the survival
of the fi ttest was understood to support the ideology that whites were superior to
all people of color. Thus, “the most prevalent form of social Darwinism at the
turn of the century was actually racism, that is, the idea that one people might be
superior to another because of differences in their biological nature.”
35

The use of questionable research to support prevailing beliefs was also evident
in the development of intelligence testing. In 1904, Alfred Binet, director of the
psychology lab at the Sorbonne, was commissioned by the French minister of
public education to develop a test to identify children whose poor performance
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352 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
in school might indicate a need for special education. Binet developed a test with
a series of tasks that children of “normal” intelligence were expected to have
mastered. Binet’s own claims for the test were fairly limited. He did not equate
intelligence with the score produced by his test, arguing that intelligence was too
complex a factor to be reduced to a simple number. Nor did he construe his test
as measuring inborn, permanent, or inherited limitations.
Binet’s hesitations regarding the signifi cance of the test, however, were ignored
by the emerging fi eld of American psychology, which used intelligence as a way
to explain social hierarchies. “The people who are doing the drudgery are, as a
rule, in their proper places,” wrote H. H. Goddard, who introduced the Binet test
to America. Stanford psychologist Lewis M. Terman (author of the Stanford-Binet
IQ test) argued that “the children of successful and cultured parents test higher
than children from wretched and ignorant homes for the simple reason that their
heredity is better.”
36
Indeed, “Terman believed that class boundaries had been set
by innate intelligence.”
37

Such conclusions were used to shape decisions about the distribution of social
resources. For example, intelligence was described as a capacity like the capacity
of a jug to hold a certain amount of milk. A pint jug could not be expected to
hold a quart of milk; similarly, it was pointless to waste “too much” education
on someone whose capacity was supposedly limited. Intelligence Quotient (IQ)
tests were used to assess mental defi ciency, including the newly developed catego-
ries of idiots, imbeciles, and morons. Morons were judged the highest of the
“mental defectives,” with the potential to be trained to function in society. None-
theless, Goddard recommended that they be “institutionalized, carefully regulated,
made happy by catering to their limits, . . . prevented from breeding”
38
and not
allowed into the country as immigrants. Toward that end, intelligence tests were
used to identify the “mental defectives” as they landed at Ellis Island:
[C]onsider a group of frightened men and women who speak no English and who have just
endured an oceanic voyage in steerage. Most are poor and have never gone to school; many
have never held a pencil or pen in their hand. They march off the boat; one of Goddard’s . . .
[inspectors] takes them aside shortly thereafter, sits them down, hands them a pencil, and asks
them to reproduce on paper a fi gure shown to them a moment ago, but now withdrawn from
their sight. Could their failure be a result of testing conditions, of weakness, fear, or confusion,
rather than of innate stupidity? Goddard considered the possibility, but rejected it.
39

In the early decades of the 20th century, the eugenics movement, a form of
social Darwinism, spearheaded the use of forced sterilization to limit the growth
of “defective” populations. Eugenicists lobbied for state laws endorsing the ster-
ilization of the “feebleminded, insane, criminalistic, epileptic, inebriate, diseased,
blind, deaf, deformed, and dependent.”
40
The practice was approved by the
Supreme Court in Buck v. Bell in 1927, with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.,
writing the majority opinion:
It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime
or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfi t
from continuing their kind. . . . Three generations of imbeciles are enough.
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Framework Essay 353
Only in 1942, in Skinner v. Oklahoma , did the Supreme Court back away from
its position, but by that point thirteen states had laws allowing the sterilization of
criminals. Thus,
sterilization of people in institutions for the mentally ill and mentally retarded continued
through the mid-1970’s. At one time or another, 33 states had statutes under which more
than 60,000 Americans endured involuntary sterilization. The Buck v. Bell precedent allow-
ing sterilization of the so-called “feebleminded” has never been overturned.
41

The fi ndings of intelligence testers were also used to advocate particular social
policies such as restrictions on immigration. While it is not clear that the work
of intelligence testers directly affected the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924,
the ultimate shape of the legislation limited immigration from Southern and
Eastern Europe, which was consistent with intelligence testers’ claims about the
relative intelligence of the “races” in Europe. These quotas barred the admission
of European Jews fl eeing the impending holocaust.
Still, by 1930, a considerable body of research showed that social environment
more than biology accounted for differing IQ scores and that the tests themselves
measured not innate intelligence but familiarity with the culture of those who
wrote the tests. In the end, the psychologists who had promoted intelligence test-
ing were forced to repudiate the idea that intelligence is inherited or that it can
be separated from cultural knowledge.
a

Whether measuring cranial capacity, developing paper-and-pencil intelli-
gence tests, worrying about the effect of education on women, or arguing for
hereditary weakness as an explanation of homosexuality, the work of these
scientists supported the prevailing ideologies about the merit and appropriate
social position of people of different sexes, races, ethnic groups, sexual
orientations, and social classes. Most of these scientists were not overtly
motivated by ideology; indeed they were sometimes troubled by their own
fi ndings. Still, their research was riddled with technical errors and question-
able fi ndings. Their research proved “the surprising malleability of ‘objective,’
quantitative data in the interest of a preconceived idea.”
43
Precisely because
their research confi rmed prevailing beliefs, it was more likely to be celebrated
than scrutinized.
Why were these fi ndings eventually repudiated? Since they offered a defense
of the status quo and confi rmed the prevailing ideology, who would have criticized
them? First, the scientifi c defense of immutable hierarchy was eroded by the
steady accumulation of evidence about the “intellectual equality and therefore the
a
“There is also a lot of evidence for the whole American population, for American ethnic groups,
and for populations wherever tests are given that IQ is changing in ways that can’t possibly be genetic
because they happen too fast. It is widely recognized that average IQs are increasing fairly rapidly.
These changes in IQ clearly must have more to say about relationships between testing and real
performance, or about social patterns of learning, than about biologically rooted ‘intelligence.’ The
genes of a large population don’t change that fast unless there is a very dramatic episode of natural
selection such as an epidemic.”
42

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354 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
equal cultural capacity of all peoples.”
44
A good deal of the research that made
that point was produced by the many “prominent or soon to be prominent” schol-
ars of African American, Chinese, and European immigrant ancestry who, after
fi nally being admitted to institutions of higher education, were pursuing scientifi c
research. African American scholars such as W. E. B. Du Bois and E. Franklin
Frazier, and scholars of recent European immigrant ancestry such as anthropolo-
gists Franz Boas, Alfred Kroeber, and Edward Sapir, trenchantly criticized the
social science of the day and by their very presence challenged the prevailing
expectations about the “inherent inferiority” of people like themselves.
The presumptions about the meaning of race were also challenged by
increased interracial contact. The 1920s began the Great Migration, in which
hundreds of thousands of African Americans from the rural South moved to
northern cities. This movement continued through two world wars as black,
Latino, Asian, and Native American men joined the armed forces and women
followed wartime employment opportunities. The 1920s also brought the Harlem
Renaissance, an outpouring of creativity from black writers, scholars, and artists
in celebration of African and African American culture. Overall, white social
scientists “gained an unprecedented opportunity to observe blacks in a fresh and
often transforming way.”
45
Their attitudes and expectations changed as a result
of this increased contact.
In sum, the scientifi c argument for the inherent inferiority of some groups of
people was advanced by upper-class, native-born, white male faculty members of
prestigious universities. Few others would have had the means with which to dis-
seminate their ideas or the prestige to make those ideas infl uential. These theories
of essential difference were not written by Native Americans, Mexicans, women,
gays, African Americans, or immigrants from Asia or Southern and Eastern
Europe. Most of these people lacked access to the public forums to present their
experiences until the rise of the antislavery, suffrage, labor, and gay rights move-
ments. Insofar as the people in these categories could be silenced, it was easier
to depict them as essentially and profoundly different.
Popular Culture Like the sciences, popular culture (the forms of entertainment
available for mass consumption such as popular music, theater, fi lm, literature,
and television) may convey ideologies about difference and social stratifi cation.
At virtually the same time that social Darwinism gained popularity in America,
America’s fi rst minstrel show was organized. Like social Darwinism, minstrel
shows offered a defense of slavery.
Minstrel shows, which became an enormously popular form of entertainment,
were musical variety shows in which white males in “blackface” ridiculed blacks,
abolitionism, and women’s suffrage. Their impact can be seen in the movies and
cartoons of the 1930s and 1940s and in current American stereotypes. As the
shows traveled the country, their images were impressed on whites who often
had no direct contact with blacks and thus no information to contradict the min-
strel images.
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Framework Essay 355
The three primary characters of the minstrel show were the happy slave, Zip Coon,
and the mammy.
46
The image of the happy slave—singing and dancing, naive and
childlike, taken care of through old age by the white master as a virtual member of
the family—asserted that blacks held in slavery were both content and cared for.
Zip Coon was a northern, free black man characterized by an improper use of
language and laughable attempts to emulate whites; the caricature was used to show
that blacks lacked the intelligence to handle freedom. The mammy was depicted as
a large and presumably unattractive black woman fully devoted to the white family
she served. Like the happy slave, the mammy was unthreatening and content—no
sexual competition to the white mistress of the house, no children of her own need-
ing attention, committed to and fulfi lled by her work with her white family. Thus,
the characters of the minstrel show hid the reality of slavery. The happy slave and
mammy denied the brutality of the slave system. Zip Coon denied the reality of
blacks’ organization of the underground railroad, their production of slave narratives
in books and lectures, and their undertaking of slave rebellions and escapes.
In all, minstrel shows offered an ideology about slavery constructed by and in
the interests of those with power. They ridiculed antislavery activists and legiti-
matized the status quo. Minstrel shows asserted that blacks did not mind being
held as slaves and that they did not suffer loss and pain in the same way whites
did. The minstrel show was not the only source of this ideology, but as a form
of popular entertainment, it was a very effective means of disseminating such
beliefs. The shows traveled to all parts of the country, with a hostile racial mes-
sage masked as mere entertainment.
But within popular culture, an effective counter to the ideology of the minstrel
show emerged through the speakers of the antislavery lecture circuit and the pub-
lication of numerous slave narratives. Appearing as early as 1760, these narratives
achieved an enormous and enduring popularity among northern white readers.
Frederick Douglass, former slave and a renowned antislavery activist, was the
most famous public lecturer on the circuit and wrote a best-selling slave narrative.
Whether as book or lecture, slave narratives provided an image of blacks as human
beings. Access to these life histories provided the fi rst opportunity for most whites
to see a shared humanity between themselves and those held in slavery.
47
Thus,
slave narratives directly countered the images of the minstrel show. Although
popular culture may offer a variety of messages, all parties do not meet equally
on its terrain. Those with power have better access and more legitimacy, but
popular culture cannot be so tightly controlled as to entirely exclude the voice of
the less powerful.
Conclusion
As we have seen, ideologies confer meaning on difference; they both shape and
are shaped by social institutions. Their content is not fi xed, nor need it be inter-
nally consistent. Most important in terms of the subject matter of this text, ide-
ologies can simultaneously reproduce and repudiate, maintain and disavow social
hierarchies.
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356 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
KEY CONCEPTS
aversive racism Unrecognized prejudices that affect
behavior. (page 347)
hegemonic Dominating or ruling. A hegemonic ideology
is a belief that is pervasive in a culture. (page 349)
ideology A widely shared belief that primarily refl ects
the experiences of those with power, but is presented
as universally valid. (page 341)
natural-law language Language that treats human
behavior as bound by natural law. (page 341)
social Darwinism The belief that those who dominate
a society are necessarily the fi ttest. (page 350)
social institution Established system for meet-
ing  societal needs; for example, the family.
(page  348)
stereotype A characterization of a category of
people  as all alike, as possessing the same set of
characteristics and likely to behave in the same
ways. (page 341)
NOTES
1. Frye, 1983.
2. Brantlinger, 1990:80.
3. D. Smith, 1978, 1990.
4. Pierce, 1971.
5. Gould, 1981.
6. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development,
2013.
7. Pager and Shepherd, 2008:188.
8. Ford, 2008:287–8.
9. Lee, Jennifer and Frank D. Bean, 2004.
10. Feliciano, et al., 2009:49–50.
11. Newport, 2013.
12. Winant, 2004:47.
13. Andre, 1988:259
14. Le, 2007; Reuters, 2012.
15. Takaki, 1993:416
16. Skrentny, 2002,
17. Katz, 1989:51.
18. Gilbert, 1951; Karlins, Coffman, and Walters, 1969.
19. Devine and Elliott, 1995; Maden, Guyll, and Aboufadel,
2001.
20. Sinclair and Lun, 2010:214–215.
21. Ibid
22. Bobo, 2001.
23. Gaertner and Dovidio, 2005:619.
24. Gaertner and Dovidio, 2005:623.
25. Schuman, 1971; Apostle et al., 1983; Kluegel and Smith,
1986; Schuman, et al., 1997.
26. Bobo, 2001:281–282.
27. Degler, 1991:4–5.
28. Shipman, 1994:18.
29. Shipman, 1994:22
30. Shipman, 1994:19.
31. Degler, 1991:13.
32. Sayers, 1982:14.
33. Sayers, 1982:11.
34. Conrad and Schneider, 1980:184.
35. Degler, 1991:15.
36. Degler, 1991:50.
37. Gould, 1981:183.
38. Gould, 1981:160,
39. Gould, 1981:166.
40. Lombardo, n.d..
41. Lombardo, n.d.
42. Cohen, 1998:210.
43. Gould, 1981:147.
44. Degler, 1991:61.
45. Degler, 1991:197.
46. Riggs, 1987.
47. Bodziock, 1990.
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Framework Essay 357
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Gary. 1969. On the Fading of Social Stereotypes:
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358 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
———, Charlotte Steeh, Lawrence Bobo, and Maria
Krysan. 1997. Racial Attitudes in America: Trends
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and Elliot R. Smith, 214–32. New York:
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Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
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READING 37: Fourteen Key Supreme Court Cases and the Civil War Amendments 359
R E A D I N G 3 7
Fourteen Key Supreme Court
Cases and the Civil War
Amendments
Individuals’ lives are affected not only by social
practices but also by law as interpreted in the courts.
Under U.S. federalism, Congress makes laws, the
president swears to uphold the law, and the Su-
preme Court interprets the law. When state laws
appear to be in confl ict with the United States Con-
stitution or when the terminology of the Constitu-
tion is vague, the Supreme Court interprets such
laws. We will focus here on Supreme Court rulings
that have defi ned the roles individuals are allowed
to assume in American society.
As the supreme law above laws enacted by Con-
gress, the U.S. Constitution determines individual
and group status. A brief document, the Constitu-
tion describes the division of power between the
federal and state governments, as well as the rights
of individuals. Only 16 amendments to the Consti-
tution have been added since the ratifi cation of the
Bill of Rights (the fi rst 10 amendments). Although
the Constitution appears to be sweeping in scope—
relying on the principle that all men are created
equal—in reality it is an exclusionary document. It
omitted women, Native Americans, and African
Americans except for the purpose of determining a
population count. In instances where the Constitu-
tion was vague on the rights of each of these groups,
clarifi cation was later sought through court cases.
Federalism provides four primary methods by
which citizens may infl uence the political process.
First, the Constitution grants citizens the right to
petition the government, that is, the right to lobby.
Second, as a civic duty, citizens are expected to
vote and seek offi ce. Once in offi ce, citizens can
change conditions by writing new legislation,
known as statutory law. Third, changes can be
achieved through the lengthy procedure of passing
constitutional amendments, which affect all citizens.
Controversial amendments have often become law
after social movement activists advocated passage
for several years or after a major national upheaval,
such as the Civil War.
Last, the Constitution provides that citizens can
sue to settle disputes. Through this method, sweeping
social changes can take place when Supreme Court
decisions affect all the individuals in a class. Thus,
the assertion of individual rights has become a key
tool of those who were not privileged by the Consti-
tution to clarify their status in American society.
An examination of landmark cases reveals the
continuous diffi culties some groups have had in se-
curing their rights through legal remedy. The Court
has often taken a narrow perspective on which
classes of people were to receive equal protection of
the law or were covered under the privileges and
immunities clause.
1
Each group had to bring suit in
every area where barriers existed. For example,
white women who were citizens had to sue to estab-
lish that they had the right to inherit property, to
serve on juries, to enter various professions, and in
general to be treated as a class apart from their hus-
band and family. Blacks sued to attend southern
state universities and law schools, to participate in
the all-white Democratic Party primary election,
2
to
attend public schools that had been ordered to de-
segregate by the Supreme Court, and to vote without
having to pay a poll tax. When these landmark cases
were decided, they were perceived to herald sweep-
ing changes in policy. Yet they proved to be only a
guide to determining the rights of individuals.
I. DRED SCOTT V. SANFORD
(1857)
Before the Civil War, the Constitution was not pre-
cise on whether one was simultaneously a citizen of
a given state and of the entire United States. Slavery
further complicated the matter because the status of
slaves and free persons of color was not specifi ed in
the Constitution, nor were members of either group
considered citizens. Each state had the option of de-
termining the status and rights of these nonwhites.
A federal form of government permitted fl exi-
bility by allowing states to differ on matters such
RACE AND ETHNICITY
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360 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
citizen of New York— arranged for the sale of Scott,
the grounds were established for Scott to take his case
to the federal circuit court in Missouri. The federal
court ruled that Scott and his family were slaves and
therefore the “lawful property” of Sanford. With the
fi nancial assistance of abolitionists, Scott appealed
his case to the Supreme Court.
The Court’s decision addressed these key
questions:
1. Are blacks citizens?
2. Are blacks entitled to sue in court?
3. Can one have all the privileges and immunities of
citizenship in a state, but not the United States?
4. Can one be a citizen of the United States and not
be qualifi ed to vote or hold offi ce?
Excerpts from the Supreme Court
Decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford 4
Mr. Chief Justice Taney delivered the opinion of the
Court:
. . . The question is simply this: Can a Negro, whose
ancestors were imported into this country and sold as
slaves, become a member of the political community
formed and brought into existence by the Constitution
of the United States, and as such become entitled to all
the rights, and privileges and immunities, guaranteed by
that instrument to the citizen? One of which rights is the
privilege of suing in a court of the United States. . . .
The question before us is whether the class of per-
sons described are constituent members of this sover-
eignty? We think they are not, and that they are not
included, and were not intended to be included, under
the word “citizens” in the Constitution, and can there-
fore claim none of the rights and privileges which that
instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the
United States.
In discussing this question, we must not confound
the rights of citizenship which a State may confer
within its own limits and the rights of citizenship as a
member of the Union. It does not by any means follow,
because he has all the rights and privileges of a citizen
of a State, that he must be a citizen of the United
States. He may have all of the rights and privileges of
a citizen of a State, and yet not be entitled to the rights
and privileges of a citizen in any other State. . . .
as rights for its citizens. Yet as it was a newly in-
vented form of government, a number of issues
that were clear under British law were not settled
until the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth
Amendments were added to the United States
Constitution. Federalism raised questions about
rights and privileges because a citizen was simulta-
neously living under the laws of a state and of the
United States. Who had rights and privileges guar-
anteed by the Constitution? Did all citizens have
all rights and privileges?
For example, what was the status of women? The
Constitution provided for citizenship, but it did not
specify which rights and privileges were granted to
female citizens. State laws considered white men
and white women citizens, yet white women were
often not allowed to own property, sue in court, or
vote. Under federalism, each state enacted laws de-
termining the rights and status of free blacks, slaves,
white men, and white women so long as the laws did
not confl ict with the United States Constitution.
The Dred Scott case of 1846 considered the
issues of slavery, property, citizenship, and the
supremacy of the United States over individual
states when a slave was taken to a free territory.
The Court’s holding primarily affected blacks,
now called African Americans,
3
who sought the
benefi ts of citizenship. Broadly, the case addressed
American citizenship, a matter not clearly defi ned
until passage of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868.
Dred Scott was an enslaved man owned by
Dr. John Emerson, a U.S. Army surgeon stationed
in Missouri. When Emerson was transferred to
Rock Island, Illinois, where slavery was forbidden,
he took Dred Scott with him. Emerson was subse-
quently transferred to Fort Snelling, a territory
(now Minnesota) where slavery was forbidden by
the Missouri Compromise of 1820. In 1838, he re-
turned to Missouri with Dred Scott.
In 1846, Scott brought suit in a Missouri circuit
court to obtain his freedom on the grounds he had
resided in free territory for periods of time. Scott won
the case and his freedom. However, the judgment was
reversed by the Missouri Supreme Court. Later, when
Emerson’s brother-in-law, John Sanford—who was a
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READING 37: Fourteen Key Supreme Court Cases and the Civil War Amendments 361
states to deprive persons of life, liberty, or property
without due process of law; and forbade states to
deny equal protection of the law to any person.
Over time, the Fourteenth Amendment became the
most important of the Reconstruction amendments.
Key phrases such as “privileges and immunities,”
“deprive any person of life, liberty, or the pursuit of
justice,” and “deny to any person within its jurisdic-
tion equal protection of the law” have caused this
amendment to be the subject of more Supreme
Court cases than any other provision of the Consti-
tution. The entire amendment follows:
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the
United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,
are citizens of the United States and of the State
wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce
any law which shall abridge the privileges or immuni-
ties of citizens of the United States; nor shall any
State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property,
without due process of law; nor deny to any person
within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned
among the several States according to their respective
numbers, counting the whole number of persons in
each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the
right to vote at any election for the choice of electors
for President and Vice President of the United States,
Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judi-
cial offi cers of a State, or the members of the Legisla-
ture thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants
of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citi-
zens of the United States, or in any way abridged,
except for participation in rebellion, or other crime,
the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in
proportion which the number of such male citizens
shall bear to the whole number of male citizens
twenty-one years of age in such State.
Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Repre-
sentative in Congress, or elector or President and Vice
President, or hold any offi ce, civil or military, under
the United States, or under any State, who, having
previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or
as an offi cer of the United States, or as a member of
any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial of-
fi cer of any State, to support the Constitution of the
United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or
rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to
Undoubtedly a person may be a citizen . . . al-
though he exercises no share of the political power,
and is incapacitated from holding particular offi ce.
Those who have not the necessary qualifi cations can-
not vote or hold the offi ce, yet they are citizens.
The court is of the opinion, that . . . Dred Scott was
not a citizen of Missouri within the meaning of the
Constitution of the United States, and not entitled as
such to sue in its courts: and, consequently, that the
Circuit Court had no jurisdiction. . . .
II. THE CIVIL WAR AMENDMENTS
The Civil War (1861–1865) was fought over slav-
ery, as well as the issue of supremacy of the na-
tional government over the individual states.
After the Civil War, members of Congress
known as the Radical Republicans sought to protect
the freedom of the former slaves by passing the
Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments.
These amendments, especially the Fourteenth, have
provided the foundation for African Americans—as
well as women, gays, Native Americans, immigrants,
and those who are disabled—to bring suit for equal
treatment under the law.
Amendment XIII, 1865
(Slavery)
This amendment prohibited slavery and involun-
tary servitude in the United States. The entire
amendment follows:
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude,
except as a punishment whereof the party shall have
been duly convicted, shall exist within the United
States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce
this article by appropriate legislation.
Amendment XIV, 1868
(Citizenship, Due Process, and Equal
Protection of the Laws)
This amendment defi ned citizenship; prohibited the
states from making or enforcing laws that abridged
the privileges or immunities of citizenship; forbade
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362 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
III. MINOR V. HAPPERSETT (1875)
The Fifteenth Amendment was not viewed as a tri-
umph for women because it specifi cally denied
them the vote. Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amend-
ment for the fi rst time made reference to males as
citizens. Since black men were included but women
of all races were omitted, women were left to con-
tinue to seek changes through the courts. This was a
diffi cult route, because in subsequent cases, judges
often held a narrow view that the legislators wrote
the amendment only with black males in mind.
Thus, a pattern was soon established in which white
women followed black men and women in asserting
their rights as citizens, as seen in the 1875 case of
Minor v. Happersett. In Dred Scott, the question
was whether Scott was a citizen; in Minor, the ques-
tion was whether Minor as a citizen had the right to
vote. In both cases, the Supreme Court said no.
Virginia Minor, a native-born, free, white citizen
of the United States and the state of Missouri, and
over the age of 21 wished to vote for president, vice
president, and members of Congress in the election
of November 1872. She applied to the registrar of
voters but was not allowed to vote because she was
not a “male citizen of the United States.” As a citi-
zen of the United States, Minor sued under the
privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment.
The Court’s decision addressed these key
questions:
1. Who is covered under the term citizen?
2. Is suffrage one of the privileges and immunities
of citizenship?
3. Did the Constitution, as originally written, make
all citizens voters?
4. Did the Fifteenth Amendment make all citizens
voters?
5. Can a state confi ne voting to only male citizens
without violating the Constitution?
Although women were citizens of the United
States and of the state where they resided, they did not
automatically possess all the privileges granted to
male citizens, such as suffrage. This landmark case
the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of
two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the
United States, authorized by law, including debts in-
curred for payments of pensions and bounties for ser-
vices in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall
not be questioned. But neither the United States nor
any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation
incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the
United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipa-
tion of any slave, but all such debts, obligations and
claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5. The Congress shall have power to en-
force, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this
article.
Amendment XV, 1870
(The Right to Vote)
The entire amendment follows:
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to
vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United
States or by any State on account of race, color, or
previous condition of servitude.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to en-
force this article by appropriate legislation.
As we have seen, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and
Fifteenth Amendments were added to the Constitu-
tion expressly with former slaves in mind. In Sec-
tion 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, the defi nition
of citizenship was clarifi ed and granted to blacks. In
the Fifteenth Amendment, black males, former
slaves, were granted the right to vote. For women,
however, the situation was different.
During the 19th century, there was no doubt that
white females were U.S. citizens, but their rights as
citizens were unclear. For example, although they
were citizens, women were not automatically
enfranchised. Depending on state laws, they were
barred from owning property, holding offi ce, or
voting. The 1872 case of Bradwell v. The State of
Illinois specifi cally tested whether women as
United States citizens had the right to become
members of the bar. More generally, it addressed
whether the rights of female citizens included the
right to pursue any employment.
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READING 37: Fourteen Key Supreme Court Cases and the Civil War Amendments 363
furnished an additional guaranty for the protection of
such as he already had. No new voters were necessar-
ily made by it.
. . . No new State has ever been admitted to the
Union which has conferred the right of suffrage upon
women, and this has never been considered a valid
objection to her admission. . . .
. . . Certainly, if the courts can consider any question
settled, this is one. For nearly ninety years the peo-
ple have acted upon the idea that the Constitution,
when it conferred citizenship, did not necessarily
confer the right of suffrage. . . . Our province is to
decide what the law is, not to declare what it
should be.
The Dred Scott, Bradwell, and Minor cases
point to the similarity in the status of black men and
women of all races in 19th-century America. As
one judicial scholar noted, race and sex were com-
parable classes, distinct from all others. Historically,
these “natural classes” were considered permanent
and unchangeable.
7
Thus, both slavery and the sub-
jugation of women have been described as a caste
system where one’s status is fi xed from birth and
not alterable based on wealth or talent.
8

Indeed, the connection between the enslavement
of black people and the legal and social standing of
women was often traced to the Old Testament. His-
torically, slavery was justifi ed on the grounds that
one should look to Abraham; the Bible refers to
Abraham’s wives, children, men servants, maid ser-
vants, camels, and cattle as his property. A man’s
wife and children were considered his slaves. By
the logic of the 19th century, if women were slaves,
why shouldn’t blacks be also?
Thus, the concepts of race and sex have been
historically linked. Since “the doctrines were devel-
oped by the same people for the same purpose it is
not surprising to fi nd anti-feminism to be an echo
of racism, and vice versa.”
9

Additional constitutional amendments were nec-
essary if women and African Americans were to
exercise the privileges of citizenship that were auto-
matically granted to white males. Nonetheless, even
after amendments were enacted, African Americans
still had to fi ght for enforcement of the law.
was not overturned until the passage of the Nineteenth
Amendment, which enfranchised women, in 1920.
5

Excerpts from the Supreme Court
Decision in Minor v. Happersett 6
Mr. Chief Justice Waite delivered the opinion of the
Court:
. . . It is contended [by Minor’s counsel] that the pro-
visions of the Constitution and laws of the State of
Missouri which confi ne the right of suffrage and reg-
istration therefore to men, are in violation of the Con-
stitution of the United States, and therefore void. The
argument is, that as a woman, born or naturalized in
the United States and subject to the jurisdiction
thereof as a citizen of the United States and of the
State in which she resides, she has the right of suf-
frage as one of the privileges and immunities of her
citizenship, which the State cannot by its laws or
Constitution abridge.
There is no doubt that women may be citizens. . . .
. . . From this it is apparent that from the com-
mencement of the legislation upon this subject alien
women and alien minors could be made citizens by
naturalization, and we think it will not be contended
that . . . native women and native minors were already
citizens by birth.
. . . More cannot be necessary to establish the fact
that sex has never been made one of the elements of
citizenship in the United States. In this respect men
have never had an advantage over women. The same
laws precisely apply to both. The Fourteenth Amend-
ment did not affect the citizenship of women any
more than it did of men . . . therefore, the rights of
Mrs. Minor do not depend upon the amendment. She
has always been a citizen from her birth, and entitled
to all the privileges and immunities of citizenship.
The amendment prohibited the State, of which she is
a citizen, from abridging any of her privileges and
immunities as a citizen of the United States. . . .
. . . The direct question is, therefore, presented
whether all citizens are necessarily voters.
The Constitution does not defi ne the privileges
and immunities of citizens. For that defi nition we
must look elsewhere.
. . . The [Fourteenth] amendment did not add to the
privileges and immunities of a citizen. It simply
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364 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
This resulted in a rigid biracial structure where
all persons with “one drop” of black blood were
labeled black. Consequently, the “black” commu-
nity consisted of a wide range of skin color based
on this one-drop rule. Therefore, at times individu-
als with known black ancestry might look pheno-
typically white. This situation created a group of
African Americans who had one-eighth or less
African ancestry.
Louisiana was one of the few states to modify
the one-drop rule of racial categorization because it
considered mulattoes a valid racial category. A term
derived from Spanish, mulatto refers to the off-
spring of a “pure African Negro” and a “pure
white.” Over time, mulatto came to encompass
children of whites and “mixed Negroes.”
These were the social conditions in 1896, when
Homer Adolph Plessy, a mulatto, sought to test
Louisiana laws that imposed racial segregation.
Plessy and other mulattoes decided to test the ap-
plicability of the law requiring racial separation on
railroad cars traveling in interstate transportation.
In 1890, Louisiana had followed other southern
states in enacting Jim Crow laws that were written
in compliance with the Equal Protection Clause of
Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment. These
laws required separate accommodations for white
and black railroad passengers. In this case, Plessy, a
U.S. citizen and a resident of Louisiana who was
one-eighth black, paid for a fi rst-class ticket on
the  East Louisiana Railway traveling from New
Orleans to Covington, Louisiana. When he entered
the passenger train, Plessy took a vacant seat in a
coach designated for white passengers. He claimed
that he was entitled to every “recognition, right,
privilege, and immunity” granted to white citizens
of the United States by the Constitution. Under
Louisiana law, the conductor, who knew Plessy, was
required to ask him to sit in a coach specifi cally as-
signed to nonwhite persons. By law, passengers who
sat in the inappropriate coach were fi ned or im-
prisoned. When Plessy refused to comply with the
order, he was removed from the train and imprisoned.
The decision in Plessey v. Ferguson established
that separation of the races was legal under the U.S.
IV. PLESSY V. FERGUSON (1896)
After the Civil War, the northern victors imposed
military rule on the South.
10
White landowners and
former slaveholders often found themselves with
unproductive farmland and no free laborers. Aside
from the economic loss of power, white males were
in a totally new political environment: Black men
had been elevated to citizens; former slaves were
now eligible to vote, run for offi ce, and hold seats in
the state or national legislature. To ensure the rights
of former slaves, the U.S. Congress passed the Civil
War Amendments and provided federal troops to
oversee federal elections.
However, when federal troops were withdrawn
from the southern states in 1877, enfranchised black
men became vulnerable to former masters who im-
mediately seized political control of the state legisla-
tures. In order to solidify political power, whites
rewrote state constitutions to disenfranchise black
men. To ensure that all blacks were restricted to a
subordinate status, southern states systematically en-
acted “Jim Crow” laws, rigidly segregating society
into black and white communities. These laws barred
blacks from using the same public facilities as
whites, including schools, hospitals, restaurants, ho-
tels, and recreation areas. With the cooperation of
southern elected offi cials, the Ku Klux Klan, a white
supremacist, terrorist organization, grew in member-
ship. The return of political power to whites without
any federal presence to protect the black community
set the stage for “separate but equal” legislation to
become a constitutionally valid racial doctrine.
Under slavery, interracial sexual contact was for-
bidden, but white masters nonetheless had the power
to sexually exploit the black women who worked for
them. The children of these relationships, especially
if they looked white, posed potential inheritance
problems because whites feared that such children
might seek to exercise the privileges accorded to
their white fathers. In order to keep all children of
such relationships subordinate in the two-tiered ra-
cial system, descent was based on the race of the
mother. Consequently, regardless of color, all the
children of black women were defi ned as black.
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READING 37: Fourteen Key Supreme Court Cases and the Civil War Amendments 365
Excerpts from the Supreme Court
Decision in Plessy v. Ferguson 12
Mr. Justice Brown delivered the opinion of the
Court:
. . . An [1890] act of the General Assembly of the
State of Louisiana, provid[ed] for separate railway
carriages for the white and colored races.
. . . No person or persons, shall be admitted to oc-
cupy seats in coaches, other than the ones assigned to
them on account of the race they belong to.
. . . The constitutionality of this act is attacked
upon the ground that it conflicts both with the
Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution, abol-
ishing slavery, and the Fourteenth Amendment,
which prohibits certain restrictive legislation.
. . . A statute which implied merely a legal distinc-
tion between the white and colored races . . . has no
tendency to destroy the legal equality of the two races,
or reestablish a state of servitude.
. . . The object of the amendment [the Fourteenth
Amendment] was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute
equality of the two races before the law, but in the na-
ture of things it could not have been intended to abol-
ish distinctions based upon color, or a commingling of
the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either.
Laws permitting and even requiring their separa-
tion in places where they are liable to be brought into
contact do not necessarily imply the inferiority of ei-
ther race to the other, and have been generally, if not
universally recognized as within the competency of
the state legislatures in the exercise of their police
power. The most common instance of this is con-
nected with the establishment of separate schools for
white and colored children, which has been held to be
a valid exercise of the legislative power even by courts
of States where the political rights of the colored race
have been longest and most earnestly enforced. One
of the earliest of these cases is that of Roberts v. City
of Boston, 5 Cush. 198, in which the Supreme Judicial
Court of Massachusetts held that the general school
committee of Boston had power to make provision for
the instruction of colored children in separate schools
established exclusively for them, and to prohibit their
attendance upon the other schools.
. . . We are not prepared to say that the conductor,
in assigning passengers to the coaches according to
their race, does not act at his peril. . . . The power to
constitution, it solidifi ed the power of whites over
blacks in southern states. Through state laws, and
with the additional federal weight in the Plessy de-
cision, whites began to enforce rigid separation of
the races in every aspect of life.
In Plessy, Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote
the only dissenting opinion. Usually in Supreme
Court cases, attention is focused on the majority,
rather than the dissenting opinion. However, in this
case Justice Harlan’s dissent is noteworthy because
his views on race and citizenship pointed out a line
of reasoning that eventually broke down segrega-
tion and second-class citizenship for blacks.
Justice Harlan’s background as a Kentucky
slaveholder who later joined the Union side during
the Civil War is cited as an explanation of his views.
Some scholars speculate that his shift from slave-
holder to a defender of the rights of blacks was
caused by his observation of beatings, lynchings,
and the use of intimidation tactics against blacks in
Kentucky after the Civil War. In a quirk of history,
when Plessy v. Ferguson was overturned in 1954 by
a unanimous opinion in Brown v. Board of Educa-
tion, Justice Harlan’s grandson was a member of
the Supreme Court.
The Court’s decision addressed these key
questions:
1. How is a black person defi ned?
2. Who determines when an individual is black or
white?
3. Does providing separate but equal facilities
violate the Thirteenth Amendment?
4. Does providing separate but equal facilities
violate the Fourteenth Amendment?
5. Does a separate but equal doctrine imply inferi-
ority of either race?
6. Can state laws require the separation of the two
races in schools, theaters, and railway cars?
7. Does the separation of the races when applied to
commerce within the state of Louisiana abridge
the privileges and immunities of the “colored
man,”
11
deprive him of equal protection of the law,
or deprive him of his property without due process
of law under the Fourteenth Amendment?
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366 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
for all whom they are under a legal duty to carry. It is
quite another thing for government to forbid citizens
of the white and black races from traveling in the
same public conveyance, and to punish offi cers of
railroad companies for permitting persons of the two
races to occupy the same passenger coach. If a State
can prescribe, as a rule of civil conduct, that whites
and blacks shall not travel as passengers in the same
railroad coach, why may it not so regulate the use of
the streets of its cities and towns as to compel white
citizens to keep on one side of a street and black citi-
zens to keep on the other? Why may it not, upon like
grounds, punish whites and blacks who ride together
in street cars or in open vehicles on a public road or
street? Why may it not require sheriffs to assign
whites to one side of a court-room and blacks to the
other? And why may it not also prohibit the commin-
gling of the two races in the galleries of legislative
halls or in public assemblages convened for the con-
sideration of the political questions of the day? Fur-
ther, if this statute of Louisiana is consistent with the
personal liberty of citizens, why may not the State
require the separation in railroad coaches of native
and naturalized citizens of the United States, or of
Protestants and Roman Catholics?
. . . In my opinion, the judgment this day rendered
will, in time, prove to be quite pernicious as the deci-
sion made by this tribunal in the Dred Scott case.
. . . The thin disguise of “equal” accommodations
for passengers in railroad coaches will not mislead
anyone, nor atone for the wrong this day done.
Thus, the Plessy v. Ferguson decision fi rmly estab-
lished the separate but equal doctrine in the South
until the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored Persons (NAACP) began to systematically
attack Jim Crow laws. It is ironic that in Plessy the
systematic social, political, and economic suppres-
sion of blacks in the South through Jim Crow laws
was justifi ed in terms of a case decided in the northern
city of Boston, where the segregation of schools oc-
curred in practice ( de facto ), but not by force of law
( de jure ). In that 1849 case ( Roberts v. City of Boston,
5 Cush. 198), a parent had unsuccessfully sued on
behalf of his daughter to attend a public school. Thus,
educational access became both the fi rst and last
chapter—in the 1954 case of Brown v. Board of
Education— of the doctrine of separate but equal.
assign to a particular coach obviously implies the
power to determine to which race the passenger be-
longs, as well as the power to determine who, under
the laws of the particular State, is to be deemed a
white, and who is a colored person.
. . . We consider the underlying fallacy of the
plaintiff’s argument to consist in the assumption that
the enforced separation of the two races stamps the
colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so,
it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but
solely because the colored race chooses to put that
construction upon it. . . . The argument also assumes
that social prejudices may be overcome by legislation,
and that equal rights cannot be secured to the negro
except by an enforced commingling of the two races.
We cannot accept this proposition. If the two races are
to meet upon terms of social equality, it must be the
result of natural affi nities, a mutual appreciation
of  each other’s merits and a voluntary consent of
individuals.
. . . If the civil and political rights of both races be
equal one cannot be inferior to the other civilly or
politically. If one race be inferior to the other socially,
the Constitution of the United States cannot put them
upon the same plane.
It is true that the question for the proportion of
colored blood necessary to constitute a colored per-
son, as distinguished from a white person, is one upon
which there is a difference of opinion in the different
States, some holding that any visible admixture of
black blood stamps the persons as belonging to the
colored races, others that it depends upon the prepon-
derance of blood . . . still others that the predominance
of white blood must only be in the proportion of three
fourths. . . . But these are questions to be determined
under the laws of each State. . . .
Mr. Justice Harlan in the dissenting opinion:
. . . It was said in argument that the statute of Louisiana
does not discriminate against either race, but prescribes
a rule applicable alike to white and colored citizens. . . .
[But] everyone knows that the statute in question had
its origin in the purpose, not so much to exclude white
persons from railroad cars occupied by blacks, as to
exclude colored people from coaches occupied by or
assigned to white persons.
. . . It is one thing for railroad carriers to furnish, or
to be required by law to furnish, equal accommodations
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READING 37: Fourteen Key Supreme Court Cases and the Civil War Amendments 367
Yick Wo stated that he and 200 of his country-
men with similar situations petitioned the Board of
Supervisors for permission to continue to conduct
business in the same buildings they had occupied for
more than 20 years. The petitions of all the Chinese
were denied, while all petitions of those who were
not Chinese were granted (with one exception).
Did this prohibition of the occupation and
destruction of the business and property of the
Chinese laundrymen in San Francisco constitute
the proper regulation of business, or was it discrim-
ination and a violation of important rights secured
by the Fourteenth Amendment?
The Court’s decision addressed these key
questions:
1. Does this municipal ordinance regulating public
laundries within the municipality of San Francisco
violate the United States Constitution?
2. Does carrying out this municipal ordinance
violate the Fourteenth Amendment?
3. Does the guarantee of protection of the
Fourteenth Amendment extend to all persons
within the territorial jurisdiction of the United
States regardless of race, color, or nationality?
4. Are the subjects of the Emperor of China who,
temporarily or permanently, reside in the United
States entitled to enjoy the protection guaran-
teed by the Fourteenth Amendment?
Excerpts from the Supreme Court
Decision in Yick Wo v. Hopkins 13
Mr. Justice Matthews delivered the opinion of the
Court:
. . . In both of these cases [ Yick Wo v. Hopkins and Wo
Lee v. Hopkins ] the ordinance involved was simply a
prohibition to carry on the washing and ironing of
clothes in public laundries and washhouses, within
the city and county of San Francisco, from ten o’clock
p.m. until six o’clock a.m. of the following day. This
provision was held to be purely a police regulation,
within the competency of any municipality.
. . . The rights of the petitioners are not less be-
cause they are aliens and subjects of the Emperor of
China.
V. YICK WO V. HOPKINS (1886)
In the 1880s, the questions of citizenship and the rights
of citizens were raised again by Native Americans and
Asian immigrants. While the status of citizenship for
African Americans was settled by the Thirteenth and
Fourteenth Amendments, the extent of the privileges
and immunities clause still needed clarifi cation.
Yick Wo, a Chinese immigrant living in San Francisco,
brought suit under the Fourteenth Amendment to see if
it covered all persons in the territorial United States
regardless of race, color, or nationality.
The Chinese were different from European im-
migrants because they came to the United States
under contract to work as laborers building the trans-
continental railroad. When Chinese workers re-
mained, primarily in California, after the completion
of the railroad in 1869, Congress became anxious
about this “foreign element” that was non-Christian
and non-European. Chinese immigrants were seen
as an economic threat because they would work for
less than white males. To address the issue of eco-
nomic competition, the Chinese Exclusion Act was
passed in 1882 to prohibit further immigration to the
United States. This gave the Chinese the unique sta-
tus among immigrants of being the only group barred
from entry into the United States and barred from
becoming naturalized U.S. citizens.
Yick Wo, a subject of the Emperor of China, went
to San Francisco in 1861, where he operated a
laundry at the same premise for 22 years with con-
sent from the Board of Fire Wardens. When the con-
sent decree expired on October 1, 1885, Yick Wo
routinely reapplied to continue to operate a laundry.
He was, however, denied a license. Of the over 300
laundries in the city and county of San Francisco,
about 240 were owned by Chinese immigrants. Most
of these laundries were wooden, the most common
construction material used at that time, although it
posed a fi re hazard. Yick Wo and more than 150 of
his countrymen were arrested and charged with car-
rying on business without having special consent,
while those who were not subjects of China and
were operating some 80 laundries under similar con-
ditions, were allowed to conduct business.
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368 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
viewed as a separate nation, and described as un-
civilized, alien people who were not worthy of citi-
zenship in the political community. As Native
Americans were driven from their homeland and
pushed farther west, the United States government
developed a policy of containment by establishing
reservations. Native Americans who lived with
their tribes on such reservations were presumed to
be members of “not strictly speaking, foreign
states, but alien nations.” The Constitution made
no provisions for naturalizing Native Americans
or defi ning the status of those who chose to live
in the territorial United States rather than be as-
signed to reservations. It was presumed that Native
Americans would remain on the reservations. The
framers of the Constitution had not given any
thought as to when or how a Native American might
become a U.S. citizen. When the Naturalization
Law of 1790 was written, only Europeans were
anticipated as future citizens. The citizenship of
Native Americans was not settled until 1924, when
a statutory law, not a constitutional amendment,
granted citizenship.
Elk v. Wilkins raised the question of citizenship
and voting behavior as a privilege of citizenship.
In  1857, the Court had easily dismissed Dred
Scott’s suit on the grounds that he was not a citizen.
Since he did not hold citizenship, he could not sue.
Minor v. Happersett in 1872 considered the citizen-
ship and voting issue with a female plaintiff. In that
case, citizenship was not in doubt but the court
stated that citizenship did not automatically confer
the right to suffrage. In Elk, a Native American
claimed citizenship and the right to vote. Before
considering the right to vote, the Court fi rst exam-
ined whether Elk was a citizen and the process by
which one becomes a citizen.
As midwestern cities emerged from westward
expansion in the 1880s, a few Native Americans
left their reservations to live and work in those cit-
ies. John Elk left his tribe and moved to Omaha,
Nebraska, under the jurisdiction of the United
States. In April 1880, he attempted to vote for
members of the city council. Elk met the residency
requirements in Nebraska and Douglas County for
The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution is
not confi ned to the protection of citizens. It says: “Nor
shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or
property without due process of law; nor deny to any
person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the
laws.” These provisions are universal in their applica-
tion, to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction,
without regard to any differences of race, or color, or of
nationality; and the equal protection from the laws is a
pledge of the protection of equal laws. . . .
Though the law itself be fair on its face and
impartial in appearance, yet, it is applied and admin-
istered by public authority with an evil eye and un-
equal hand, so as practically to make unjust and
illegal discriminations between persons in similar
circumstances. . . .
. . . No reason whatever, except the will of the su-
pervisors, is assigned why they should not be permit-
ted to carry on, in the accustomed manner, their
harmless and useful occupation, on which they depend
for a livelihood. And while this consent of the supervi-
sors is withheld from them and from two hundred oth-
ers who have also petitioned, all of whom happened to
be Chinese subjects, eighty others, not Chinese sub-
jects, are permitted to carry on similar business under
similar conditions. The fact of this discrimination is
admitted. No reason for it is shown, . . . no reason for
it exists except hostility to the race and nationality to
which the petitioners belong, and which in the eye of
the law is not justifi ed. The discrimination is, there-
fore, illegal, and the public administration which
enforces it is a denial of the equal protection of the
laws and a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of
the Constitution. The imprisonment of the petitioners
is, therefore illegal, and they must be discharged.
The decision in Yick Wo demonstrated the Court’s
perspective that the Fourteenth Amendment applied
to all persons, citizens and noncitizens.
VI. ELK V. WILKINS (1884)
In the late 19th century, Native Americans consti-
tuted a problematic class when the Supreme Court
considered citizenship. Although Native Americans
were the original inhabitants of the territory that
became the United States, they were considered
outside the concept of citizenship. They were
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READING 37: Fourteen Key Supreme Court Cases and the Civil War Amendments 369
United States, is, merely by reason of his birth within
the United States, and of his afterwards voluntarily
separating himself from his tribe and taking up his
residence among white citizens, a citizen of the
United States, within the meaning of the fi rst section
of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.
. . . The Indian tribes, being within the territorial
limits of the United States, were not, strictly speak-
ing, foreign States; but they were alien nations, dis-
tinct political communities, with whom the United
States might and habitually did deal, as they thought
fi t, either through treaties made by the President and
Senate, or through acts of Congress in the ordinary
forms of legislation. The members of those tribes
owed immediate allegiance to their several tribes, and
were not a part of the United States. They were in a
dependent condition, a state of pupilage, resembling
that of a ward to his guardian.
. . . They were never deemed citizens of the United
States, except under explicit provisions of treaty or
statute to that effect, either declaring a certain tribe, or
such members of it as chose to remain behind on the
removal of the tribe westward, to be citizens, or au-
thorizing individuals of particular tribes to become
citizens. . . .
This [opening] section of the Fourteenth Amend-
ment contemplates two sources of citizenship, and
two sources only: birth and naturalization.
. . . Slavery having been abolished, and the persons
formerly held as slaves made citizens. . . . But Indians
not taxed are still excluded from the count [U.S. Cen-
sus count for apportioning seats in the U.S. House of
Representatives],
15
for the reason that they are not
citizens. Their absolute exclusion from the basis of
representation, in which all other persons are now in-
cluded, is wholly inconsistent with their being consid-
ered citizens.
. . . Such Indians, then, not being citizens by birth,
can only become so in the second way mentioned in
the Fourteenth Amendment, by being “naturalized in
the United States,” by or under some treaty or statute.
. . . The treaty of 1867 with the Kansas Indians
strikingly illustrates the principle that no one can be-
come a citizen of a nation without its consent, and
directly contradicts the supposition that a member of
an Indian tribe can at will be alternately a citizen of
the United States and a member of the tribe.
. . . But the question whether any Indian tribes, or
any members thereof, have become so far advanced
voting. Claiming that he complied with all of the
statutory provisions, Elk asserted that under the
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, he was a
citizen of the United States who was entitled to ex-
ercise the franchise, regardless of race or color. He
further claimed that Wilkins, the voter registrar,
“designedly, corruptly, willfully, and maliciously”
refused to register him for the sole reason that he
was a Native American.
The Court’s decision addressed these key
questions:
1. Is a Native American still a member of an Indian
tribe when he voluntarily separates himself from
his tribe and seeks residence among the white
citizens of the state?
2. What was the intent of the Fourteenth Amend-
ment regarding who could become a citizen?
3. Can Native Americans become naturalized
citizens?
4. Can Native Americans become citizens of the
United States without the consent of the U.S.
government?
5. Must Native Americans adopt the habits of a
“civilized” life before they become U.S.
citizens?
6. Is a Native American who is taxed a citizen?
Excerpts from the Supreme Court
Decision in Elk v. Wilkins 14
Mr. Justice Gray delivered the opinion of the Court.
. . . The plaintiff . . . relies on the fi rst clause of the fi rst
section of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitu-
tion of the United States, by which “all persons born
or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the
jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States
and of the State wherein they reside”; and on the
Fifteenth Amendment, which provides that “the right
of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be
denied or abridged by the United States or by any
State on account of race, color, or previous condition
of servitude.”
. . . The question then is, whether an Indian,
born a member of the Indian tribes within the
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370 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
complete jurisdiction of the United States, then the
Fourteenth Amendment has wholly failed to accom-
plish, in respect of the Indian race, what, we think,
was intended by it, and there is still in this country a
despised and rejected class of persons, with no na-
tionality; who born in our territory, owing no alle-
giance to foreign power, and subject, as residents of
the States, to all the burdens of government, are yet
not members of any political community nor entitled
to any of the rights, privileges, or immunities of citi-
zens of the United States.
In all, the Court never addressed Elk’s right to vote
because the primary question involved Elk’s citizen-
ship. By excluding him from citizenship because he
had not been naturalized and because there was no
provision for naturalization, John Elk was left out-
side of the political community as was Dred Scott.
VII. BROWN V. BOARD OF
EDUCATION (1954)
Unlike many of the earlier cases brought by indi-
vidual women, blacks, or Native Americans, Brown v.
Board of Education was the result of a concerted
campaign against racial segregation led by Howard
University School of Law graduates and the
NAACP. In the 1930s, the NAACP Legal Defense
Fund began to systematically fi ght for fair employ-
ment, fair housing, and desegregation of public ed-
ucation. Key lawyers in the campaign against
segregation were Charles Houston, Thurgood
Marshall, James Nabrit, and William Hastie.
Marshall later became a Supreme Court justice,
Nabrit became president of Howard University, and
Hastie became a federal judge.
By using the Fourteenth Amendment, Brown be-
came the key case in an attempt to topple the 1896
separate but equal doctrine. Legal strategists knew
that educational opportunity and better housing con-
ditions were essential if black Americans were to
achieve upward mobility. While one group of law-
yers focused on restrictive covenant cases,
16
which
prevented blacks from buying housing in white
neighborhoods, another spearheaded the drive for
blacks to enter state-run professional schools.
in civilization, that they should be let out of the state
of pupilage, and admitted to the privileges and re-
sponsibilities of citizenship, is a question to be de-
cided by the nation whose wards they are and whose
citizens they seek to become, and not by each Indian
for himself.
. . . And in a later case [Judge Deady in the District
Court of the United States for the District of Oregon]
said: “But an Indian cannot make himself a citizen of
the United States without the consent and co- operation
of the government. The fact that he has abandoned his
nomadic life or tribal relations, and adopted the habits
and manners of civilized people, may be a good rea-
son why he should be made a citizen of the United
States, but does not of itself make him one. To be a
citizen of the United States is a political privilege
which no one, not born to, can assume without its
consent in some form.
Mr. Justice Harlan in the dissenting opinion:
. . . We submit that the petition does suffi ciently show
that the plaintiff is taxed, that is, belongs to the class
which, by the laws of Nebraska, are subject to taxation.
. . . The plaintiff is a citizen and bona fi de resident
of Nebraska. . . . He is subject to taxation, and is
taxed, in that State. Further: The plaintiff has become
so far incorporated with the mass of the people of
Nebraska that . . . he constitutes a part of her militia.
By the act of April 9, 1866, entitled “An Act to
protect all persons in the United States in their civil
rights, and furnish means for their vindication”
(14 Stat. 27), it is provided that “all persons born in
the United  States and not subject to any foreign
power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby de-
clared to be citizens of the United States.” . . . Beyond
question, by that act, national citizenship was con-
ferred directly upon all persons in this country, of
whatever race (excluding only “Indians not taxed”),
who were born within the territorial limits of the
United States, and were not subject to any foreign
power. Surely everyone must admit that an Indian,
residing in one of the States, and subject to taxation
there, became by force alone of the act of 1866, a
citizen of the United States, although he may have
been, when born, a member of a tribe.
. . . If he did not acquire national citizenship on
abandoning his tribe [moving from the reservation]
and . . . by residence in one of the States, subject to the
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READING 37: Fourteen Key Supreme Court Cases and the Civil War Amendments 371
public schools of their community on a nonsegregated
basis. . . . This segregation was alleged to deprive the
plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws under the
Fourteenth Amendment. In each of the cases other
than the Delaware case, a three-judge federal district
court denied relief to the plaintiffs on the so-called
“separate but equal” doctrine announced by this Court
in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537. Under that doc-
trine, equality of treatment is accorded when the races
are provided substantially equal facilities, even
though these facilities be separated. . . .
The plaintiffs contend that segregated schools are
not “equal” and cannot be made “equal,” and that
hence they are deprived of the equal protection of
the laws.
. . . The most avid proponents of the post–[Civil]
War amendments undoubtedly intended them to re-
move all legal distinctions among “all persons born or
naturalized in the United States.”
In the fi rst cases in this Court construing the
Fourteenth Amendment, decided shortly after its
adoption, the Court interpreted it as proscribing all
state imposed discriminations against the Negro race.
The doctrine of “separate but equal” did not make its
appearance in this Court until 1896 in the Plessy v.
Ferguson, supra, involving not education but
transportation.
In these days, it is doubtful that any child may
reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is de-
nied the opportunity of an education. Such an oppor-
tunity where the state has undertaken to provide it, is
a right which must be made available to all on equal
terms.
We come then to the question presented: Does
segregation of children in public schools solely on the
basis of race, even though the physical facilities and
other “tangible” factors may be equal, deprive the
children of the minority group of equal educational
opportunities? We believe that it does.
To separate them [the children] from others of
similar age and qualifi cations solely because of their
race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status
in the community that may affect their hearts and
minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.
We conclude that in the fi eld of public education
the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place.
Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.
Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others simi-
larly situated for whom the actions have been brought
In 1954, suits were brought in Kansas, South
Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware on behalf of black
Americans seeking to attend nonsegregated public
schools. However, the case is commonly referred to
as Brown v. Board of Education. The plaintiffs in
the suit contended that segregation in the public
schools denied them equal protection of the laws
under the Fourteenth Amendment. The contention
was that since segregated public schools were not
and could not be made equal, black American chil-
dren were deprived of equal protection of the laws.
The Court’s unanimous decision addressed these
key questions:
1. Are public schools segregated by race detrimen-
tal to black children?
2. Does segregation result in an inferior education
for black children?
3. Does the maintenance of segregated public
schools violate the Equal Protection Clause of
the Fourteenth Amendment?
4. Is the maintenance of segregated public school
facilities inherently unequal?
5. What was the intent of the framers of the
Fourteenth Amendment regarding distinctions
between whites and blacks?
6. Is the holding in Plessy v. Ferguson applicable to
public education?
7. Does segregation of children in public schools
solely on the basis of race, even though the
physical facilities and other “tangible” factors
may be equal, deprive the children of the minor-
ity group of equal educational opportunities?
Excerpts from the Supreme Court
Decision in Brown v. Board of
Education 17
Mr. Chief Justice Warren delivered the opinion of
the Court:
. . . In each of these cases [NAACP suits in Kansas,
South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware] minors of the
Negro race, through their legal representatives, seek
the aid of the courts in obtaining admission to the
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372 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
In Lau v. Nichols, a suit was brought on behalf
of children of Chinese ancestry who attended
public schools in San Francisco. Although the chil-
dren did not speak English, their classes in school
were taught entirely in that language. (Some of the
children received special instruction in the English
language; others did not.) The suit did not specifi –
cally ask for bilingual education, nor did the Court
require it, but Lau led to the development of such
programs. In bilingual education, the curriculum is
taught in children’s native language, but they are
also given separate instruction in the English lan-
guage, and over time they are moved into English
throughout their courses.
The Lau decision hinged in part on Department
of  Health, Education, and Welfare guidelines that
prohibited discrimination in federally assisted pro-
grams. The decision was narrow because it instructed
only the lower court to provide appropriate relief.
The Court’s ruling did not guarantee minority lan-
guage rights, nor did it require bilingual education.
The Court’s decision addressed these key
questions:
1. Does a public school system that provides for
instruction only in English violate the equal pro-
tection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
2. Does a public school system that provides for
instruction only in English violate Section 601
of the Civil Rights Act of 1964?
3. Do Chinese-speaking students who are in the
minority receive fewer benefi ts from the school
system than the English-speaking majority?
4. Must a school system that has a minority of stu-
dents who do not speak English provide bilin-
gual instruction?
Excerpts from the Supreme Court
Decision in Lau v. Nichols 18
Mr. Justice Douglas delivered the opinion of the
Court:
The San Francisco, California, school system was in-
tegrated in 1971 as a result of a federal court decree.
are, by reason of the segregation complained of,
deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaran-
teed by the Fourteenth Amendment.
. . . We have now announced that such segregation
is a denial of the equal protection of the laws.
VIII. LAU V. NICHOLS (1974)
In the 19th century, Native Americans and Asian
immigrants sought to exercise rights under the
Fourteenth Amendment although it had been de-
signed explicitly to protect blacks. In the 20th cen-
tury, issues fi rst raised by African Americans, such
as equality in public education, again presented
other minority groups with an opportunity to test
their rights under the Constitution.
Brown v. Board of Education forced the Court to
consider the narrow question of the distribution of
resources between black and white school systems.
The Brown decision addressed only education. It
did not extend to the other areas of segregation in
American society, such as the segregation of public
transportation (e.g., buses) or public accommoda-
tions (e.g., restaurants and hotels). Indeed, Brown
had not even specifi ed how the integration of the
school system was to take place. All of these ques-
tions were taken up by the Civil Rights movement
that followed the Brown decision.
Once the separate but equal doctrine was nulli-
fi ed in education, immigrants raised other issues of
equality. In the 1970s, suits were brought on behalf
of the children of illegal immigrants, non-English-
speaking children of Chinese ancestry, and children
of low-income parents.
In Lau v. Nichols, a non-English-speaking mi-
nority group questioned equality in public educa-
tion. The case was similar to Brown because it
concerned public education, the Equal Protection
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the suit
was brought on behalf of minors; but the two cases
also differed in many respects. The 1954 decision
in Brown was part of a series of court cases attack-
ing segregated facilities primarily in southern
states. It addressed only the issues of black-white
interaction.
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READING 37: Fourteen Key Supreme Court Cases and the Civil War Amendments 373
students of a particular race, color, or national origin
are not denied the opportunity to obtain the education
generally obtained by other students in the system.”
In  1970 HEW made the guidelines more specifi c,
requiring school districts that were federally funded
“to rectify the language defi ciency in order to open”
the instruction to students who had “linguistic
defi ciencies.” . . .
It seems obvious that the Chinese-speaking minority
receive fewer benefi ts than the English-speaking major-
ity from respondents’ school system which denies them
a meaningful opportunity to participate in the educa-
tional program—all earmarks of the discrimination
banned by the regulations. . . .
Lau differed from Brown because it was decided
not on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment but
on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In reference to
Brown, the justices noted that equality of treatment
was not achieved by providing students with the
same facilities, textbooks, teachers, or curriculum.
Lau underscores the idea that equality may not be
achieved by treating different categories of people
in the same way.
IX. SAN ANTONIO SCHOOL
DISTRICT V. RODRIGUEZ (1973)
The 1973 case of San Antonio School District v.
Rodriguez raised the question of equality in public ed-
ucation from another perspective. As was the case in
Brown and Lau, the Fourteenth Amendment required
interpretation. However, unlike the earlier cases, the
issue was the fi nancing of local public schools.
Education is not a right specifi ed in the Consti-
tution. Under a federal system, education is a local
matter in each state. This allows for the possibility
of vast differences among states and even within
states on the quality of instruction, methods of
fi nancing, and treatment of nonwhite students.
Whereas the Brown decision examined inequality
between races, San Antonio considered inequal-
ity  based on fi nancial resources through local
property taxes. San Antonio raised the question of
the consequence of the unequal distribution of
wealth among Texas school districts. As with
The District Court found that there are 2,856 students
of Chinese ancestry in the school system who do not
speak English. Of those who have that language
defi ciency, about 1,000 are given supplemental
courses in the English language. About 1,800
however, do not receive that instruction.
This class suit brought by non-English-speaking
Chinese students against offi cials responsible for
the operation of the San Francisco Unifi ed School
District seeks relief against the unequal educational
opportunities, which are alleged to violate, inter alia,
the Fourteenth Amendment. No specifi c remedy is
urged upon us. . . .
The Court of Appeals [holding that there was no vio-
lation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment or of Section 601 of the Civil Rights Act
of  1964] reasoned that “[e]very student brings to the
starting line of his educational career different advan-
tages and disadvantages caused in part by social, eco-
nomic and cultural background, created and continued
completely apart from any contribution by the school
system.” . . . Section 71 of the California Education
Code states that “English shall be the basic language of
instruction in all schools.” That Section permits a school
district to determine “when and under what circum-
stances instruction may be given bilingually.” . . .
Under these state-imposed standards there is no
equality of treatment merely by providing students with
the same facilities, textbooks, teachers, and curriculum;
for students who do not understand English are effec-
tively foreclosed from any meaningful education.
. . . We know that those who do not understand
English are certain to fi nd their classroom experiences
wholly incomprehensible and in no way meaningful.
We do not reach the Equal Protection Clause argu-
ment which has been advanced but rely solely on Sec-
tion 601 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C.
section 2000d. to reverse the Court of Appeals.
That section bans discrimination based “on the
ground of race, color, or national origin, in any pro-
gram or activity receiving Federal fi nancial assis-
tance.” The school district involved in this litigation
receives large amounts of federal fi nancial assistance.
The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
(HEW), which has authority to promulgate regula-
tions prohibiting discrimination in federally assisted
school systems, in 1968 issued one guideline that
“[s]chool systems are responsible for assuring that
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374 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
Excerpts from the Supreme Court
Decision in San Antonio School
District v. Rodriguez 19
Mr. Justice Powell delivered the opinion of the
Court:
. . . The District Court held that the Texas system [of
fi nancing public education] discriminates on the basis
of wealth in the manner in which education is pro-
vided for its people. Finding that wealth is a “suspect”
classifi cation and that education is a “fundamental”
interest, the District Court held that the Texas system
could be sustained only if the State could show that it
was premised upon some compelling state interest.
. . . We must decide, fi rst, whether the Texas system
of fi nancing public education operates to the disadvan-
tage of some suspect class or impinges upon a funda-
mental right explicitly or implicitly protected by the
Constitution, thereby requiring strict judicial scrutiny. If
so, the Texas scheme must still be examined to deter-
mine whether it rationally furthers some legitimate, ar-
ticulated state purpose and therefore does not constitute
an invidious discrimination in violation of the Equal
Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
. . . In concluding that strict judicial scrutiny was
required, the [District] court relied on decisions deal-
ing with the rights of indigents to equal treatment in
the criminal trial and appellate processes, and on
cases disapproving wealth restrictions on the right to
vote. Those cases, the District Court concluded, es-
tablished wealth as a suspect classifi cation. Finding
that a local property tax system discriminated on the
basis of wealth, it regarded those precedents as
controlling. It then reasoned, based on decisions of
this Court affi rming the undeniable importance of
education, that there is a fundamental right to educa-
tion and that, absent some compelling state justifi ca-
tion, the Texas system could not stand.
We are unable to agree that this case, which in
signifi cant aspects is sui generis, may be so neatly
fi tted under the Equal Protection Clause. Indeed, we
fi nd neither the suspect-classifi cation nor the funda-
mental-interest analysis persuasive.
The wealth discrimination discovered by the Dis-
trict Court in this case, and by several other courts that
have recently struck down school fi nancing in other
States, is quite unlike any of the forms of wealth dis-
crimination heretofore reviewed by this Court.
Brown and Lau, minors were involved; however,
the issue was not race or language instruction but
social class. Did the Texas school system discrimi-
nate against the poor?
Traditionally, the states have fi nanced schools
based on property tax assessments. Since wealth is
not evenly distributed, some communities are able
to spend more on education and provide greater re-
sources to children. This is the basis of the San
Antonio case, where the charge was that children in
less affl uent communities necessarily received an
inferior education because those communities had
fewer resources to draw on. The Rodriguez family
contended that the Texas school system of fi nanc-
ing public schools through local property taxes de-
nied them equal protection of the laws in violation
of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Financing public schools in Texas entailed state
and local contributions. About half of the revenues
were derived from a state-funded program that pro-
vided a minimal educational base; each district then
supplemented state aid with a property tax. The
Rodriguez family brought a class action suit on be-
half of school children who claimed to be members
of poor families who resided in school districts
with a low property tax base. The contention was
that the Texas system’s reliance on local property
taxation favored the more affl uent and violated
equal protection requirements because of dispari-
ties between districts in per-pupil expenditures.
The Court’s decision addressed these key
questions:
1. Does Texas’s system of fi nancing public school
education by use of a property tax violate
the Equal Protection Clause (Section 1) of the
Fourteenth Amendment?
2. Does the Equal Protection Clause apply to wealth?
3. Is education a fundamental right?
4. Does this state law impinge on a fundamental
right?
5. Is a state system for fi nancing public education
by a property tax that results in interdistrict dis-
parities in per-pupil expenditures unconstitution-
ally arbitrary under the Equal Protection Clause?
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READING 37: Fourteen Key Supreme Court Cases and the Civil War Amendments 375
districts, we cannot say that such disparities are the
product of a system that is so irrational as to be in-
vidiously discriminatory. . . .
Mr. Justice White, with whom Mr. Justice Douglas
and Mr. Justice Brennan join, dissenting:
. . . In my view, the parents and children in Edge-
wood, and in like districts, suffer from an invidious
discrimination violative of the Equal Protection
Clause. . . .
There is no diffi culty in identifying the class that is
subject to the alleged discrimination and that is enti-
tled to the benefi ts of the Equal Protection Clause.
I need go no further than the parents and children in
the  Edgewood district, who are plaintiffs here and
who assert that they are entitled to the same choice as
Alamo Heights to augment local expenditures for
schools but are denied that choice by state law. This
group constitutes a class suffi ciently defi nite to invoke
the protection of the Constitution. . . .
In San Antonio v. Rodriguez, the Court did not
fi nd that the differences between school districts
constituted invidious discrimination. A majority of
the justices felt that Texas satisfi ed constitutional
standards under the Equal Protection Clause. On the
other hand, four justices in dissenting opinions saw
a class (the poor) that was subject to discrimination
and that lacked the protection of the Constitution.
X. REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA V. BAKKE (1978)
The Supreme Court has reviewed several cases
concerning equitable treatment in public education.
Key cases include racially separate public schools
( Brown v. Board of Education, 1954); the practice
of English-only instruction for Chinese students in
public schools ( Lau v. Nichols, 1974); and the prac-
tice of operating public schools based solely on rev-
enue from local property taxes ( San Antonio School
District v. Rodriguez, 1973).
African Americans not only had to fi ght for eq-
uity in public schools but also had to sue to gain
admission to law and medical schools in state uni-
versities. See Sipuel v. Oklahoma, 1948; Missouri
ex rel Gaines, 1938; and Sweatt v. Painter, 1950.
. . . First, in support of their charge that the system
discriminates against the “poor,” appellees have made
no effort to demonstrate that it operates to the peculiar
disadvantage of any class fairly defi nable as indigent,
or as composed of persons whose incomes are be-
neath any designated poverty level. Indeed, there is
reason to believe that the poorest families are not nec-
essarily clustered in the poorest property districts. . . .
Second, neither appellees nor the District Court
addressed the fact that . . . lack of personal resources
has not occasioned an absolute deprivation of the de-
sired benefi t. The argument here is not that the chil-
dren in districts having relatively low assessable
property values are receiving no public education;
rather, it is that they are receiving a poorer quality
education than that available to children in districts
having more assessable wealth. Apart from the un-
settled and disputed question whether the quality of
education may be determined by the amount of money
expended for it, a suffi cient answer to appellee’s argu-
ment is that, at least where wealth is involved, the
Equal Protection Clause does not require absolute
equality or precisely equal advantages. . . .
For these two reasons . . . the disadvantaged class
is not susceptible of identifi cation in traditional
terms. . . .
. . . [I]t is clear that appellee’s suit asks this Court
to extend its most exacting scrutiny to review a sys-
tem that allegedly discriminates against a large, di-
verse, and amorphous class, unifi ed only by the
common factor of residence in districts that happen to
have less taxable wealth than other districts. The sys-
tem of alleged discrimination and the class it defi nes
have none of the traditional indicia of suspectness:
the class is not saddled with such disabilities, or sub-
jected to such a history of purposeful unequal
treatment, or relegated to such a position of political
powerlessness as to command extraordinary protec-
tion from the majoritarian political process.
We thus conclude that the Texas system does not
operate to the peculiar disadvantage of any suspect
class. . . .
Education, of course, is not among the rights af-
forded explicit protection under our Federal Constitu-
tion. Nor do we fi nd any basis for saying it is implicitly
so protected. . . .
In sum, to the extent that the Texas system of
school fi nancing results in unequal expenditures be-
tween children who happen to reside in different
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376 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
U.S. Constitution. The Davis School of Medicine
was ordered to admit Bakke.
The Court’s divided opinion addressed these key
questions:
1. Does the University of California Davis School
of Medicine admission policy violate the
Fourteenth Amendment?
2. Does giving preference to a group of nonwhite
applicants constitute discrimination?
3. Does the University of California Davis School
of Medicine School use a racial classifi cation
that is suspect?
4. Was Bakke denied admission to the University
of California Davis School of Medicine on the
basis of race?
5. Can race be used as a criterion for admission to
a university?
Excerpts from the Supreme Court
Decision in The Regents of the
University of California v. Bakke 20
Mr. Justice Powell delivered the opinion of the
Court:
The guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment extend
to all persons. Its language is explicit: “No State shall
. . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.” . . . The guarantee of equal
protection cannot mean one thing when applied to one
individual and something else when applied to a per-
son of another color. . . .
. . . the [Fourteenth] Amendment itself was framed
in universal terms, without reference to color, ethnic
origin, or condition of prior servitude.
Petitioner [University of California, Davis] urges us
to adopt for the fi rst time a more restrictive view of the
Equal Protection Clause and hold that discrimination
against members of the white “majority” cannot be
suspect if its purpose can be characterized as “benign.”
. . . Moreover, there are serious problems of justice
connected with the idea of preference itself. First, it
may not always be clear that a so-called preference is
in fact benign. . . . Second, preferential programs may
only reinforce common stereotypes holding that cer-
tain groups are unable to achieve success without spe-
cial protection based on a factor having no relationship
In 1978, race-based admissions became an issue
again when a white person sued for admission to
the medical school at the University of California at
Davis. The case of The Regents of the University of
California v. Bakke, however, must be seen in light
of the policy of affi rmative action, which sought to
redress historic injustices against racial minorities
and other specifi ed groups by providing educa-
tional and employment opportunities to members
of these groups.
In 1968, the University of California at Davis
opened a medical school with a track admission
policy for a 100-seat class. In 1974, applicants
who  identifi ed themselves as economically and/
or  educationally disadvantaged or a member of a
minority group (blacks, Chicanos, Asians, American
Indians) were reviewed by a special committee.
They could also compete for the remaining 84 seats.
However, no disadvantaged white was ever admit-
ted to the school through the special admissions
program, although some applied. Bakke, a white
male, applied to the medical school in 1973 and
1974 under the general admissions program. He
was rejected both times because he did not meet the
requisite cutoff score. In both years, special appli-
cants with signifi cantly lower scores than Bakke
were admitted. After his second rejection, Bakke
sued for admission to the medical school, alleging
that the special admissions program excluded him
on the basis of his race in violation of the Equal
Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, a
provision of the California Constitution, and Sec-
tion 601 of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
which provides that no person shall, on the ground
of race or color, be excluded from participating in
any program receiving federal fi nancial assistance.
The California Supreme Court applied a strict-
scrutiny standard. It concluded that the special
admissions program was not the least intrusive
means of achieving the goals of the admittedly
compelling state interests of integrating the medical
profession and increasing the number of doctors
willing to serve minority patients. The California
court held that UC Davis’s special admissions pro-
gram violated the Equal Protection Clause of the
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READING 37: Fourteen Key Supreme Court Cases and the Civil War Amendments 377
Unquestionably we have held that a government
practice or statute which restricts “fundamental
rights” or which contains “suspect classifi cations” is
to be subjected to “strict scrutiny” and can be justifi ed
only if it furthers a compelling government purpose. . . .
But no fundamental right is involved here. Nor do
whites as a class have any of the “traditional indicia of
suspectness; the class is not saddled with such dis-
abilities, or subjected to such a history of purposeful
unequal treatment, or relegated to such a history of
purposeful unequal treatment, or relegated to such po-
sition of political powerlessness as to command
extraordinary protection from the majoritarian politi-
cal process.” . . .
Certainly . . . Davis had a sound basis for believing
that the problem of under-representation of minorities
was substantial and chronic. . . . Until at least 1973,
the practice of medicine in this country was, in fact, if
not in law, largely the prerogative of whites. In 1950,
for example, while Negroes constituted 10% of the
total population, Negro physicians constituted only
2.2% of the total number of physicians. The over-
whelming majority of these . . . were educated in two
predominantly Negro medical schools, Howard and
Meharry. By 1970, the gap between the proportion of
Negroes in medicine and their proportion in the popu-
lation had widened: The number of Negroes em-
ployed in medicine remained frozen at 2.2% while the
Negro population had increased to 11.1%. The num-
ber of Negro admittees to predominantly white medi-
cal schools, moreover, had declined in absolute
numbers during the years 1955 to 1964.
Moreover, Davis had very good reason to believe
that the national pattern of under-representation of
minorities in medicine would be perpetuated if it re-
tained a single admissions standard. . . .
Davis clearly could conclude that the serious and
persistent under-representation of minorities in medi-
cine depicted by these statistics is the result of handi-
caps under which minority applicants labor as a
consequence of . . . deliberate, purposeful discrimina-
tion against minorities in education and in society
generally, as well as in the medical profession. . . .
It is not even claimed that Davis’ program in any
way operates to stigmatize or single out any discrete . . .
or even any identifi able, nonminority group. Nor will
harm comparable to that imposed upon racial minori-
ties by exclusion or separation on grounds of race be
the likely result of the program. . . .
to individual worth. Third, there is a measure of ineq-
uity in forcing innocent persons in respondent’s posi-
tion to bear the burdens of redressing grievances not
of their making.
. . . When a classifi cation denies an individual op-
portunities or benefi ts enjoyed by others solely be-
cause of his race or ethnic background, it must be
regarded as suspect.
If petitioner’s purpose is to assure within its stu-
dent body some specifi ed percentage of a particular
group merely because of its race or ethnic origin, such
a preferential purpose must be rejected. . . . Preferring
members of any one group for no reason other than
race or ethnic origin is discrimination for its own
sake. This the Constitution forbids.
. . . [A] goal asserted by petitioner is the attainment
of a diverse student body. This clearly is a constitution-
ally permissible goal for an institution of higher educa-
tion. Academic freedom, though not a specifi cally
enumerated constitutional right, long has been viewed
as a special concern of the First Amendment. . . .
Ethnic diversity, however, is only one element in a
range of factors a university properly may consider in
attaining the goal of a heterogeneous student body.
It may be assumed that the reservation of a specifi ed
number of seats in each class for individuals from the
preferred ethnic groups would contribute to the attain-
ment of considerable ethnic diversity in the student
body. But petitioner’s argument that this is the only
effective means of serving the interest of diversity is
seriously fl awed. . . . Petitioner’s special admissions
program, focused solely on ethnic diversity, would hin-
der rather than further attainment of genuine diversity.
. . . In summary, it is evident that the Davis special
admissions program involves the use of an explicit
racial classifi cation never before countenanced by this
Court. It tells applicants who are not Negro, Asian, or
Chicano that they are totally excluded from a specifi c
percentage of the seats in the class.
The fatal fl aw in petitioner’s preferential program is
its disregard of individual rights as guaranteed by the
Fourteenth Amendment. Such rights are not absolute.
Mr. Justice Brennan, Mr. Justice White, Mr. Justice
Marshall, and Mr. Justice Blackmun, concurring in
part and dissenting in part:
We conclude . . . that racial classifi cations are not
per se invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment.
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378 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
but refused to direct the school to cease making ad-
mission decisions based on race. The case was sub-
sequently appealed in the Court of Appeals for the
Fifth Circuit, which held that the University of
Texas School of Law could not use race as an ad-
missions factor in order to achieve a diverse student
body. The holding of the circuit court stands be-
cause the Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
This decision in effect overruled Justice Powell’s
opinion in Bakke, which held that universities can
take account of an applicant’s race in some circum-
stances. He asserted that the goal of achieving a
diverse student body was permissible under the
Constitution.
XI. TENNESSEE V. LANE (2004)
Historically, disabled people have been thought of
as possessed or wicked. Often they were scorned
and shut off from society in mental institutions.
Today, however, the medical model is the dominant
perspective that “those with disabilities have some
kind of physical, mental, or emotional defect that
not surprisingly limits their performance.” Essen-
tially, we don’t expect those who are “fl awed” to
function as well as other people.
21

Disabled people constantly face discrimination
resulting in exclusion from housing, public build-
ings, and public transportation. This has prevented
them from attending school, visiting museums,
shopping, or living without assistance.
The 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act for-
bids discrimination against persons with disabilities
in three key areas of public life. Title I covers em-
ployment; Title II encompasses public services,
programs, and activities; and Title III covers public
accommodations. In 2001 Casey Martin sued the
PGA Tour,
22
under the public accommodations pro-
visions of Title III to allow him to play golf on the
tour while riding a golf cart because he suffers from
Klippel-Trenaunay-Weber syndrome, a degenera-
tive circulatory disorder that causes severe pain in
his lower leg. Martin won his case when the Court
held that the PGA walking rule was not compro-
mised by allowing him to use a cart.
Nor was Bakke in any sense stamped as inferior by
the Medical School’s rejection of him. Indeed, it is
conceded by all that he satisfi ed those criteria re-
garded by the school as generally relevant to aca-
demic performance better than most of the minority
members who were admitted. Moreover, there is ab-
solutely no basis for concluding that Bakke’s rejec-
tion that was a result of Davis’ use of racial preference
will affect him throughout his life in the same way as
the segregation of the Negro schoolchildren in
Brown I would have affected them. Unlike discrimi-
nation against racial minorities, the use of racial pref-
erences for remedial purposes does not infl ict a
pervasive injury upon individual whites in the sense
that wherever they go or whatever they do there is a
signifi cant likelihood that they will be treated as
second-class citizens because of their color. . . .
In addition, there is simply no evidence that the
Davis program discriminated intentionally or unin-
tentionally against any minority group which it pur-
ports to benefi t. The program does not establish a
quota in the invidious sense of a ceiling on the num-
ber of minority applicants to be admitted. . . .
Finally, Davis’ special admissions program cannot
be said to violate the Constitution. . . .
. . . we would reverse the judgment of the Supreme
Court of California holding the Medical School’s spe-
cial admissions program unconstitutional and direct-
ing respondent’s admission.
Justices Stevens and Stewart, along with Chief Jus-
tice Rehnquist, concurred and dissented in part.
They found that the university’s special admissions
program violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act
of 1964, which prohibits discrimination under any
program or activity receiving federal funding
assistance. This dissent found that Bakke was not
admitted to the Davis Medical School because
of his race.
Race-based admissions were again considered in
Hopwood v. Texas, a 1994 case in the Western Dis-
trict of Texas. The suit, brought by four white Texas
residents, claimed that the affi rmative action admis-
sions program of the University of Texas School of
Law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964. The district court agreed that the
plaintiffs’ equal protection rights had been violated,
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READING 37: Fourteen Key Supreme Court Cases and the Civil War Amendments 379
The court’s decision addressed these key
questions:
1. Is Title II a valid exercise of Congress’s Sec-
tion 5 enforcement powers under the Fourteenth
Amendment?
2. Does Title II enforce a variety of basic constitu-
tional guarantees such as the right of access to
the courts?
3. Does Title II validly enforce these constitutional
rights?
4. Is Title II an appropriate response to this his-
tory  of discrimination and pattern of unequal
treatment?
Excerpts from the Supreme Court
Decision in Tennessee v. George
Lane et al . 25
Mr. Justice Stevens delivered the opinion of the
Court:
The ADA was passed by large majorities in both
Houses of Congress after decades of deliberation and
investigation into the need for comprehensive legisla-
tion to address discrimination against persons with
disabilities.
. . . Title II, Sections 12131–12134, prohibits any
public entity from discrimination against “qualifi ed”
persons with disabilities in the provision or operation
of public services, programs, or activities. The Act
defi nes the term “public entity” to include state and
local governments. . . .
Title II, like Title I, seeks to enforce this prohibition
on irrational disability discrimination. But it also seeks
to enforce a variety of other basic constitutional guar-
antees, infringements of which are subject to more
searching judicial review. . . . These rights include
some, like the right of access to the courts at issue in
this case, that are protected by the Due Process Clause
of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Due Process Clause
[as] applied to the States via the Fourteenth Amend-
ment both guarantee to a criminal defendant such as
respondent Lane the “right to be present at all stages of
the trial where his absence might frustrate the fairness
of the proceedings.” . . . The Due Process Clause also
requires the States to afford certain civil litigants a
“meaningful opportunity to be heard” by removing
The provisions of Title II, which include access
to the services, programs, or activities of a public
entity such as a courthouse are questioned in
Tennessee v. Lane. In this case, residents of the
state who are paraplegics sued Tennessee under
Title  II of the Americans with Disabilities Act
(ADA) because they were denied access to a court-
house. Because this case involves a suit by an indi-
vidual against a state, the Supreme Court has to
consider the provisions of the Eleventh Amend-
ment,
23
which provides state immunity against suits
by citizens seeking equity and the enforcement
clause, Section  5 of the Fourteenth Amendment.
24

After Tennessee was unsuccessful in getting the
case dismissed because the plaintiffs sought dam-
ages, the case went to the Supreme Court. This
issue then became an interpretation of Congress’s
power to enforce by appropriate legislation
(Section 5) the guarantee that “no State shall make
or enforce any law which shall abridge the privi-
leges or immunities of citizens of the United States;
nor shall any State deprive any person of life, lib-
erty, or property, without due process of law; nor
deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.”
In 1998 George Lane and Beverly Jones, both
paraplegics who use wheelchairs, fi led suit against
the state of Tennessee and a number of counties
under Title II of the ADA, which states that no quali-
fi ed individual with a disability shall, because of the
disability be excluded from participation or denied
the benefi ts of the services, programs, or activities of
a public entity. Both parties claimed that they were
denied access to the state court system because of
their disability. Lane alleged that he was forced to
appear to answer criminal charges on the second
fl oor of a county courthouse. The courthouse had no
elevator. In his fi rst court appearance Lane crawled
up two fl ights to reach the courtroom. When Lane
had to return for a second time, he refused to crawl
or to be carried to the courtroom. He was arrested
and sent to jail for failure to appear for his hearing.
Jones, a certifi ed court reporter, claimed that she had
not been able to obtain work because she could not
gain access to several county courthouses.
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380 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
right of access to the courts, constitutes a valid exercise
of Congress’s Section 5 authority to enforce the guar-
antees of the Fourteenth Amendment.
XII. THE MICHIGAN CASES
Gratz v. Bollinger et al. (2003) and Grutter v.
Bollinger et al. (2003) considered admission stan-
dards for the University of Michigan’s undergradu-
ate program and its Law School. This marked the
fi rst time in the 25 years since the Bakke decision
that the Supreme Court had considered the legal
status of race-conscious admissions. In Bakke,
Justice Powell held that race could be taken into
consideration if it served a compelling government
interest. He then held that the goal of achieving a
diverse student body was a circumstance where
race could be considered. However, the Bakke deci-
sion generated six separate opinions, but no
majority opinion.
26

The University of Michigan cases question
whether Justice Powell’s opinion set a precedent
for considering diversity a constitutional justifi ca-
tion for race-conscious admissions.
Gratz v. Bollinger et al. (2003)
Jennifer Gratz and Patrick Hamacher were both white
residents of Michigan who applied for admission to
the University of Michigan’s College of Literature,
Science, and the Arts (LSA). Both were considered
qualifi ed for admission. However, both were denied
early admission, and upon further review neither was
admitted to the university. The university’s Under-
graduate Admissions Offi ce uses a written guideline
system that includes such factors as high school
grades, standardized test scores, the quality of the
high school, curriculum strength, geography, alumni
relationships, leadership, and race. Although the
guidelines have changed since 1995, the university
consistently considered African Americans, Hispanics,
and Native Americans as “underrepresented minori-
ties.” The guidelines provided that all applicants from
an underrepresented racial or ethnic minority group
were automatically given 20  points out of the 100
needed for admission. The university never disputed
obstacles to their full participation in judicial proceed-
ings. . . . And, fi nally, we have recognized that members
of the public have a right of access to criminal proceed-
ings secured by the First Amendment.
. . . It is not diffi cult to perceive the harm that Title II
is designed to address. Congress enacted Title II against
a backdrop of pervasive unequal treatment in the ad-
ministration of state services and programs, including
systematic deprivations of fundamental rights.
. . . With respect to the particular services at issue
in this case, Congress learned that many individuals,
in many States across the country, were being ex-
cluded from courthouses and court proceedings by
reason of their disabilities. A report before Congress
showed that some 76% of public services and pro-
grams housed in state-owned buildings were inacces-
sible to and unusable by persons with disabilities. . . .
The conclusion that Congress drew from this body
of evidence is set forth in the text of the ADA itself:
“Discrimination against individuals with disabilities
persists in such critical areas as . . . education, transpor-
tation, communication, recreation, institutionalization,
health services, voting, and access to public services. . . .”
This fi nding, together with the extensive record of
disability discrimination that underlies it, makes clear
beyond peradventure that inadequate provision of pub-
lic services and access to public facilities was an ap-
propriate subject for prophylactic legislation.
. . . Whatever might be said about Title II’s other
applications, the question presented in this case is not
whether Congress can validly subject the States to
private suits for money damages for failing to provide
reasonable access to hockey rinks, or even to voting
booths, but whether Congress had the power under
Section 5 to enforce the constitutional right of access to
the courts. Because we fi nd that Title II unquestionably
is valid Section 5 legislation as it applies to the class
of cases implicating the accessibility of judicial ser-
vices, we need go no further.
. . . Title II’s affi rmative obligation to accommo-
date persons with disabilities in the administration of
justice cannot be said to be “so out of proportion to a
supposed remedial or preventive object that it cannot
be understood as responsive to, or designed to pre-
vent, unconstitutional behavior. . . . It is, rather, a rea-
sonable prophylactic measure, reasonably targeted to
a legitimate end.
For these reasons, we conclude that Title III, as it
applies to the class of cases implicating the fundamental
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READING 37: Fourteen Key Supreme Court Cases and the Civil War Amendments 381
explained his view that it would be permissible for a
university to employ an admissions program in which
“race or ethnic background may be deemed a ‘plus’ in
a particular applicant’s fi le” . . . he emphasized, how-
ever, the importance of considering each particular
applicant as an individual, assessing all of the qualities
that individual possesses, and in turn, evaluating that
individual’s ability to contribute to the unique setting
of higher education. The admissions program Justice
Powell described did not contemplate that any single
characteristic automatically ensured a specifi c and
identifi able contribution to a university’s diversity. . . .
The current LSA policy does not provide the individu-
alized consideration Justice Powell contemplated. The
only consideration that accompanies the 20-point au-
tomatic distribution to all applicants from underrepre-
sented minorities is a factual review to determine
whether an individual is a member of one of these
minority groups. Moreover, unlike Justice Powell’s
example, where the race of a “particular black appli-
cant” could be “considered without being decisive” . . .
the LSA’s 20-point distribution has the effect of mak-
ing “the factor of race . . . decisive” for virtually every
minimally qualifi ed underrepresented minority appli-
cant. The fact that the LSA has created the possibility
of an applicant’s fi le being fl agged for individualized
consideration only emphasizes the fl aws of the Uni-
versity’s system as a whole when compared to that
described by Justice Powell. The record does not re-
veal precisely how many applications are fl agged, but
it is undisputed that consideration is the exception and
not the rule in the LSA’s program. Also, this individu-
alized review is only provided after admissions coun-
selors automatically distribute the University’s version
of a “plus” that makes race a decisive factor for virtu-
ally every minimally qualifi ed underrepresented
minority applicant. . . .
Nothing in Justice Powell’s Bakke opinion signaled
that a university may employ whatever means it desires
to achieve diversity without regard to the limits imposed
by strict scrutiny. Because the University’s use of race
in its current freshman admission policy violates the
Equal Protection Clause, it also violates Title VI.
Grutter v. Bollinger et al. (2003)
Barbara Grutter, a white Michigan resident, applied
to the University of Michigan Law School in 1996.
She was originally placed on a waiting list but
the claim that practically every qualifi ed applicant
from these groups was admitted.
In 1997, Gratz and Hamacher fi led a class-action
suit alleging violation of their rights under
the Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights
Act of 1964. The Equal Protection Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment provides that a state cannot
act unfairly or arbitrarily toward or discriminate
against a person within its jurisdiction because the
individual has “the equal protection of the laws.”
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimi-
nation on the grounds of race, color, or national
origin against anyone participating in a program or
activity which receives federal fi nancial assistance.
The Court’s decision addressed these key
questions:
1. Under strict scrutiny, does the university’s use of
race in its current admission policy constitute
narrowly tailored measures that further compel-
ling government interests?
2. Does the undergraduate admission policy violate
the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment?
3. Does the undergraduate admission policy violate
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964?
Excerpts from the Supreme Court
Decision in Gratz v. Bollinger et al.
(2003) 27
Chief Justice Rehnquist delivered the opinion of
the Court:
. . . Because the University’s use of race in its current
freshman admission policy is not narrowly tailored to
achieve respondents’ asserted interest in diversity, the
policy violates the Equal Protection Clause. For the
reasons set forth in Grutter v. Bollinger . . . the Court
has today rejected petitioners’ argument that diversity
cannot constitute a compelling state interest. However,
the Court fi nds that the University’s current policy,
which automatically distributes 20 points, or one-fi fth
of the points needed to guarantee admission, to every
single “underrepresented minority” applicant solely
because of race, is not narrowly tailored to achieve
educational diversity. In Bakke, Justice Powell
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382 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
16 out of 100 seats in a medical school class for mem-
bers of certain minority groups. . . . The decision
produced six separate opinions, none of which
commanded a majority of the Court. . . . The only
holding for the court in Bakke was that a “State has a
substantial interest that legitimately may be served by
a properly devised admissions program involving the
competitive consideration of race and ethnic origin.”
. . . Public and private universities across the na-
tion have modeled their own admissions programs on
Justice Powell’s views on permissible race-conscious
policies.
. . . Justice Powell approved the university’s use of
race to further only one interest: “the attainment of a
diverse student body” . . . Justice Powell grounded his
analysis in the academic freedom that long has been
viewed as a special concern of the First Amendment.
Justice Powell emphasized that nothing less than the
“‘nation’s future depends upon leaders trained
through wide exposure’ to the ideas and mores of stu-
dents as diverse as this Nation of many peoples.” . . .
Both “tradition and experience lend support to the
view that the contribution of diversity is substantial.”
Justice Powell was, however, careful to emphasize
that in his view race “is only one element in a range of
factors a university properly may consider in attaining
the goal of a heterogeneous student body.” . . .
For Justice Powell “[i]t is not an interest in simple
ethnic diversity, in which a specifi ed percentage of the
student body is in effect guaranteed to be members of
selected ethnic groups,” that can justify the use of race.
. . . Rather, “[t]he diversity that furthers a compelling
state interest encompasses a far broader array of quali-
fi cations and characteristics of which racial or ethnic
origin is but a single though important element.”
. . . We have held that all racial classifi cations im-
posed by government “must be analyzed by a review-
ing court under strict scrutiny.” . . . This means that
such classifi cations are constitutional only if they are
narrowly tailored to further compelling governmental
interests.
. . . The Law School asks us to recognize, in the
context of higher education, a compelling state inter-
est in student body diversity.
. . . Today, we hold that the Law School has a com-
pelling interest in attaining a diverse student body.
. . . Our conclusion that the Law School has a com-
pelling interest in a diverse student body is informed
by our view that attaining a diverse student body is at
was ultimately not admitted. She alleged that her ap-
plication was rejected because the Law School used
race as a “predominant” factor, which gave applicants
from certain minority groups “a signifi cantly greater
chance of admission than students with similar cre-
dentials from disfavored racial groups.” The Law
School asserted that it had a compelling interest in
obtaining the educational benefi ts derived from a
diverse student body. Law School offi cials con-
tended that the admissions staff was not directed to
admit a specifi c percentage or number of minority
students, but rather to consider race among several
factors. The goal was to obtain a “critical mass” of
underrepresented minority students in order to real-
ize the educational benefi ts of a diverse student
body. The critical mass concept was never stated in
terms of a fi xed number, or percentage, or even a
range of numbers or percentages. Admission offi –
cers acknowledged that minority group membership
was a strong factor in the acceptance decisions and
that applicants from minority groups were given
large allowance for admission compared to appli-
cants from nonfavored groups. However, it was as-
serted that race was not considered the predominant
factor in the Law School’s admission formula.
The Court’s decision addressed these key
questions:
1. Was race a predominant or a plus factor when
reviewing the fi les of Law School applicants?
2. Did the Law School have a compelling interest
in creating a diverse study body?
3. Does seeking a critical mass of minority stu-
dents equal a quota?
4. Does the Law School admissions policy violate
the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964?
Excerpts from the Supreme Court
Decision in Grutter v. Bollinger et al. 28
Justice O’Connor delivered the opinion of the Court:
We last addressed the use of race in public higher edu-
cation over 25 years ago. In the landmark Bakke case,
we reviewed a racial set-aside program that reserved
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READING 37: Fourteen Key Supreme Court Cases and the Civil War Amendments 383
The Law School frequently accepts nonminority ap-
plicants with grades and test scores lower than under-
represented minority applicants (and other non minority
applicants) who are rejected.
. . . We agree that, in the context of its individual-
ized inquiry into the possible diversity contributions
of all applicants, the Law School’s race-conscious
admissions program does not unduly harm nonminor-
ity applicants.
. . . the Equal Protection Clause does not prohibit
the Law School’s narrowly tailored use of race in ad-
missions decisions to further a compelling interest in
obtaining the educational benefi ts that fl ow from a
diverse student body.
XIII. RICCI V. DESTEFANO (2009)
Racial equity has been an issue in hiring and the
promotion of municipal workers such as teachers,
police offi cers, and fi refi ghters since the Civil
Rights legislation of 1964. In this case in New
Haven, Connecticut, when fi refi ghters sought pro-
motion, questions were raised about racially biased
tests and the history of discrimination in the fi re-
fi ghting profession, as well as disparate treatment
and impact.
In 2003, the city of New Haven used written and
oral examinations to identify which fi refi ghters
would be promoted to the rank of lieutenant or cap-
tain. Under the “Rule of Three,” the City was re-
quired to fi ll vacancies by selecting a candidate from
the top three scorers on the list. Application of this
rule excluded all black fi refi ghters from promotion
because they did not score high enough on the ex-
amination. The test results were reviewed by an in-
dependent review board because the results created a
racial disparity, which could mean that the test was
racially biased. The review board split evenly on
whether to certify the examination results. The City
then decided that no one would be promoted on the
basis of the test results. When the city decided not to
certify the test results, white and Hispanic fi refi ght-
ers who had passed the exam but were denied pro-
motion, sued the City, alleging that by discarding the
test results they had been discriminated against
under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
the heart of the Law School’s proper institutional mis-
sion, and that “good faith” on the part of a university
is “presumed” absent “a showing to the contrary.”
. . . The Law School’s concept of critical mass is
defi ned by reference to the educational benefi ts that
diversity is designed to produce.
These benefi ts are substantial. As the District
Court emphasized, the Law School’s admissions pol-
icy promotes “cross-racial understanding,” helps
to  break down racial stereotypes, and “enables [stu-
dents] to better understand persons of different races.”
. . . The Law School has determined, based on its
experience and expertise, that a “critical mass” of un-
derrepresented minorities is necessary to further its
compelling interest in securing the educational bene-
fi ts of a diverse student body.
. . . To be narrowly tailored, a race-conscious ad-
missions program cannot use a quota system—it can-
not “insulat[e] each category of applicants with
certain desired qualifi cations from competition with
all other applicants” (opinion of Justice Powell). In-
stead, a university may consider race or ethnicity only
as a “‘plus’ in a particular applicant’s fi le,” without
“insulat[ing] the individual from comparison with all
other candidates for the available seats.”
. . . We fi nd that the Law School’s admissions pro-
gram bears the hallmarks of a narrowly tailored plan.
As Justice Powell made clear in Bakke, truly individu-
alized consideration demands that race be used in a
fl exible, nonmechanical way.
. . . We are satisfi ed that the Law School’s admis-
sions program . . . does not operate as a quota. Prop-
erly understood, a “quota” is a program in which a
certain fi xed number or proportion of opportunities
are “reserved exclusively for certain minority groups.”
. . . The Law School’s goal of attaining a critical
mass of underrepresented minority students does not
transform its program into a quota. . . . “[S]ome attention
to numbers,” without more, does not transform a fl ex-
ible admissions system into a rigid quota.
. . . The Law School affords this individualized
consideration to applicants of all races. There is no
policy, either de jure or de facto, of automatic accep-
tance or rejection based on any single “soft” variable.
Unlike the program at issue in Gratz v. Bollinger, the
Law School awards no mechanical, predetermined
diversity “bonuses” based on race or ethnicity.
. . . What is more, the Law School actually gives
substantial weight to diversity factors besides race.
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384 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
We conclude there is no-strong-basis-in-evidence
to establish that the test was defi cient. . . .
. . . Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an em-
ployer’s reliance on race to the detriment of individu-
als who passed the examinations and qualifi ed for
promotions. The City’s discarding the test results was
impermissible under Title VII. . . .
. . . [T]he City was not entitled to disregard the test
based solely on the racial disparity in the results.
Justice Ginsburg, with whom Justice Stevens, Jus-
tice Souter, and Justice Breyer join, dissenting:
In assessing claims of race discrimination, [c]ontext
matters . . . Congress extended Title VII of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 to cover public employment. At
that time, municipal fi re departments across the
county, including New Haven’s pervasively discrimi-
nated against minorities . . . . The white fi refi ghters
who scored high on New Haven’s promotion exams
understandably attract this Court’s sympathy. But
they had no vested right to promotion. Nor have other
persons received promotions in preference to them.
. . . The Court’s recitation of the facts leaves out
important parts of the story. Firefi ghting is a profes-
sion in which the legacy of racial discrimination casts
an especially long shadow. In extending Title  VII to
state and local government employers in 1972, Con-
gress took note of a U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
(USCCR) report fi nding racial discrimination in mu-
nicipal employment even “more pervasive than in the
private sector.” . . . According to the report, overt rac-
ism was partly to blame but so too was a failure on the
part of municipal employers to apply merit-based em-
ployment principles. In making hiring and promotion
decisions, public employers often “rel[ied] on criteria
unrelated to job performance,” including nepotism or
political patronage. . . . Such fl awed selection meth-
ods served to entrench preexisting racial hierarchies.
The USCCR report singled out police and fi re depart-
ments for having “[b]arriers to equal employment . . .
greater . . . than in any other area of State or local
government,” with African Americans “hold[ing] al-
most no position in the offi cer ranks.” . . . (Racial
minorities are underrepresented in the fi re depart-
ments in nearly every community in which they live.”)
The city of New Haven (City) was no exception.
In the early 1970s, African Americans and Hispanics
composed 30 percent of the New Haven’s population,
The Court’s divided opinion addressed these
questions:
1. Can New Haven justify discrimination because
it fears a lawsuit?
2. Did the City’s action of discarding the test
results violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act?
Excerpts from the Supreme
Court Decision in Ricci v.
DeStefano  (2009) 29
Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court:
In 2003, 118 New Haven fi refi ghters took examina-
tions to qualify for promotion to the rank of lieutenant
or captain. Promotion examinations in New Haven (or
City) were infrequent, so the stakes were high. . . .
Certain white and Hispanic fi refi ghters who likely
would have been promoted based on their good test
performance sued the City . . . the suit alleges that, by
discarding the test results, the City . . . discriminated
against the plaintiffs based on their race, in violation of
. . . Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. . . .
. . . Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 . . . as
amended, prohibits employment discrimination on
the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national ori-
gin. Title VII prohibits both intentional discrimination
(known as “disparate treatment”) as well as, in some
cases, practices that are not intended to discriminate
but in fact have a disproportionately adverse effect on
minorities (known as “disparate impact”).
As enacted in 1964, Title VII’s principal nondis-
crimination provision held employers liable only for
disparate treatment. . . .
Our analysis begins with this premise: The City’s
actions would violate the disparate-treatment prohibi-
tion of Title VII absent some valid defense. All the evi-
dence demonstrates that the City chose not to certify
the examination results because of the statistical dis-
parity based on race—i.e., how minority candidates
had performed when compared to white candidates. As
the District Court put it, the City rejected the test results
because “too many whites and not enough minorities
would be promoted were the lists to be certifi ed.”
The City argues that, even under the strong-basis-
in evidence standard, its decision to discard the exami-
nation results were permissible under Title VII. . . .
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READING 37: Fourteen Key Supreme Court Cases and the Civil War Amendments 385
by that standard, petitioners have not shown that New
Haven’s failure to certify the exam results violated
Title VII’s disparate-treatment provision. . . .
Chief among the City’s problems was the very na-
ture of the tests for promotion. In choosing to use
written and oral exams with a 60/40 weighting, the
City simply adhered to the union’s preference and ap-
parently gave no consideration to whether the weight-
ing was likely to identify the most qualifi ed fi re-offi cer
candidates. There is strong reason to think it was not.
Relying heavily on written tests to select fi re offi –
cers is a questionable practice . . . successful fi re
offi cers, the City’s description of the position make
clear, must have the “[a]bility to lead personnel
effectively, maintain discipline, promote harmony,
exercise sound judgment, and cooperate with other
offi cials.” . . . these qualities are not well measured by
written tests. . . .
It is indeed regrettable that the City’s noncertifi ca-
tion decision would have required all candidates to go
through another selection process. But it would have
been more regrettable to rely on fl awed exams to shut
out candidates who may well have the command
presence and other qualities needed to excel as fi re
offi cers. . . .
XIV. U.S. V. WINDSOR (2013)
The Windsor case is the most recent in a line of
cases that consider the rights of same-sex couples.
Previous cases had pertained to conduct, rather
than  rights. For example, in 2004, Lawrence and
Gartner v. Texas questioned the legality of Texas’s
“homosexual conduct” law, which had criminalized
sexual relations for same-sex couples, but not for
heterosexual couples engaging in the same behav-
ior. The Supreme Court held that the Texas statute
violated the Constitution’s Due Process Clause.
The decision found that as adults, Lawrence and
Garner were free to express their rights to engage in
private sexual intimacy.
The fi ght for the rights of gays had been growing
since the 1990s. In 1993, Hawaii was poised to legal-
ize same-sex marriage. Congress responded quickly
by passing legislation to prevent claims of federal
recognition by other states following Hawaii. The re-
sult was the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
but only 3.6 percent of the City’s 502 fi refi ghters. The
racial disparity in the offi cer ranks was even more
pronounced. . . .
. . . It is against this backdrop of entrenched in-
equality that the promotion process at issue in this
litigation should be assessed. . . .
. . . The (test) results showed signifi cant racial dis-
parities. . . .
These stark disparities, the Court acknowledges,
suffi ced to state prima facie case under Title VII
disparate-impact provision. . . . New Haven thus had
cause for concern about the prospect of Title VII liti-
gation and liability. . . .
. . . Between January and March 2004, the Civil
Service Board (CSB) held fi ve public meetings to
consider the proper course. . . .
At its fourth meeting, the CSB solicited the views
of three individuals with testing-related expertise. . . .
Dr. Christopher Hornick, an industrial/organizational
psychology consultant with 25 years’ experience with
police and fi refi ghter test, described the exam results
as having “relatively high adverse impact.” . . .
Specifi cally, Hornick questioned New Haven’s
union-prompted 60/40 written/oral examination
structure, noting the availability of “different types of
testing procedures that are much more valid in terms
of identifying the best potential supervisors in [the]
fi re department.”
Respondents were no doubt conscious of race
during their decision making process, the court ac-
knowledged, but this did not mean they had engaged
in  racially disparate treatment. The conclusion they
had reached and the action thereupon taken were
race-neutral in this sense: “[A]ll the test results were
discarded. . . . .
. . . Title VII . . . aims to eliminate all forms of
employment discrimination, unintentional as well as
deliberate. Until today . . . . this Court has never ques-
tioned the constitutionality of the disparate-impact
component of Title VII. . . .
. . . This Court has repeatedly emphasized that the
statute “should not be read to thwart” efforts at volun-
tary compliance . . . (Title VII permits employers and
unions voluntarily to make use of reasonable race-
conscious affi rmative action”) . . .
Applying what I view as the proper standard to the
record thus far made, I would hold that New Haven
had ample cause to believe its selection process was
fl awed and not justifi ed by business necessity. Judged
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386 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the
word “spouse” refers only to a person of the opposite
sex who is a husband or a wife. 1 U.S.C. Section 7.
The provision does not by its terms forbid States
from enacting laws permitting same-sex marriages
or civil unions or providing state benefi ts to resi-
dents in that status. The enactment’s comprehensive
defi nition of marriage for purposes of all federal
statutes control[s] over 1,000 federal laws in which
marital or spousal status is addressed as a matter of
federal law.
. . . The state of New York deems their Ontario
marriage to be a valid one.
. . . Windsor paid $363,053 in estate taxes and
sought a refund. The Internal Revenue Service denied
the refund, concluding that, under DOMA Windsor
was not a “surviving spouse.” . . . [Windsor] contended
that DOMA violates the guarantee of equal protec-
tion, as applied to the Federal Government through
the Fifth Amendment.
. . . The District Court ruled against the United
States. It held that Section 3 of DOMA is unconstitu-
tional and ordered the Treasury to refund the tax with
interest. . . .Windsor has not received her refund, and
the Executive Branch continues to enforce Section 3
of DOMA.
. . . [H]er injury (failure to obtain a refund alleg-
edly required by law) was concrete, persisting, and
unredressed.
. . . [S]ome States concluded that same-sex mar-
riage ought to be given recognition and validity in
the law for those same-sex couples who wish to
defi ne themselves by their commitment to each
other. The limitation of lawful marriage to hetero-
sexual couples, which for centuries had been
deemed both necessary and fundamental, came to
be seen in New York and certain other States as an
unjust exclusion.
. . . By history and tradition the defi nition and reg-
ulation of marriage . . . has been treated as being
within the authority and realm of the separate States.
Yet it is further established that Congress, in enacting
discrete statutes, can make determinations that bear
on marital rights and privileges. Just this Term the
Court upheld the authority of the Congress to pre-
empt state laws. . . .
. . . DOMA . . . enacts a directive applicable to over
1,000 federal statutes and the whole realm of federal
The Windsor case challenged the provisions of
the Defense of Marriage Act, which defi ned mar-
riage as “a legal union between one man and one
woman as husband and wife, and the word ‘spouse’
to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or
a wife.” Section 3 of the Act codifi ed that the fed-
eral government would not recognize same-sex
marriages. This prohibited same-sex couples from
receiving insurance benefi ts for government em-
ployees, Social Security survivors’ benefi ts, as well
as fi ling joint tax returns.
Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer were residents of
New York, lawfully married in 2007 in Ontario,
Canada. They then returned to their home in New
York City. When Spyer died in 2009 she left her
estate to Windsor. Windsor then tried to claim the
estate tax exemption for surviving spouses, but was
barred by the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal
law. This act “excluded a same-sex partner from the
defi nition of ‘spouse’ as that term is used in federal
statutes.” Windsor paid the taxes, but also fi led suit
to test the constitutionality of this provision.
The Court’s decision addressed these key
questions:
1. Can the federal government set aside its tradi-
tion of deference to the states on issues pertain-
ing to marriage?
2. Does DOMA seek to injure a class?
3. Does Section 3 of DOMA violate the Fifth
Amendment which guarantees equal protection
to persons who are legally married under the
laws of their state?
4. Did the Windsor decision effectively kill DOMA?
5. Will Windsor get a refund from the federal
government?
Excerpts from the Supreme Court
Decision in U.S. v. Windsor 30
Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the court:
Section 3 of DOMA provides as follows: . . . [T]he
word “marriage” means only a legal union between
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READING 37: Fourteen Key Supreme Court Cases and the Civil War Amendments 387
XV. SCHUETTE V. COALITION
TO DEFEND AFFIRMATIVE
ACTION, INTEGRATION AND
IMMIGRATION RIGHTS AND
FIGHT FOR EQUALITY BY ANY
MEANS NECESSARY (BAMN)
(2013)
This case presents another perspective on the af-
fi rmative action debate. Although previous cases
have focused on admissions policies, this case
questions whether an amendment to the Michigan
state constitution violated the Equal Protection
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by banning
race and sex-based discrimination in public univer-
sity admissions.
The University of Michigan had been the focus
of previous Supreme Court affi rmative action
cases. Gratz v. Bollinger in 2003 held that it was
unconstitutional to award extra points to minorities
in undergraduate admissions. Grutter v. Bollinger
in 2003 held that the University of Michigan law
school had “a compelling interest in attaining a
diverse student body.” It further stated that race
could be one of the factors in the admissions pro-
cess because it did “not unduly harm nonminority
applicants.”
In 2006, Michigan voters amended the state con-
stitution “to ban affi rmative action in public em-
ployment, education or contracting, except where it
was necessary to comply with federal law.”
The Court’s decision addressed these key
questions:
1. Does Michigan’s constitutional amendment,
which was approved by the voters, violate the
Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment?
2. Can voters prohibit consideration of racial
preferences by passing a constitutional
amendment?
3. Should a policy of granting race-based prefer-
ences be continued?
regulations. And its operation is directed to a class of
persons that the laws of New York, and 11 other
States, have sought to protect.
. . . The signifi cance of state responsibilities for the
defi nition and regulation of marriage dates to the Na-
tion’s beginning; for “when the Constitution was ad-
opted the common understanding was that the
domestic relations of husband and wife and parent
and child were matters reserved to the States”. . . Here
the State’s decision to give this class of persons the
right to marry conferred upon them a dignity and sta-
tus of immense import.
. . . What the State of New York treats as alike the
federal law deems unlike by a law designed to injure
the same class the State seeks to protect.
. . . Private, consensual sexual intimacy between
two adult persons of the same sex may not be pun-
ished by the State, and it can form “but one element
in a personal bond that is more enduring” ( Lawrence
v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 567 [2003]). By its recogni-
tion of the validity of same-sex marriages performed
in other jurisdictions and then by authorizing same-
sex unions and same-sex marriages, New York
sought to give further protection and dignity to that
bond. For same-sex couples who wished to be
married, the State acted to give their lawful conduct
a lawful status.
. . . DOMA seeks to injure the very class New
York seeks to protect. By doing so it violates basic
due process and equal protection principles applica-
ble to the Federal Government. As the title and
dynamics of the bill indicate, its purpose is to dis-
courage enactment of state same-sex marriage laws
and to restrict the freedom and choice of couples
married under those laws if they are enacted. The
congressional goal was “to put a thumb on the scales
and infl uence a state’s decision as to how to shape its
own marriage laws.” . . .
DOMA’s principal effect is to identify a subset of
state-sanctioned marriages and make them unequal. . . .
This requires the Court to hold, as it now does, that
DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the lib-
erty of the person protected by the fi fth Amendment
of the Constitution.
Justice Alito and Justice Thomas joined in a dissent
to parts II and III. Chief Justice Roberts also wrote
a separate dissent.
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388 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
voters exercised their privilege to enact laws as a
basic exercise of their democratic power.
. . . What is at stake here is not whether injury
will be infl icted but whether government can be in-
structed not to follow a course that entails, fi rst, the
defi nition of racial categories and, second, the grant
of favored status to persons in some racial catego-
ries and not others. . . .
This case is not about how the debate about ra-
cial preferences should be resolved. It is about who
may resolve it. . . . Democracy does not presume
that some subjects are either too divisive or too pro-
found for public debate.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the
Sixth Circuit is reversed.
Justices Sotomayor and Justice Ginsburg
dissented.
. . . Michigan does not assert that Section 26
satisfi es a compelling state interest. That should
settle the matter. . . .
. . . Race-sensitive admissions policies are now a
thing of the past in Michigan after Section 26, even
though—as experts agree and as research shows—
those policies were making a difference in achiev-
ing educational diversity. . . .
Section 26 has already led to decreased minor-
ity  enrollment at Michigan’s public colleges and
universities.
. . . This Court has recognized that diversity in
education is paramount. With good reason. Diver-
sity ensures that the next generation moves beyond
the stereotypes. . . .
. . . But I cannot ignore the unfortunate outcome
of today’s decision: Short of amending the State
Constitution, a Herculean task, racial minorities in
Michigan are deprived of even an opportunity to
convince Michigan’s public colleges and universities
to consider race in their admissions plans when other
attempts to achieve racial diversity have proved un-
workable, and those institutions are unnecessarily
hobbled in their pursuit of a diverse student body.
. . . Today’s decision eviscerates an important
strand of our equal protection jurisprudence. For
members of historically marginalized groups,
Excerpts from the Supreme Court
Decision in Schuette v. BAMN 31
Mr. Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the
Court:
The court in this case must determine whether an
amendment to the Constitution of the State of
Michigan, approved and enacted by its voters, is
invalid under the Equal Protection Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States. . . .
. . . Under the terms of the amendment, race-based
preferences cannot be part of the admissions process
for state universities. . . .
As noted, the amendment is in broad terms.
Section 26 states, in relevant part, as follows:
1. The University of Michigan, Michigan State
University, Wayne State University, and any
other public college or university, community
college, or school district shall not discriminate
against, or grant preferential treatment to, any
individual or group on the basis of race, sex,
color, ethnicity, or national origin in the opera-
tion of public employment, public education, or
public contracting.
2. The state shall not discriminate against, or grant
preferential treatment to, any individual or group
on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or na-
tional origin in the operation of public employ-
ment, public education, or public contracting.
. . . [T]he question here concerns not the permissi-
bility of race-conscious admissions policies under
the Constitution but whether, and in what manner,
voters in the States may choose to prohibit the con-
sideration of racial preferences in governmental
decisions, in particular with respect to school
admissions.
. . . That question is not how to address or pre-
vent injury caused on account of race but whether
voters may determine whether a policy of race-
based preferences should be continued.
By approving proposal 2 and thereby adding
Section 26 to their State Constitution, the Michigan
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READING 37: Fourteen Key Supreme Court Cases and the Civil War Amendments 389
11. The term colored was used in Louisiana to describe per-
sons of mixed race who had some African ancestry.
12. 163 U.S. 537 (1896).
13. 118 U.S. 356 (1886).
14. 112 U.S. 94 (1884).
15. Native Americans and slaves posed a problem when
taking the census count, which was the basis for appor-
tioning seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Some states stood to lose representation if some of their
slave or Native American population was not counted.
Blacks were counted as three-fi fths of a white man, and
only those Native Americans who were taxed were
counted.
16. Restrictive covenants were written in deeds restricting
the use of the land. Covenants could prohibit the sale of
land to nonwhites or non-Christians.
17. 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
18. 414 U.S. 563 (1974).
19. 411 U.S. 1 (1973).
20. 438 U.S. 265 (1978).
21. Paul C. Higgins, Making Disability. Springfi eld, IL:
Charles C. Thomas (1992), pp. 26–27.
22. PGA Tour, Inc. v. Casey Martin, 532 U.S. 661.
23. The Eleventh Amendment pertains to suits against the
states. The interpretation is that a state cannot be sued by
U.S. citizens of that state or another state nor by a for-
eign country.
24. Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment grants Congress
the power to enforce the provisions of this amendment
by appropriate legislation.
25. 124 S. Ct. 1978 (2004).
26. Four justices supported the University of California’s
admissions program against all objections on the
ground that the government could use race “to remedy
disadvantages cast on minorities by past racial preju-
dice.” Four other justices did not interpret Bakke on
constitutional grounds, but instead struck down the pro-
gram on statutory grounds. Justice Powell’s position
was against the set-aside admissions policy, but was
also for “reversing the state court’s injunction against
any use of race whatsoever.” The holding in Bakke was
that a “State has a substantial interest that legitimately
may be served by a properly devised admissions
program involving the competitive consideration of
race and ethnic origin.”
27. 539 U.S. 244 (2003).
28. 539 U.S. 982 (2003).
29. 129 S. Ct. 2658.
30. U.S. v. Windsor 570 U.S. ___(2013).
31. Schuette v. BAMN, 527 U.S. ___(2014).
which rely on the federal courts to protect their
constitutional rights, the decision can hardly bolster
hope for a vision of democracy that preserves for
all the right to participate meaningfully and equally
in self-government.
NOTES
1. Privileges and immunities refer to the ability of one
state to discriminate against the citizens of another
state. A resident of one state cannot be denied legal
protection, access to the courts, or property rights in
another state.
2. In Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944), the Supreme
Court held that a 1927 Texas law that authorized politi-
cal parties to establish criteria for membership in the
state Democratic party violated the Fifteenth Amendment.
In effect, the criteria excluded nonwhites from the Dem-
ocratic party. Since only party members could vote in the
primary election, the result was a whites-only primary.
The Democratic party so dominated politics in the south-
ern states after the Civil War that winning the primary
was equivalent to winning the general election.
3. Americans of African descent have been called blacks,
Negroes, colored, or African Americans, depending on
the historical period.
4. 19 Howard 393 (1857).
5. The Nineteenth Amendment that was ratifi ed on
August  18, 1920, stated, “The right of citizens of the
United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged
by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation.”
6. 21 Wallace 162 (1875).
7. Crozier, “Constitutionality of Discrimination Based on
Sex,” 15 B.U.L. Review, 723, 727–28 (1935) as quoted in
William Hodes, “Women and the Constitution: Some
Legal History and a New Approach to the Nineteenth
Amendment,” Rutgers Law Review, Vol. 25, 1970, p. 27.
8. Hodes, p. 45.
9. Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma: The Negro
Problem and Modern Democracy. New York: Harper
and Row (2nd ed. 1962 [1944]), pp. 1073–74, as quoted
in Hodes, p. 29. This same biblical ground has yielded
the idea that a woman is an extension of her husband and
his status.
10. The states under military rule were Virginia, North
Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee,
Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas.
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390 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
R E A D I N G 3 8
Blink in Black and White
Malcolm Gladwell
Over the past few years, a number of psychologists
have begun to look more closely at the role
unconscious—or, as they like to call them,
implicit— associations play in our beliefs and
behavior, and much of their work has focused on a
very fascinating tool called the Implicit Association
Test (IAT). The IAT was devised by Anthony G.
Greenwald, Mahzarin Banaji, and Brian Nosek,
and it is based on a seemingly obvious—but none-
theless quite profound—observation. We make
connections much more quickly between pairs of
ideas that are already related in our minds than we
do between pairs of ideas that are unfamiliar to us.
What does that mean? Let me give you an example.
Below is a list of words. Take a pencil or pen and
assign each name to the category to which it belongs
by putting a check mark either to the left or to the
right of the word. You can also do it by tapping your
fi nger in the appropriate column. Do it as quickly as
you can. Don’t skip over words. And don’t worry if
you make any mistakes.
Male Female
…………………………… John ……………………………
…………………………… Bob …………………………….
…………………………… Amy ……………………………
…………………………… Holly …………………………..
…………………………… Joan ……………………………
…………………………… Derek ………………………….
…………………………… Peggy ………………………….
…………………………… Jason …………………………..
…………………………… Lisa …………………………….
…………………………… Matt ……………………………
…………………………… Sarah …………………………..
That was easy, right? And the reason that was
easy is that when we read or hear the name “John”
or “Bob” or “Holly,” we don’t even have to think
about whether it’s a masculine or a feminine name.
We all have a strong prior association between a
fi rst name like John and the male gender, or a name
like Lisa and things female.
That was a warm-up. Now let’s complete an ac-
tual IAT. It works like the warm-up, except that
now I’m going to mix two entirely separate catego-
ries together. Once again, put a check mark to ei-
ther the right or the left of each word, in the category
to which it belongs.
Male Female
or or
Career Family
…………………………… Lisa …………………………….
…………………………… Matt …………………………….
…………………………… Laundry ……………………….
…………………………… Entrepreneur ………………..
…………………………… John ……………………………
…………………………… Merchant …………………….
…………………………… Bob …………………………….
…………………………… Capitalist …………………….
…………………………… Holly …………………………..
…………………………… Joan …………………………….
…………………………… Home ………………………….
…………………………… Corporation …………………
…………………………… Siblings ………………………
…………………………… Peggy ………………………….
…………………………… Jason …………………………..
…………………………… Kitchen ……………………….
…………………………… Housework ………………….
…………………………… Parents ………………………..
…………………………… Sarah ………………………….
…………………………… Derek ………………………….
My guess is that most of you found that a lit-
tle harder, but that you were still pretty fast at
putting the words into the right categories. Now
try this:
Malcolm Gladwell is an author and staff writer for The
New  Yorker.
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READING 38: Blink in Black and White 391
it on a computer. The words are fl ashed on the
screen one at a time, and if a given word belongs in
the left-hand column, you hit the letter e, and if the
word belongs in the right-hand column, you hit the
letter i. The advantage of doing the IAT on a com-
puter is that the responses are measurable down to
the millisecond, and those measurements are used
in assigning the test taker’s score. So, for example,
if it took you a little bit longer to complete part two
of the Work/Family IAT than it did part one, we
would say that you have a moderate association be-
tween men and the workforce. If it took you a lot
longer to complete part two, we’d say that when it
comes to the workforce, you have a strong auto-
matic male association.
One of the reasons that the IAT has become so
popular in recent years as a research tool is that
the effects it is measuring are not subtle; as those
of you who felt yourself slowing down on the sec-
ond half of the Work/Family IAT above can attest,
the IAT is the kind of tool that hits you over
the head with its conclusions. “When there’s a
strong prior association, people answer in between
four hundred and six hundred milliseconds,” says
Greenwald. “When there isn’t, they might take
two hundred to three hundred milliseconds longer
than that—which in the realm of these kinds of
effects is huge. One of my cognitive psychologist
colleagues described this as an effect you can
measure with a sundial.”
If you’d like to try a computerized IAT, you can
go to www.implicit.harvard.edu. There you’ll fi nd
several tests, including the most famous of all the
IATs, the Race IAT. I’ve taken the Race IAT on
many occasions, and the result always leaves me
feeling a bit creepy. At the beginning of the test,
you are asked what your attitudes toward blacks
and whites are. I answered, as I am sure most of
you would, that I think of the races as equal. Then
comes the test. You’re encouraged to complete it
quickly. First comes the warm-up. A series of pic-
tures of faces fl ash on the screen. When you see a
black face, you press e and put it in the left-hand
Male Female
or or
Family Career
………………………… Babies …………………………..
…………………………… Sarah ………………………….
…………………………… Derek ………………………….
…………………………… Merchant …………………….
…………………………… Employment ………………..
…………………………… John ……………………………
…………………………… Bob …………………………….
…………………………… Holly ………………………….
…………………………… Domestic …………………….
………………………. Entrepreneur ……………………
…………………………… Offi ce ………………………….
…………………………… Joan ……………………………
…………………………… Peggy ………………………….
…………………………… Cousins ……………………….
…………………………… Grandparents ……………….
…………………………… Jason …………………………..
…………………………… Home ………………………….
…………………………… Lisa …………………………….
…………………………… Corporation …………………
…………………………… Matt ……………………………
Did you notice the difference? This test was
quite a bit harder than the one before it, wasn’t it? If
you are like most people, it took you a little longer
to put the word “Entrepreneur” into the “Career”
category when “Career” was paired with “Female”
than when “Career” was paired with “Male.” That’s
because most of us have much stronger mental as-
sociations between maleness and career-oriented
concepts than we do between femaleness and ideas
related to careers. “Male” and “Capitalist” go to-
gether in our minds a lot like “John” and “Male”
did. But when the category is “Male or Family,” we
have to stop and think—even if it’s only for a few
hundred milliseconds—before we decide what to
do with a word like “Merchant.”
When psychologists administer the IAT, they
usually don’t use paper and pencil tests like the
ones I’ve just given you. Most of the time, they do
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392 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
category. When you see a white face, you press i
and put it in the right-hand category. It’s blink,
blink, blink: I didn’t have to think at all. Then
comes part one.
European American African American
or or
Bad Good
…………………………. Hurt ……………………………..
…………………………. Evil ……………………………..
…………………………. Glorious ……………………….
………………… …………………
………………… …………………
…………………………… Wonderful ……………………
And so on. Immediately, something strange hap-
pened to me. The task of putting the words and
faces in the right categories suddenly became more
diffi cult. I found myself slowing down. I had to
think. Sometimes I assigned something to one cat-
egory when I really meant to assign it to the other
category. I was trying as hard as I could, and in the
back of my mind was a growing sense of mortifi cation.
Why was I having such trouble when I had to put
a  word like “Glorious” or “Wonderful” into the
“Good” category when “Good” was paired with
“African American” or when I had to put the word
“Evil” into the “Bad” category when “Bad” was
paired with “European American”? Then came part
two. This time the categories were reversed.
European American African American
or or
Good Bad
…………………………. Hurt ……………………………..
…………………………. Evil ……………………………..
…………………………. Glorious ……………………….
………………… …………………
………………… …………………
…………………………… Wonderful ……………………
And so on. Now my mortifi cation grew still fur-
ther. Now I was having no trouble at all.
Evil? African American or Bad.
Hurt? African American or Bad.
Wonderful? European American or Good.
I took the test a second time, and then a third
time, and then a fourth time, hoping that the awful
feeling of bias would go away. It made no difference.
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READING 38: Blink in Black and White 393
Mahzarin Banaji, who teaches psychology at
Harvard University and is one of the leaders in IAT
research. “But you are required to. All around you,
that group is being paired with good things. You
open the newspaper and you turn on the television,
and you can’t escape it.”
The IAT is more than just an abstract measure of
attitudes. It’s also a powerful predictor of how we
act in certain kinds of spontaneous situations. If
you have a strongly pro-white pattern of associa-
tions, for example, there is evidence that that will
affect the way you behave in the presence of a black
person. It’s not going to affect what you’ll choose
to say or feel or do. In all likelihood, you won’t be
aware that you’re behaving any differently than you
would around a white person. But chances are
you’ll lean forward a little less, turn away slightly
from him or her, close your body a bit, be a bit less
expressive, maintain less eye contact, stand a little
farther away, smile a lot less, hesitate and stumble
over your words a bit more, laugh at jokes a bit less.
Does that matter? Of course it does. Suppose the
conversation is a job interview. And suppose the
applicant is a black man. He’s going to pick up on
that uncertainty and distance, and that may well
make him a little less certain of himself, a little less
confi dent, and a little less friendly. And what will
you think then? You may well get a gut feeling that
the applicant doesn’t really have what it takes, or
maybe that he is a bit standoffi sh, or maybe that he
doesn’t really want the job. What this unconscious
fi rst impression will do, in other words, is throw the
interview hopelessly off course.
Or what if the person you are interviewing is
tall? I’m sure that on a conscious level we don’t
think that we treat tall people any differently from
how we treat short people. But there’s plenty of
evidence to suggest that height—particularly
in men—does trigger a certain set of very positive
unconscious associations. I polled about half of the
companies on the Fortune 500 list—the list of the
largest corporations in the United States—asking
each company questions about its CEO. Over-
whelmingly, the heads of big companies are, as I’m
sure comes as no surprise to anyone, white men,
which undoubtedly refl ects some kind of implicit
It turns out that more than 80 percent of all those
who have ever taken the test end up having pro-
white associations, meaning that it takes them mea-
surably longer to complete answers when they are
required to put good words into the “Black” cate-
gory than when they are required to link bad things
with black people. I didn’t do quite so badly. On the
Race IAT, I was rated as having a “moderate auto-
matic preference for whites.” But then again, I’m
half black. (My mother is Jamaican.)
So what does this mean? Does this mean I’m a
racist, a self-hating black person? Not exactly.
What it means is that our attitudes toward things
like race or gender operate on two levels. First of
all, we have our conscious attitudes. This is what
we choose to believe. These are our stated values,
which we use to direct our behavior deliberately.
The apartheid policies of South Africa or the laws
in the American South that made it diffi cult for
African Americans to vote are manifestations of
conscious discrimination, and when we talk about
racism or the fi ght for civil rights, this is the kind of
discrimination that we usually refer to. But the IAT
measures something else. It measures our second
level of attitude, our racial attitude on an uncon-
scious level—the immediate, automatic associa-
tions that tumble out before we’ve even had time to
think. We don’t deliberately choose our uncon-
scious attitudes. And . . . we may not even be aware
of them. The giant computer that is our unconscious
silently crunches all the data it can from the experi-
ences we’ve had, the people we’ve met, the lessons
we’ve learned, the books we’ve read, the movies
we’ve seen, and so on, and it forms an opinion.
That’s what is coming out in the IAT.
The disturbing thing about the test is that it
shows that our unconscious attitudes may be utterly
incompatible with our stated conscious values.
As it turns out, for example, of the fi fty thousand
African Americans who have taken the Race IAT so
far, about half of them, like me, have stronger as-
sociations with whites than with blacks. How could
we not? We live in North America, where we are
surrounded every day by cultural messages linking
white with good. “You don’t choose to make posi-
tive associations with the dominant group,” says
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394 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
what a leader is supposed to look like, and that ste-
reotype is so powerful that when someone fi ts it, we
simply become blind to other considerations. And
this isn’t confi ned to the executive suite. Not long
ago, researchers who analyzed the data from four
large research studies that had followed thousands
of people from birth to adulthood calculated that
when corrected for such variables as age and gen-
der and weight, an inch of height is worth $789
a year in salary. That means that a person who is
six feet tall but otherwise identical to someone who
is fi ve foot fi ve will make on average $5,525 more
per year. As Timothy Judge, one of the authors of
the height- salary study, points out: “If you take this
over the course of a 30-year career and compound
it, we’re talking about a tall person enjoying liter-
ally hundreds of thousands of dollars of earnings
advantage.” Have you ever wondered why so many
mediocre people fi nd their way into positions of
authority in companies and organizations? It’s be-
cause when it comes to even the most important
positions, our selection decisions are a good deal
less rational than we think. We see a tall person and
we swoon. . . .
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Do you think some of your unconscious
attitudes may be different from your stated
conscious values? Why?
2. What are some examples of two words that are
not usually thought of together?
NOTES
For more on the IAT, see Anthony G. Greenwald, Debbie E.
McGhee, and Jordan L. K. Schwartz, “Measuring Indi-
vidual Differences in Implicit Cognition: The Implicit
Association Test,” Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology 74, no. 6 (1998): 1464–1480.
For an excellent treatment of the height issue, see Nancy
Etcoff, Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty
(New York: Random House, 1999), 172.
The height-salary study can be found in Timothy A. Judge
and Daniel M. Cable, “The Effect of Physical Height on
Workplace Success and Income: Preliminary Test of a
Theoretical Model,” Journal of Applied Psychology 89,
no. 3 (June 2004): 428–441.
bias. But they are also almost all tall: in my sample,
I found that on average, male CEOs were just a
shade under six feet tall. Given that the average
American male is fi ve foot nine, that means
that CEOs as a group have about three inches on
the rest of their sex. But this statistic actually un-
derstates the matter. In the U.S. population, about
14.5 percent of all men are six feet or taller. Among
CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, that number is
58 percent. Even more striking, in the general
American population, 3.9 percent of adult men
are six foot two or taller. Among my CEO sample,
almost a third were six foot two or taller.
The lack of women or minorities among the top
executive ranks at least has a plausible explanation.
For years, for a number of reasons having to do
with discrimination and cultural patterns, there
simply weren’t a lot of women and minorities en-
tering the management ranks of American corpora-
tions. So, today, when boards of directors look for
people with the necessary experience to be candi-
dates for top positions, they can argue somewhat
plausibly that there aren’t a lot of women and mi-
norities in the executive pipeline. But this is not
true of short people. It is possible to staff a large
company entirely with white males, but it is not
possible to staff a large company without short
people. There simply aren’t enough tall people to
go around. Yet few of those short people ever make
it into the executive suite. Of the tens of millions of
American men below fi ve foot six, a grand total of
ten in my sample have reached the level of CEO,
which says that being short is probably as much of
a handicap to corporate success as being a woman
or an African American. (The grand exception to all
of these trends is American Express CEO Kenneth
Chenault, who is both on the short side—fi ve foot
nine—and black . . .).
Is this a deliberate prejudice? Of course not. No
one ever says dismissively of a potential CEO
candidate that he’s too short. This is quite clearly
the kind of unconscious bias that the IAT picks up
on. Most of us, in ways that we are not entirely
aware of, automatically associate leadership ability
with imposing physical stature. We have a sense of
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READING 39: Safe Haven in America? Thirty Years after the Refugee Act of 1980 395
P E R S O N A L A C C O U N T
Just Like My Mama Said
I remember when I was just a little boy, my mother used
to tell me, “Anthony you have to work twice as hard in life
as everyone else, because being black means that you
already have one strike against you.” When I was grow-
ing up in a predominately black area, I did not know what
she meant by this. Then we moved to an area that was
filled with white people. I found myself constantly lagging
behind, and I couldn’t figure out why.
When I was 19 years old, I hit rock bottom and had
nothing. I then remembered what my mama had said, and
I began to work twice as hard as everyone else. I managed
to afford my own apartment and eventually get married.
My wife is white, but her parents dislike me because
of my color. They told her all the stereotypes about “the
black male” and swore to her that I would follow suit.
Soon after we moved in together, I was laid off from my
job. I began to worry that she would think her parents
were correct, so I tried to teach her about the black expe-
rience. I began to worry that her parents would negatively
influence her and I would lose her. I was ready to give in
and let her parents win, when I remembered something
that my mama had said: “Sometimes you can’t teach
people; they have to learn on their own.” Little did I know
an appropriate lesson would soon follow.
As I was going through the want ads, I saw an adver-
tisement for a job delivering pianos. The job paid more
money than I had ever earned. I set up an interview for
that evening. When my then-fiancée arrived home, I put
on a shirt and a tie, grabbed my résumé, and headed for
the interview. When I asked her if she thought I would get
the job, she said, “I don’t see why not. You work hard, you
have good references, and you are enrolled in school.”
Needless to say I felt pretty good about my chances.
I interviewed with a middle-aged white lady. The inter-
view went very well. She nearly assured me that I had
the job, but said that she just needed to run it by the store
owner. She left and returned with the owner minutes
later. He was a middle-aged man of apparently white and
Asian descent. He looked at me for a few seconds, and
our eyes met. Then he shook his head and said, “No this
is not who I want for the job” and walked out. The lady
and I dejectedly looked at each other. She attempted to
make an excuse for him, but I told her, “Don’t worry, it’s
not your fault.” I walked out and told my fiancée what had
happened. We rode home in silence. She had just gotten
her first taste of what it is like to be black in America.
Anthony McNeill
R E A D I N G 3 9
Safe Haven in America?
Thirty Years after the Refugee
Act of 1980
David W. Haines
As Senator Edward Kennedy began hearings on
the bill that would become the Refugee Act of
1980, he commented for the record that “I believe
our national policy of welcome to the homeless
has served our country and our traditions well. But
we are here this morning to explore how we can
do this job better.” The result of those hearings,
the Refugee Act of 1980, formalized a system of
refugee admissions and post-arrival assistance
separate from the other immigration programs that
are now largely in the Department of Homeland
Security. The program is based on an allocation of
roles among several federal agencies (especially
the Departments of State and Health and Human
Services), state and local governments, and a wide
range of voluntary agencies. There is a system of
annual consultations with the Congress on refugee
admissions, and those admissions provide broad
global representation in the origins of refugees
and general adherence to international standards
in the defi nition of who refugees are. This U.S.
refugee program remains absolutely central to
David Haines is a professor of anthropology at George Mason
University.
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396 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
the Somalian refugees aren’t ethnically Somali, and
the Bhutanese refugees aren’t Bhutanese.
Many other differences come from the disrupted
nature of refugee lives, much less the frequent horrors
of which they have been victims and witnesses. One
consequence is that, unlike other immigrants, most
refugees have limited opportunity for planning their
migration. They must seize opportunities to fl ee on
quick notice, must navigate complex geographical
and political mazes, and must usually make such a
sharp break with their home country that they cannot
return. They thus tend to lack the social resources of
kin and community on which most immigrants can
rely, either by having those resources with them in the
United States or at least being able to utilize them at
a distance through visits and easy communication.
There are also economic consequences. Refu-
gees, for example, often lack the three factors that a
vast body of research indicates are crucial for fi nd-
ing work in America: English competence (and
refugees sometimes lack literacy in any language);
education (often limited and almost certainly inter-
rupted for most refugees); and occupational skills
(particularly a problem for refugees coming from
agricultural backgrounds). So refugees are different
not simply in a general cultural sense but also by
often being rather poorly prepared to be new im-
migrants to America.
Refugees in America were not always so differ-
ent. America was, after all, founded at least in part
by refugees. So it would seem the idea of refuge—
perhaps especially for freedom of religion—lies at
the core of American consciousness. In that sense,
the willingness of the contemporary U.S. refugee
program to accept refugees of many different reli-
gions is quite encouragingly traditional—whether
Buddhists from Southeast Asia, Muslims from
Bosnia, Baha’is from Iran, or Hindus coming from
camps in Nepal after fl eeing from Bhutan. However,
much of the early American attitude toward refu-
gees was not so expansive. When the Acadians
were expelled from Nova Scotia in the mid-1700s,
for example, they found little refuge in the American
colonies. They were, after all, both French and
Catholic. In more recent times, there was little sup-
port for displaced persons after the Second World War
the  international efforts at refugee resettlement,
accounting for the great majority of formal refu-
gee resettlement cases designated by the United
Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Despite its merits, however, this refugee program
accounts for only a very small fraction of the num-
ber of immigrants legally admitted to the United
States, roughly fi ve percent over the last decade.
There are many reasons for that small size, but one
reason is that refugees are, by and large, different
from Americans and often far more different from
Americans than are other immigrants. Refugees are
. . . a relatively unknown set of newcomers. The
unknown represents potential uncertainty, and thus
possible danger. There is no security in uncertainty.
That is why, for example, the refugee program was
shut down for four months after September 11,
2001, and why admissions for the next two years
were more than cut in half (from 68,000 before 9/11
to 27,000 in 2002 and 28,000 in 2003). Only in 2009
did the number of annual admissions match that at
the beginning of the decade.
The reasons why refugees are different are mul-
tiple. One reason is that refugees are often already
different in their home countries: whether because
of religion, race or ethnicity, social background, or
political opinions. Refugees are rarely typical rep-
resentatives of the countries from which they come.
That is why they have to leave. Consider some re-
cent examples. The most recent set of refugees
from Somalia are hardly Somali in an ethnic sense;
rather they are Bantu people traffi cked north
into Somalia as labor. The refugees coming from
Myanmar (Burma) are not ethnic Burmese; rather
they are hill tribes who have fl ed from a govern-
ment dominated by ethnic Burmese who differ
from them in culture, language, politics, and often
religion. The Bhutanese refugees coming from
Nepal are actually Nepalese in origin but, having
migrated to Bhutan during colonial times, were not
readily accepted when they fl ed back to Nepal after
the outbreak of ethnic turmoil in Bhutan in 1990.
These examples illustrate the complexity of refugee
situations, but also suggest why Americans might
feel uncertain about these new arrivals. After all,
the Burmese refugees aren’t ethnically Burman,
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READING 39: Safe Haven in America? Thirty Years after the Refugee Act of 1980 397
clearer perspective. The fi rst of those other num-
bers involves immigrants who are admitted because
they have family connections in the United States.
Since 2000, the number of family-related immi-
grants has averaged about 650,000 per year. That
fi gure is high enough to permit the generalization
that new Americans are largely people who are al-
ready connected to other Americans. That implies a
certainty security. What else, after all, could pro-
vide such a certainty of new immigrants’ commit-
ment to America? What else could provide such a
certainty of knowing they will be able to survive
and prosper in the United States? Unlike refugees
from new places and uncertain backgrounds, these
immigrants are already family.
The second crucial number involves the undocu-
mented. The Department of Homeland Security es-
timates that since 2000 the annual net entry of
undocumented immigrants has been about 390,000
per year—although the effects of the recession on
the undocumented population are still in dispute.
These non-legal migrants must be savvy enough to
cross the U.S. border undetected and to navigate
through America without legal status, learning to
work, live, and often raise children. They too are
often already family: of other undocumented peo-
ple, of legally resident foreigners, or of U.S. citi-
zens. The generalization here is that America seems
to want to fi ll its immediate labor needs without
extending legal status. That makes for a simpler
business deal that can be revoked as needed—for
example, when there is a recession.
The third crucial number involves asylees. Dur-
ing that same period since 2000, the number of new
asylees has averaged nearly 30,000 per year (com-
pared to the roughly 50,000 refugee admissions per
year). These asylees are, in legal terms, people who
had already arrived in the United States and were
then ruled to have met the same fear of persecution
standard that applies to refugees. The difference
might seem a simple one: whether someone is ap-
proved as a refugee and then comes to America, or
whether someone comes to America fi rst and is
then recognized as meeting the refugee standard.
However, that simple difference implies a rather
different journey to America. Asylum applicants
until it was established how many of them were
Christian rather than Jewish.
It was always easier when refugees were not so
very different, whether the issues were linguistic
and religious, or simple socioeconomic characteris-
tics. When the U.S. accepted some 37,000 Hungarian
refugees in 1956 and 1957, for example, a classi-
fi ed CIA memo would note the “happy” fact that
these refugees were young, well-educated, and
with non-agricultural occupations. They were, of
course, “freedom fi ghters” so they were acceptable
on political grounds. But they also looked like very
good regular immigrants as well. They were not so
different after all.
The more broadly inclusive U.S. refugee pro-
gram that emerged from those hearings chaired by
Kennedy three decades ago was, in retrospect, a
rather signifi cant change in the relationship be-
tween America and refugees, above all in the will-
ingness to accept people who would not necessarily
be such “happy” cases of young, educated people
well positioned to survive and prosper in the United
States. Many refugees, of course, continue to do
very well in the United States but that is, in the
context of the 1980 revisions, not the purpose of
their admission. Indeed if the U.S. refugee pro-
gram produced wonderful statistics about only
cases of  successful adaptation and refugee pros-
perity, it  might well raise some suspicions about
whether the program was truly responding to those
in most need.
Overall, then, there are two key points to be
made about the U.S. refugee program: fi rst, it has
some very meritorious features and, second, it is
very small considering the overall size of U.S. im-
migration. With immigration reform once again
coming into view, it is an opportune time to recon-
sider the relative importance and scale of refugee
admissions in that larger immigration framework.
Since 2000, the number of refugee admissions
has averaged about 50,000 per year. During that
same period, overall legal immigration has aver-
aged slightly over 1,000,000 per year. So refugee
admissions have indeed been a very small part of
overall immigration during this past decade. Three
other numbers help put that general fi gure into
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398 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Why do you think the refugee program is so
small compared to immigration? Why do you
think refugee programs have not been
expanded?
2. Why is the distinction between asylee and
refugee an important one in understanding
American immigration policy?
3. What unique diffi culties and benefi ts would
arise from the fact that refugees are more differ-
ent from Americans than are other immigrants?
R E A D I N G 4 0
Hispanics Are Forgotten in Civil
Rights History
Nicholas Dauphine
Whenever civil rights has been covered in history
class, or when I’ve seen a documentary or read an
article concerning such, I have always been very
aware of what is missing, and it is something that
I am interested in and looking for. As an American
of Hispanic descent, I never see any information re-
lated to my ethnicity’s cause for civil rights. Where
is the plight of Hispanics represented in the civil
rights discussion and history of the United States?
In my household, I have heard the stories from
older relatives about the treatment of Mexican-
Americans in Texas in the 1900s. From what has
been relayed to me, it was not much different from
how black Americans were treated in Mississippi.
Through my parents, I have heard of schools for
Mexican children, separate drinking fountains,
having to sit in the “black” balconies at movies, and
not being able to go to restaurants and other estab-
lishments that were designated as “whites only.”
But the public record of what the conditions
were for the people of my background is severely
have to travel clandestinely and often along transit
routes that pose danger, require money, and often
take very long periods of time. That puts a prefer-
ence on people who have the personal and fi nancial
resources to make such a journey and, because of
the dangers, tends to select for the young, the sin-
gle, and the disproportionately male.
Those requirements for asylum seekers are, of
course, almost exactly the same as for other parts of
the undocumented population with which they inter-
mingle. Asylum seekers must have the skills and re-
sources to reach U.S. borders, to cross them without
documentation, and then live in the shadows at least
long enough to fi nd people who can help them de-
velop a viable legal claim for asylum. They thus pro-
vide some measure of familiarity: they are already
here and they know how America works. In many
ways, that is a good thing. However, the increasing
number of asylees compared to refugees raises the
question of whether, in the humanitarian aspects of
immigration policy, America is choosing to passively
let people enter the country who can already pass this
kind of competency test, rather than proactively
reaching out beyond its borders for those most in
need, whether or not they have the economic, social,
and cultural resources to reach America on their own.
Back to the Refugee Act of 1980. After Senator
Kennedy opened the initial hearings with an evoca-
tion of refugees as “one of the oldest and most im-
portant themes in our Nation’s history,” Senator
Strom Thurmond proposed a different standard that
also “has served us well.” We should, he cautioned
“weigh the cultural and demographic impact of the
refugee problem” and “be guided by enlightened in-
terest tempered with compassion.” Thirty years later,
we seem to have something of each of these two
positions: following Kennedy: a refugee program
that reaches out to all; following Thurmond, a refu-
gee program small enough that it is but a “temper-
ing” of the self-interest that guides most American
immigration policy, whether it is the economic self-
interest of having cheap labor, the social and cultural
self-interest of emphasizing family ties, or the cogni-
tive self-interest of avoiding the uncertainties of ref-
ugees with their unknown (and often unknowable)
experiences, and their unpredictable futures.
Nicholas D. Dauphine was a high school senior in San Antonio,
Texas, when his essay won fi rst prize in the LBJ Library “Civil
Rights Today” essay contest. He is now a student at St. Mary’s
University in San Antonio, Texas.
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READING 41: Balancing Identities: Undocumented Immigrant Asian American Students and the Model Minority Myth 399
of the United States today, efforts should be made to
shine a light on the history, conditions, people, and
effects of Latino activists and legislation. It’s time to
give a large portion of the population its due, so that
maybe when educational resources are developed
into lesson plans, Hispanics have an element of
pride and purpose in knowing that our predecessors
also played a role in shaping the world and civil
rights that we enjoy today.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Did you know about the contribution of
Mexican Americans to the American civil
rights movement or about the segregation they
experienced? If you did, where did you learn
about that?
2. Why do you think there is so little attention to
the role and experience of Mexican Americans
in this historic era?
R E A D I N G 4 1
Balancing Identities:
Undocumented Immigrant Asian
American Students and the
Model Minority Myth
Tracy Poon Tambascia , Jonathan Wang , Breanne
Tcheng , and Viet T. Bui
If I weren’t an illegal immigrant, I think my life
would be vastly different. Undocumented Asian
American students are a largely invisible popula-
tion. Their experiences are unique in part because
of the pressures of the model minority myth. . . .
lacking. It is as if we did not exist in this country
between the Alamo in 1836 and the introduction of
Freddie Prinze to the world in Chico and the Man
in 1974.
When discussing civil rights milestones, where
are the discussions about Mendez, et al. v. Westmin-
ster School District of Orange County, et al.? This
1946 case challenged the racial segregation that
was occurring in Orange County, Calif., schools
against Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. This
landmark litigation was instrumental in repealing
many of the segregationist provisions in California
law, but it is not presented at all in the canon of civil
rights milestones. In fact, even as a Hispanic, I had
not heard of this case until President Barack Obama
awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to
Sylvia Mendez, the daughter of the lead plaintiff of
the lawsuit, in February 2011, and I searched for
who she was and why she was being honored.
When discussing civil rights milestones, where
are the discussions about Hernandez v. Texas? This
1954 case established that the protection granted by
the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was
not only for white and black Americans, but that
all racial groups required equal protection. This
case questioned the use of Jim Crow laws against
other classes of Americans, and determined that
Americans of Hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern,
Inuit, Native American, and other nonwhite or
black descent should also be treated equally.
Along with the discussions of the Freedom
Riders and freedom marches, where are the discus-
sions of the 1938 pecan shellers’ strike and the
wrongful arrest and imprisonment of over 700
Mexican-Americans peacefully protesting a cut in
wages and walking off the job in San Antonio? This
action was seen as impacting the creation of the
Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which defi nes
many of the occupational rules that govern
workers’ rights. Should the name of the Mexican-
American labor leader Emma Tenayuca be, at least,
presented alongside other civil and women’s rights
activists when the conditions that led to the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 are presented?
Considering that people of Hispanic descent
make up more than 16 percent of the total population
Tracy Poon Tambascia is a professor of education at the Univer-
sity of Southern California.
Jonathan Wang is assistant director of Asian Pacifi c American
Student Services at the University of Southern California.
Breanne Tcheng is an admissions counselor in the Sol  Price
School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California.
Viet T. Bui is a graduate assistant in the offi ce of Asian Pacifi c
American Student Services at the University of Southern California.
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400 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
“We got in an argument and she threatened me
that she’s going to report my family.” Many stu-
dents do not learn about their status until they start
planning for college. One participant felt isolated
after discovering her undocumented immigrant
status. She sought support from other undocu-
mented immigrant students at her high school but
generally felt she had to “manage things on [her]
own.” She described her relationships with friends
as being short-term and temporary. Another stu-
dent’s parents limited relationships outside of the
family. Thus, the family may also contribute to
social isolation. Undocumented status may have
other effects as well. Some students have chosen
to marry, sometimes at a young age, so they
can establish legal residency. These students feel
pressured to make decisions about a lifetime com-
mitment just to resolve the issue of their citizen-
ship status.
THE ROLE OF FAMILY
Participants were asked about the role of family
and whether parents or siblings infl uenced their
college attendance. The responses were mixed.
One student said she received little familial sup-
port and struggled because her parents were under-
employed and concerned about fi nances: “When
I  got accepted to [omitted] University, the only
question they asked me was how much it would
cost.” In contrast, another student had strong sup-
port from her parents, who not only encouraged
her to attend college but also paid the expenses.
Although her undocumented immigrant status was
an obstacle, this student cited her parents’ journey
and the risks they took to remain in the United
States as motivations to earn her degree.
MODEL MINORITY
STEREOTYPE
All participants had experienced the impact of the
model minority myth. Some described overempha-
sis on academic outcomes, comparison with peers,
and self-perceptions of not meeting expectations.
The estimated number of undocumented immi-
grants in the United States is 11.5 million (Hoefer,
Rytina, & Baker, 2012) with California support-
ing  the largest population of undocumented
immigrants—2.8 million. While the majority of this
population is from Mexico (59%), the total from
Asian countries makes up approximately 10%.
Research has examined the experiences of un-
documented Latino students and the challenges
they face in completing their college degrees
(Gildersleeve & Ranero, 2010). However, a dearth
of literature exists regarding the experiences of
undocumented Asian American students. Although
Asian American students are well-represented on
college and university campuses, the broad term
Asian American hides the fact that not all ethnic
groups in this category are accessing education and
well-paying jobs (Ho, 2003; Ng, Lee, & Pak, 2007).
These groups can become further marginalized if
their needs for resources, advocacy, and services
are not met (Libby, Nguyen, & Teranishi, 2013).
The prevalence of the model minority myth may
compound pressures on undocumented Asian
American students. This myth of universal success
creates unrealistic expectations for academic
achievement, fi nancial success, and other markers
of success (Suzuki, 2002).
This study seeks to increase the awareness and
visibility of a population that exists in the shadows
of a larger societal debate about immigration re-
form. The following analysis encompasses several
interviews with current college students who iden-
tifi ed as undocumented Asian Americans at some
point in their college career. Several themes have
initially emerged.
SOCIAL ISOLATION
Loneliness is a common experience of these par-
ticipants. One participant said, “I’m a very outgo-
ing person. . . . It’s hard to open up to new people
and even if good people try to approach, you
might kind of push them away.” Another student
revealed her undocumented immigrant status to a
friend in high school with negative consequences:
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READING 41: Balancing Identities: Undocumented Immigrant Asian American Students and the Model Minority Myth 401
REFERENCES
Gildersleeve, R. E., & Ranero, J. J. (2010). Precollege contexts
of undocumented students: Implications for student affairs
professionals. In J. Price (Ed.), Understanding and support-
ing undocumented students ( New directions for student ser-
vices, No. 131, pp. 19–33). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Ho, P. (2003). Performing the “Oriental”: Professionals and
the Asian model minority myth. Journal of Asian American
Studies, 6(2), 149–175.
Hoefer, M., Rytina, N., & Baker, B. (2012). Estimates of the
unauthorized immigrant population residing in the United
States: January 2011. Retrieved from www.dhs.gov
/estimatesunauthorized-immigrant-population-residing
-united-statesjanuary-2011.
Libby, L., Nguyen B. M., & Teranishi, R. (2013). iCount:
A data quality movement for Asian Americans and Pacifi c
Islanders in higher education. Retrieved from www.nyu
.edu/projects/care/docs/2013_iCount_Report .
Liang, H. (Ed.), Working with Asian American college stu-
dents ( New directions for student services, No. 97,
pp. 21–32). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Ng, J. C., Lee, S. S.,& Pak, Y. K. (2007). Contesting the
model minority and perpetual foreigner stereotypes:
A  critical review of literature on Asian Americans in
education. Review of Higher Education, 31, 95–130.
Suzuki, B. H. (2002). Revisiting the model minority
stereotype: Implications for student affairs practice and
higher education. In M. K. McEwen, C. M. Kodama,
A. N. Alvarez, S. Lee, & & C.T.H. Liang, (Eds.), Working
with Asian American college students (New directions for
student services, No. 97, pp. 21–32). San Francisco,
Jossey-Bass.
Other students noted their frustration at being
generalized as high achieving and perceived as
overly independent. But some participants said that
high expectations were part of their upbringing and
that such stereotypes did not have a negative effect
on their experiences.
CONCLUSION
Frustration and loneliness seem to permeate the ex-
periences of students who are forced to learn and
work on the margins of society. Limited dialogue
about these issues in the Asian American and im-
migrant communities perpetuates these students’
feelings of isolation and invisibility. Conversations
and sharing of resources occur only with confi –
dantes and close relatives. Higher education needs
to name and recognize Asian American students
who are undocumented immigrants. . . .
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Is it true that Americans do not usually expect
Asian American students to be undocumented
immigrants?
2. How would the experience of being an undocu-
mented immigrant be different for Hispanic,
European, or Asian American students?
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402 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
P E R S O N A L A C C O U N T
Let Me Work for It!
I remember once in a sociology of education class that
I was asked to describe my educational experience. At
first, I was quick to say that it was very positive. Although
racial remarks and jokes were passed around school,
teachers and administrators paid little or no attention to
them. I always felt uneasy with such remarks, but be-
cause the teachers and administrators would play igno-
rant to what was being said, I felt that maybe I was being
too sensitive. Therefore, I learned to suck it up and was
taught to view such comments as harmless.
Still, at a very young age I was very aware of racism
and sexism. Both of my Vietnamese parents came to the
United States when they were 20 years old. They arrived
right before the Vietnam War ended, which explains the
stigmatization they experienced. “VC” was a common
epithet addressed to my dad along with “Gook” and
“Charlie.” My mom, on the other hand, struggled with
gender/racial stereotypes such as being labeled mind-
less, dependent, and subservient. I can recall many
times watching people mentally battering my parents.
Numerous looks of disgust and intolerance of my par-
ents’ accent or confusion with the English language were
some unpleasant cases that I experienced. Yet the snide
remarks and mistreatment thrown at my parents remain
the most hurtful. Many times my parents were told that
their lack of proficiency in English would doom them from
success and from any self-worth. They were also ostra-
cized for holding on to their Vietnamese culture and were
persuaded to assimilate to the American culture. The ac-
cumulation of these events reinforced the idea that being
different, in this case Vietnamese, was negative. As far
as I was concerned, my family was my only community. It
was only within my family that I felt the sense of security,
love, support, and, most importantly, connection. After
all, I was just a “Gook” like my parents.
Yet I experienced support and love at school. I can
trace this feeling all the way back to third grade. I remem-
ber how I was constantly praised for being so bright,
even before turning in my first assignment. This did not
send alarms to my brain. As a student, I felt great. I felt
validated. But looking back on it now, there are alarms
going off for me. Why? Because now I wonder if I was
being labeled as a model student, a positive stereotype.
Many Americans have held positive stereotypes about
Asians and their work/study ethic, and making these ste-
reotypes prior to a person’s performance can create the
possibility of drowning in the pressure of high expecta-
tions. Teachers have always had unreasonably high ex-
pectations for me. Although I did not experience this as
pressure, I do feel that I have been robbed of the equal
chance to prove myself, to see my mistakes and grow.
I  feel that I have so much to give, but my audience is
content with what they “know” of me (which is usually
built upon assumptions). I was never given the chance to
work for the standing ovation; nor was I given the privi-
lege of criticism.
At the personal level, the model minority stereotype
has denied me human dignity, individuality, and the ac-
knowledgment of my own strengths and weaknesses.
I feel that I have been prejudged in this fictitious view of
Asian Americans. These positive portrayals depict Asians
as so flawless that they are robbed of any humanity.
Some may feel indifferent to my story or ask if I really
reject the positive stereotype. My only reply is this: posi-
tive and negative stereotyping are different sides of the
same coin. Both invalidate individuals as human beings
and lead to negative consequences.
Isabelle Nguyen
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READING 42: Segregated Housing, Segregated Schools 403
Richard Rothstein is a research associate of the Economic
Policy Institute and a senior fellow of the Chief Justice Earl
Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy at the University of
California (Berkeley) School of Law.
models to emulate, and few classroom peers whose
own families raise academic expectations.
Nationwide, low-income black children’s isola-
tion has increased. It’s a problem not only of poverty
but of race. Roughly 40 percent of black students
attend schools that are more than 90 percent minor-
ity, up from 34 percent 20 years ago. Then, black
students typically attended schools where 40 percent
were low-income; it’s now 60 percent.
Even sophisticated policymakers now generally
assert that black students’ residential isolation is de
facto, but the proposition is dubious.
The federal government led in establishing met-
ropolitan residential segregation. From its New
Deal inception, federally funded public housing
was explicitly segregated by government. Nation-
wide (not only in the South), projects were offi –
cially designated either for whites or blacks. Once
white families left the projects for the suburbs,
most public housing was purposely placed only in
black neighborhoods.
In the mid-20th century, the federal government
subsidized relocation of whites to suburbs and prohib-
ited similar relocation of blacks. The Federal Housing
Administration and the Veterans Administration re-
cruited builders to construct giant developments in the
East like the Levittowns, most famously in New York’s
Long Island, but also in Delaware, New Jersey, and
Pennsylvania; in the West like Lakeview, Panorama
City, and Westlake (Daly City) in California; and in
numerous metropolises in between. These builders re-
ceived federal loan guarantees on explicit condition
that no sales or resales be made to blacks.
Federal and state bank regulators approved and
encouraged “redlining” policies, banning loans to
black families in white suburbs and even, in most
cases, to black families in black neighborhoods,
leading to those neighborhoods’ deterioration and
ghettoization.
The Internal Revenue Service unconstitutionally
extended tax favoritism to universities, churches,
and other nonprofi ts that enforced racial segrega-
tion. For example, Robert Maynard Hutchins,
known for promoting the liberal arts, headed
the University of Chicago from 1929 to 1951. His
R E A D I N G 4 2
Segregated Housing, Segregated
Schools
Richard Rothstein
School reform alone cannot substantially raise per-
formance of the poorest African-American students
unless we also improve the conditions that leave
too many children unprepared to take advantage of
what schools have to offer.
Social and economic disadvantage depresses
student performance; concentrating disadvantaged
students in racially and economically homoge-
neous schools depresses it further.
Schools that most disadvantaged black children
attend today are located in segregated neighborhoods
far distant from middle-class suburbs. Our ability to
desegregate is hobbled by historical ignorance. We’ve
persuaded ourselves that residential isolation of low-
income black children is only de facto —the accident
of economic circumstance, personal preference, and
private discrimination. Unless we relearn how resi-
dential segregation is de jure —racially motivated
public policy—we can’t remedy school segregation
that fl ows from neighborhood isolation.
When a school’s proportion of students at risk of
failure grows, the consequences of disadvantage are
exacerbated. In schools with high proportions of
disadvantaged children, remediation becomes the
norm; with high student mobility, teachers spend
more time repeating lessons for newcomers. When
classrooms fi ll with students less ready to learn,
teachers discipline more and instruct less. Children
surrounded by neighborhood violence suffer greater
stress that depresses learning. When few parents
have strong educations themselves, schools cannot
benefi t from parental pressure for stronger curri-
culum; children have few college-educated role
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404 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
Yet the federal government also contributed to
this unaffordability with discriminatory labor-
market policy. At the behest of Southern congress-
men, New Deal labor standards, like minimum
wages and the right to unionize, excluded from
coverage, for undisguised racial purposes, occupa-
tions in which black workers predominated.
The federal government granted exclusive col-
lective bargaining rights to segregated private-
sector unions, including some that entirely excluded
African-Americans from their trades, into the
1970s. Government thus depressed income levels
of African-American workers below levels of com-
parable white workers, contributing to black fami-
lies’ inability to accumulate the wealth needed to
move to equity-appreciating white suburbs.
Reacquaintance with this history should lead us
to conclude that racially segregated metropolitan
areas have a constitutional obligation to integrate,
with inclusionary zoning laws, scattered public and
private housing for low- and moderate-income fami-
lies (including in the wealthiest suburbs), and even
the removal of tax subsidies for property in commu-
nities that fail to take aggressive steps to integrate.
Yet we fail to tell young people this story so, as
adults, they will be unlikely to understand our con-
stitutional obligation to integrate. School curricula
typically ignore, or worse, misstate historical truth.
For example, in over 1,200 pages of McDougal
Littell’s widely used high school textbook The
Americans, a single paragraph is devoted to 20th-
century “Discrimination in the North.” It devotes
one passive-voice sentence to residential segrega-
tion, stating that “African-Americans found them-
selves forced into segregated neighborhoods,” with
no explanation of how government did the forcing.
Another widely used textbook, Prentice Hall’s
United States History, attributes segregation to
mysterious forces: “In the North, too, African-
Americans faced segregation and discrimination.
Even where there were no explicit laws, de facto
segregation, or segregation by unwritten custom or
tradition, was a fact of life. African-Americans in
the North were denied housing in many
neighborhoods.”
offi ce organized homeowners’ associations to estab-
lish racial restrictions in surrounding neighborhoods,
and employed university lawyers to evict black
families who moved nearby, all while the university
enjoyed tax-deductible and tax-exempt status.
Urban renewal programs of the mid-20th cen-
tury often had undisguised purposes of forcing low-
income black residents away from universities,
hospital complexes, or business districts and into
new ghettos. Real estate is highly regulated, but
state authorities never punished brokers for racial
discrimination, and rarely do so even today when
discriminatory practices remain. Public police and
prosecutorial power enforced racial boundaries:
North, South, East, and West, in thousands of inci-
dents police stood by as mobs fi rebombed and
stoned homes purchased by blacks in white neigh-
borhoods, while prosecutors refused to charge
easily identifi able arsonists. These and other forms
of racially explicit state action to segregate the
urban  landscape violated the Fifth, 13th, and 14th
Amendments. Yet the term “ de facto segregation,”
describing a never-existent reality, persists among
otherwise well-informed advocates and scholars.
Private prejudice certainly played a large role,
but the federal government helped create and sus-
tain private prejudice. White homeowners’ resis-
tance to black neighbors was fed by fears that
African-Americans who moved into their neigh-
borhoods would bring slum conditions with them.
Yet slum conditions were created by overcrowding
caused almost entirely by government refusal to
permit African-Americans to expand their housing
supply and by municipalities’ discriminatory denial
of public services. In the ghetto, garbage was col-
lected less frequently, and neighborhoods were
often rezoned for industrial or even toxic use. White
homeowners came to see these conditions as char-
acteristics of black residents themselves, not the
result of racially motivated government policy.
Even those today who understand this dramatic
history may think that because these policies are
mostly those of the past, segregation persists mostly
because few blacks can afford to live in middle-
class neighborhoods.
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READING 43: Many Faces of Gender Inequality 405
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Were you surprised to learn about the role of the
federal government in the creation and mainte-
nance of residential segregation?
2. Rothstein concludes his essay with the obser-
vation that secondary school textbooks ignore
the history of residential segregation, espe-
cially outside the South. How would you
explain that?
3. What are the practical consequences of our
failure to educate students about the history of
residential segregation?
States of America. However, inequality between
women and men can take very many different
forms. Indeed, gender inequality is not one homo-
geneous phenomenon, but a collection of disparate
and interlinked problems. Let me illustrate with
examples of different kinds of disparity.
(1) Mortality inequality: In some regions in
the world, inequality between women and men di-
rectly involves matters of life and death, and takes
the brutal form of unusually high mortality rates
of women and a consequent preponderance of
men in the total population, as opposed to the pre-
ponderance of women found in societies with
little or no gender bias in health care and nutrition.
Mortality inequality has been observed exten-
sively in North Africa and in Asia, including China
and South Asia.
(2) Natality inequality: Given a preference for
boys over girls that many male-dominated societies
have, gender inequality can manifest itself in the
form of the parents wanting the newborn to be a
boy rather than a girl. There was a time when this
could be no more than a wish (a daydream or a
nightmare, depending on one’s perspective), but
with the availability of modern techniques to deter-
mine the gender of the foetus, sex-selective abor-
tion has become common in many countries. It is
particularly prevalent in East Asia, in China and
South Korea in particular, but also in Singapore and
R E A D I N G 4 3
Many Faces of Gender Inequality
Amartya Sen
It was more than a century ago, in 1870, that Queen
Victoria wrote to Sir Theodore Martin complaining
about “this mad, wicked folly of ‘Woman’s
Rights’.” The formidable empress certainly did not
herself need any protection that the acknowledg-
ment of women’s rights might offer. Even at the age
of eighty, in 1899, she could write to A.J. Balfour,
“We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat;
they do not exist.” That, however, is not the way
most people’s lives go—reduced and defeated as
they frequently are by adversities. And within each
community, nationality and class, the burden of
hardship often falls disproportionately on women.
The affl icted world in which we live is charac-
terised by deeply unequal sharing of the burden of
adversities between women and men. Gender in-
equality exists in most parts of the world, from
Japan to Morocco, from Uzbekistan to the United
Amartya Sen is Thomas W. Lamont University Professor and
Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University.
He was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sci-
ences in 1998 for his work in welfare economics.
SEX AND GENDER
History Alive!, a popular textbook published
by the Teachers Curriculum Institute, teaches
that segregation was mostly a Southern problem:
“Even New Deal agencies practiced racial segrega-
tion, especially in the South,” making no reference
to liberal Democrats’ embrace of Northern residen-
tial segregation in return for Southern support for
progressive economic policies.
We have a national concern with the racial
achievement gap, but school reform cannot succeed
without housing reform. We’re unlikely to accom-
plish either if we suppress knowledge of how they
came to be connected.
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406 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
though such clear-cut beliefs about the provinces of
men and women are now rather rare, nevertheless
the presence of extensive gender asymmetry can be
seen in many areas of education, training and pro-
fessional work even in Europe and North America.
(5) Professional inequality: In terms of
employment as well as promotion in work and oc-
cupation, women often face greater handicap than
men. A country like Japan may be quite egalitarian
in matters of demography or basic facilities, and
even, to a great extent, in higher education, and yet
progress to elevated levels of employment and
occupation seems to be much more problematic for
women than for men.
In the English television series called Yes, Min-
ister, there is an episode where the Minister, full of
reforming zeal, is trying to fi nd out from the im-
movable permanent secretary, Sir Humphrey, how
many women are in really senior positions in the
British civil service. Sir Humphrey says that it is
very diffi cult to give an exact number; it would
require a lot of investigation. The Minister is still
insistent, and wants to know approximately how
many women are there in these senior positions. To
which Sir Humphrey fi nally replies, “Approxi-
mately, none.”
(6) Ownership inequality: In many societies the
ownership of property can also be very unequal.
Even basic assets such as homes and land may be
very asymmetrically shared. The absence of claims
to property can not only reduce the voice of women,
but also make it harder for women to enter and fl our-
ish in commercial, economic and even some social
activities.
2
This type of inequality has existed in
most parts of the world, though there are also local
variations. For example, even though traditional
property rights have favoured men in the bulk of
India, in what is now the State of Kerala, there has
been, for a long time, matrilineal inheritance for an
infl uential part of the community, namely the Nairs.
(7) Household inequality: There are, often
enough, basic inequalities in gender relations
within the family or the household, which can take
many different forms. Even in cases in which
there are no overt signs of anti-female bias in, say,
survival or son-preference or education, or even in
Taiwan, and it is beginning to emerge as a statisti-
cally signifi cant phenomenon in India and South
Asia as well. This is high-tech sexism.
(3) Basic facility inequality: Even when demo-
graphic characteristics do not show much or any
anti-female bias, there are other ways in which
women can have less than a square deal. Afghanistan
may be the only country in the world the government
of which is keen on actively excluding girls from
schooling (it combines this with other features of
massive gender inequality), but there are many coun-
tries in Asia and Africa, and also in Latin America,
where girls have far less opportunity of schooling
than boys do. There are other defi ciencies in basic
facilities available to women, varying from encour-
agement to cultivate one’s natural talents to fair
participation in rewarding social functions of the
community.
(4) Special opportunity inequality: Even when
there is relatively little difference in basic facilities
including schooling, the opportunities of higher
education may be far fewer for young women than
for young men. Indeed, gender bias in higher edu-
cation and professional training can be observed
even in some of the richest countries in the world,
in Europe and North America.
Sometimes this type of division has been based
on the superfi cially innocuous idea that the respec-
tive “provinces” of men and women are just different.
This thesis has been championed in different forms
over the centuries, and has had much implicit as
well as explicit following. It was presented with
particular directness more than a hundred years be-
fore Queen Victoria’s complaint about “woman’s
rights” by the Reverend James Fordyce in his
Sermons to Young Women (1766), a book which,
as Mary Wollstonecraft noted in her A Vindication
of the Rights of Women (1792), had been “long
made a part of woman’s library.” Fordyce warned
the young women, to whom his sermons were
addressed, against “those masculine women that
would plead for your sharing any part of their prov-
ince with us,” identifying the province of men as
including not only “war,” but also “commerce, pol-
itics, exercises of strength and dexterity, abstract
philosophy and all the abstruser sciences.”
1
Even
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READING 43: Many Faces of Gender Inequality 407
also, frequently enough, feed each other, and we
have to be aware of their interlinkages.
Even though part of the object of this paper is
to discuss the variety of different types of gender
inequality, a substantial part of my empirical focus
will, in fact, be on two of the most elementary kinds
of gender inequality, namely, mortality inequality and
natality inequality. I shall be concerned, in particular,
with gender inequality in South Asia, or the Indian
subcontinent. While I shall separate out the subconti-
nent for special attention, I must also warn against
the  smugness of thinking that the United States or
Western Europe is free from gender bias simply be-
cause some of the empirical generalisations that can
be made about the subcontinent would not hold in the
West. Given the many faces of gender inequality,
much would depend on which face we look at. . . .
In the bulk of the subcontinent, with only a few
exceptions (such as Sri Lanka and the State of
Kerala in India), female mortality rates are very
signifi cantly higher than what could be expected
given the mortality patterns of men (in the respective
age groups). This type of gender inequality need
not entail any conscious homicide, and it would
be a mistake to try to explain this large phenome-
non by invoking the occasional cases of female
infanticide that are reported from China or India;
these are truly dreadful events when they occur,
but  they are relatively rare. Rather, the mortality
disadvantage of women works mainly through a
widespread neglect of health, nutrition and other
interests of women that infl uence survival.
It is sometimes presumed that there are more
women than men in the world, since that is well-
known to be the case in Europe and North America,
which have a female to male ratio of 1.05 or so,
on the average (that is, about 105 women per
100 men). But women do not outnumber men in
the world as a whole; indeed there are only about
98 women per 100 men on the globe. This
“shortfall” of women is most acute in Asia and
North Africa. For example, the number of females
per 100 males in the total population is 97 in
Egypt and Iran, 95 in Bangladesh and Turkey,
94  in China, 93 in India and Pakistan, and 84 in
promotion to higher executive positions, the family
arrangements can be quite unequal in terms of shar-
ing the burden of housework and child care. It is,
for example, quite common in many societies to
take it for granted that while men will naturally
work outside the home, women could do it if and
only if they could combine it with various inescap-
able and unequally shared household duties. This is
sometimes called “division of labour,” though
women could be forgiven for seeing it as “accumu-
lation of labour.” The reach of this inequality in-
cludes not only unequal relations within the family,
but also derivative inequalities in employment and
recognition in the outside world. Also, the estab-
lished fi xity of this type of “division” or “accumu-
lation” of labour can also have far-reaching effects
on the knowledge and understanding of different
types of work in professional circles. When I fi rst
started working on gender inequality, in the 1970s,
I remember being struck by the fact that the Hand-
book of Human Nutrition Requirement of the World
Health Organisation (WHO), in presenting “calorie
requirements” for different categories of people,
chose to classify household work as “sedentary ac-
tivity,” requiring very little deployment of energy.
3

I was, however, not able to determine precisely
how  this remarkable bit of information had been
collected by the patrician leaders of society.
It is important to take note of the variety of forms
that gender inequality can take. First, inequality be-
tween women and men cannot be confronted and
overcome by any one set of all-purpose remedy. Sec-
ond, over time the same country can move from one
type of gender inequality to harbouring other forms
of that inequity. . . . Third, the different forms of
gender inequality can impose diverse adversities on
the lives of men and boys, in addition to those of
women and girls. In understanding the different as-
pects of the evil of gender inequality, we have to
look beyond the predicament of women and exam-
ine the problems created for men as well by the
asymmetric treatment of women. These causal con-
nections, which (as I shall presently illustrate) can
be very signifi cant, can vary with the form of gender
inequality. Finally, inequalities of different kinds can
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408 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
countries.
4
For example, with India’s female–male
ratio of 0.93, there is a total difference of 9 percent
(of the male population) between that ratio and the
standard used for comparison, namely, the sub-
Saharan African ratio of 1.022. This yielded a
fi gure of 37 million missing women already in
1986 (when I fi rst did the estimation). Using the
same sub- Saharan standard, China had 44 million
missing women, and it was evident that for the
world as a whole the magnitude of shortfall easily
exceeded 100 million.
5
Other standards and differ-
ent procedures can also be used, as has been done
by Ansley Coale and Stephan Klasen, getting some-
what different numbers, but invariably very large
ones (Klasen’s total number is about 80 million
missing women).
6
Gender bias in mortality does
take an astonishingly heavy toll.
How can this be reversed? . . . Women’s gainful
employment, especially in more rewarding occupa-
tions, clearly does play a role in improving the deal
that women and girls get. And so does women’s
literacy, and other factors that can be seen as adding
to the status, standing and voice of women in fam-
ily decisions.
7
. . .
However, there is [also] clear evidence that tradi-
tional routes of changing gender inequality, through
using public policy to infl uence female education
and female economic participation, may not serve
as a path to the removal of natality inequality.
A  sharp pointer in that direction comes from
countries in East Asia, which all have high levels of
female education and economic participation.
Despite these achievements, compared with the
biologically common ratio across the world of
95  girls being born per hundred boys, Singapore
and Taiwan have 92 girls, South Korea only 88, and
China a mere 86. In fact, South Korea’s overall
female-male ratio for children is also a meagre
88  girls for 100 boys and China’s 85 girls for
100  boys. In comparison, the Indian ratio of 92.7
girls for 100 boys (though lower than its previous
fi gure of 94.5) still looks far less unfavourable.
8
. . .
I may end by trying briefl y to identify some of
the principal issues I have tried to discuss. First,
Saudi Arabia (though the last ratio is considerably
reduced by the presence of male migrant workers
from elsewhere who come to Saudi Arabia).
It has been widely observed that given similar
health care and nutrition, women tend typically to
have lower age-specifi c mortality rates than men do.
Indeed, even female foetuses tend to have a lower
probability of miscarriage than male foetuses have.
Everywhere in the world, more male babies are born
than female babies (and an even higher proportion
of male foetuses are conceived compared with
female foetuses), but throughout their respective
lives the proportion of males goes on falling as we
move to higher and higher age groups, due to typi-
cally greater male mortality rates. The excess of
females over males in the population of Europe and
North America comes about as a result of this greater
survival chance of females in different age groups.
However, in many parts of the world, women re-
ceive less attention and health care than men do, and
particularly girls often receive very much less sup-
port than boys. As a result of this gender bias, the
mortality rates of females often exceed those of
males in these countries. The concept of “missing
women” was devised to give some idea of the
enormity of the phenomenon of women’s adversity
in mortality by focussing on the women who are sim-
ply not there, due to unusually high mortality com-
pared with male mortality rates. The basic idea is to
fi nd some rough and ready way to understand the
quantitative difference between (1) the actual number
of women in these countries, and (2) the number we
could expect to see if the gender pattern of mortality
were similar in these countries as in other regions of
the world that do not have a signifi cant bias against
women in terms of health care and other attentions
relevant for survival.
For example, if we take the ratio of women to
men in sub-Saharan Africa as the standard (there is
relatively little bias against women in terms of
health care, social status and mortality rates in sub-
Saharan Africa, even though the absolute numbers
are quite dreadful for both men and women), then
its female-male ratio of 1.022 can be used to calcu-
late the number of missing women in women-short
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READING 43: Many Faces of Gender Inequality 409
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What social consequences—local and global—
would follow from the size of the “missing
women” population?
2. Sen argues that gender inequality is damaging
to boys and men, as well as to girls and women.
What are some examples of the damage to boys
and men?
3. Sen focuses much of his attention on gender
differences in morbidity and natality in India
and East Asia. Would the United States be
immune to such problems? If not, where and
when might they appear?
NOTES
1. See William St. Clair, The Godwins and the Shelleys
(New York: Norton, 1989), pp. 504–8.
2. Bina Agarwal, among others, has investigated the
far-reaching effects of landlessness of women in many
agricultural economies; see particularly her A Field of
One’s Own (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1994).
3. World Health Organisation, Handbook of Human Nutri-
tion Requirement (Geneva: WHO, 1974); this was based
on the report of a high-level expert committee jointly
appointed by the WHO and FAO—the Food and Agri-
culture Organisation.
4. Presented in my “More Than a Hundred Million Women
Are Missing,” The New York Review of Books, Christmas
Number, December 20, 1990, and in “Missing Women,”
British Medical Journal, 304 (March 1992).
5. The fact that I had used the sub-Saharan African ratio as
the standard, rather than the European or North American
ratio, was missed by some of my critics, who assumed
(wrongly as it happens) that I was comparing the develop-
ing countries with advanced Western ones; see for example
Ansley Coale, “Excess Female Mortality and the Balances
of the Sexes in the Population: An Estimate of the Number
of ‘Missing Females’,” Population and Development
Review, 17 (1991). In fact, the estimation of “missing
women” was based on the contrasts within the so-called
third world, in particular between sub-Saharan Africa, on
the one hand, and Asia and North Africa, on the other. The
exact methods used were more elaborately discussed in my
“Africa and India: What Do We Have to Learn from Each
Other?,” in Kenneth J. Arrow, ed., The Balance between
Industry and Agriculture in Economic Development
(London: Macmillan, 1988); and (with Jean Drze), Hunger
and Public Action (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).
I have argued for the need to take a plural view of
gender inequality, which can have many different
faces. The prominent faces of gender injustice can
vary from one region to another, and also from one
period to the next.
Second, the effects of gender inequality, which
can impoverish the lives of men as well as women,
can be more fully understood by taking detailed
empirical note of specifi c forms of inequality that
can be found in particular regions. . . .
To have an adequate appreciation of the far-
reaching effects of disparities between women and
men, we have to recognise the basic fact that gender
inequality is not one affl iction, but many, with vary-
ing reach on the lives of women and men, and of
girls and boys. There is also the need to reexamine
and closely scrutinise some lessons that we have
tended to draw from past empirical works. There
are no good reasons to abandon the understanding
that the impact of women’s empowerment in en-
hancing the voice and infl uence of women does
help to reduce gender inequality of many different
kinds, and can also reduce the indirect penalties that
men suffer from the subjugation of women. How-
ever, the growing phenomenon of natality inequality
raises questions that are basically much more com-
plex. When women in some regions themselves
strongly prefer having boys to girls, the remedying
of the consequent natality inequality calls at least
for broader demands on women’s agency, in addi-
tion to examining other possible infl uences.
Indeed, in dealing with the new—“high tech”—
face of gender disparity, in the form of natality
inequality, there is a need to go beyond just the
agency of women, but to look also for more critical
assessment of received values. When anti-female
bias in action (such as sex- specifi c abortion)
refl ects the hold of traditional masculinist values
from which mothers themselves may not be
immune, what is needed is not just freedom of
action but also freedom of thought—in women’s
ability and willingness to question received values.
Informed and critical agency is important in
combating inequality of every kind. Gender
inequality, including its many faces, is no exception.
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410 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
P E R S O N A L A C C O U N T
He Hit Her
I was raised in Charleston, South Carolina, a city where
racial and class lines are both evident and defined by
street address. I had been taught all my life that black
people were different than “us” and were to be feared,
particularly in groups.
One summer afternoon when I was 18 or 19, I was
sitting in my car at a traffic light at the corner of Cannon
and King streets, an area on the edge of the white part of
the peninsular city, but progressively being inhabited by
more and more blacks. It was hot, had been for weeks,
and the sticky heat of South Carolina can be enraging
by itself.
As I waited at the light, a young black couple turned
the corner on the sidewalk and began to walk towards
where I was sitting. The man was yelling and screaming
and waving his arms about his head. The woman, a girl
really, looked scared and was walking and trying to ig-
nore his tirade. Perhaps it was her seeming indifference
that finally did it, perhaps the heat, I don’t know. As they
drew right up next to my car though, he hit her. He hit her
on the side of her head, open palmed, and her head
bounced off the brick wall of the house on the corner and
she sprawled to the ground, dazed and crying. The man
stood over her, shaking his fist and yelling.
I looked around at the other people in cars around
me, mostly whites, and at the other people on the side-
walks, mostly blacks, and I realized as everyone gaped
that no one was going to do anything, no one was going
to help, and neither was I. I don’t think it was fear of the
man involved that stopped me; rather, I think it was fear
generated by what I had been told about the man that
stopped me. Physically I was bigger than he was and
I  knew how to handle myself in a fight: I worked as a
bouncer in a nightclub. What I was afraid of was what
I had been told about blacks: that en masse , they hated
whites, and that given the opportunity they would harm
me. I was afraid getting out of the car in that neighbor-
hood would make me the focus of the fight and in a mat-
ter of time I would be pummeled by an angry black crowd.
Also in my mind were thoughts of things I had heard
voiced as a child: “They are different. Violence is a part of
life for them. They beat, stab, and shoot each other all the
time, and the women are just as bad as the men.” So I sat
and did nothing. The light changed and I pulled away.
The incident has haunted me over the last almost
15  years. I have often thought about it and felt angry
when I did. I believe that as I examined it over time the
woman who had been hit, the victim, became less and
less prominent, and the black man and myself more
prominent. Then I had an epiphany about it.
What bothered me about the incident was not that a
man had hit a woman and I had done nothing to intervene,
not even to blow my horn, but that a man had hit a woman
and I had done nothing to intervene and that this reflected
on me as a man. “Men don’t hit women, and other men
don’t let men hit women,” was also part of my masculinity
training as a boy. There was a whole list of things that “real”
men did and things that “real” men didn’t do, and some-
where on there was this idea that men didn’t let other men
hit women. I realized that the incident haunted me not
because a man had hit a woman, but because my lack of
response was an indictment of my masculinity. The horror
had become that I was somehow less of a man because
of my inaction. Part of the dichotomy that this set up was
the notion that the black man had done something to me ,
not to the woman he hit, and it was here that my anger lay.
I wonder how this influenced my perception of black men I
encountered in the future.
Tim Norton
6. Stephan Klasen, ‘“Missing Women’ Reconsidered,”
World Development, 22 (1994).
7. On this see my “Women and Cooperative Confl ict,” in
Irene Tinker, Persistent Inequalities (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1990). See also J. C. Caldwell, “Routes
to Low Mortality in Poor Countries,” Population and
Development Review, 12 (1986); Jere Behrman and B. L.
Wolfe, “How Does Mother’s Schooling Affect Family
Health, Nutrition, Medical Care Usage and Household
Sanitation,” Journal of Econometrics, 36 (1987); Jean
Dreze and Amartya Sen, Hunger and Public Action
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).
8. Note, however, that the Chinese and Korean fi gures
cover children between 0 and 4, whereas the Indian
fi gures relate to children between 0 and 6. However,
even with appropriate age adjustment, the general
comparison of female–male ratios holds in much the
same way.
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READING 44: The Not-So-Pink Ivory Tower 411
trend leads some to conclude that women are
squeezing men out of higher education, and that
women’s success has led to men’s decline. In fact,
this zero-sum scenario is incorrect: the college-
going rates for both men and women have increased
substantially. Both genders are far more likely to
graduate from college now than at any previous
point in time. Women’s increasing graduation rate
isn’t due to a decrease in the number of graduating
male students, but to the fact that women’s in-
creases occurred faster than men’s. Particularly
between 1970 and 1990, as employment opportuni-
ties for women expanded, their college graduation
rates grew more rapidly than did those of men.
The rates of growth for men and women have now
equalized. Over the past decade [since 2002], the
number of degrees earned by both men and women
actually increased by the identical rate of 38 percent.
The U.S. Department of Education predicts that over
the course of the next decade women’s share of
bachelor’s degrees will rise by only one percentage
point, to 58 percent of all degrees. In looking at these
fi gures over time, we see that women’s successes did
not come at the expense of men, and that the gender
gap is not growing uncontrollably. It has in fact
stabilized, and has held steady for more than 10 years.
To fully assess the gender distribution of
bachelor’s degrees, we also need to look at what
kinds of men and women graduate from college,
and whether men and women of different racial,
ethnic and class backgrounds have the same chances
of graduating. Among 25- to 29-year-olds, across
all racial and ethnic groups, more women than men
hold bachelor’s degrees. The gap is just over
7  percent among whites and Hispanics, 6 percent
among blacks, and about 10 percent for Asians.
But in terms of race and ethnicity, the gaps in
college completion far exceed that of gender:
56  percent of Asians between 25 and 29 years old
hold bachelor’s degrees, compared to only 39 percent
of whites, 20 percent of blacks, and nearly 13 percent
of Hispanics. Both white and Asian men are far
more likely than black or Hispanic students of
either gender to earn a bachelor’s degree. These
racial gaps are actually larger now than they were in
R E A D I N G 4 4
The Not-So-Pink Ivory Tower
Ann Mullen
Since 1982, women in the United States have been
graduating from college at higher rates than men;
they currently earn 57 percent of all bachelor’s
degrees. Some view this trend as a triumphant indi-
cator of gender egalitarianism, while others sound
the alarm about the supposed “male crisis” in
higher education and the problem of increasingly
“feminized” universities.
Recently, the New York Times reported that when
it comes to college, “women are leaving men in the
dust,” the Minneapolis Star Tribune announced that
women’s “takeover is complete,” and the Weekly
Standard described colleges as “where the boys
aren’t.” Some have even predicted that sorority
sisters will face increasing diffi culty fi nding dates
for formals, or eligible men to marry. Thomas
Mortenson, a senior scholar at the Pell Institute for
the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education,
warned that if current trends continue, “the
graduation line in 2068 will be all female.”
But is higher education really feminizing? Have
women’s advances come at the cost of men? In
50  years, when they look around their classrooms,
will undergraduate students be hard-pressed to see a
male face? In other words, has the trend towards
gender equality in higher education gone too far? To
answer these questions, we need to look beyond the
single statistic of the gender distribution of bache-
lor’s degrees, and take a broader approach to under-
standing the contours of gender in higher education.
WHO’S GETTING DEGREES
During the past 40 years, the gender distribution of
bachelor’s degrees reversed. In 1970, men earned
57 percent of all degrees; today, women do. This
Ann Mullen is a professor of sociology at the University of Toronto.
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412 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
gains have been greatest at institutions with lower
standardized test scores and higher acceptance rates,
while men and women are roughly on par with each
other at elite institutions. Women are also underrep-
resented at the top science and engineering institu-
tions, like Caltech and MIT. So, while women may
be in the majority overall, their integration into
higher education has been uneven, and they are more
likely to attend lower status institutions.
Perhaps the most striking disparities are in the
choice of college majors. In spite of their overall
minority status, men still earn 83 percent of all de-
grees in engineering, 82 percent in computer and
information sciences, 70 percent in philosophy, and
69 percent in economics. Women, on the other
hand, continue to earn the lion’s share of degrees in
traditionally female-dominated fi elds: 77 percent in
psychology, 80 percent in education, and 85 per-
cent in nursing and other health professions. About
a third of all men (or women) would have to change
majors in order to achieve gender parity across ma-
jors today. This hasn’t changed much in the last
25  years. (Through the 1970s and early 1980s,
fi elds moved steadily toward becoming more inte-
grated, but in the mid-1980s, this trend slowed and
then stalled, shifting very little since then.)
Sociologists Paula England and Su Li found that
most of the decrease in segregation came from the
growth of gender-integrated fi elds, like business,
and  from the fl ow of women into previously male-
dominated fi elds. Men are much less likely to move
into female-dominated fi elds. They also found that
women’s entrance into predominantly male fi elds dis-
courages later cohorts of men from choosing those
fi elds. Women gain status and pay by entering pre-
dominantly male fi elds, while men lose out when they
enter devalued, predominantly female fi elds of study.
Women and men are ostensibly free to select any
fi eld they wish, and they no longer face the blatant
kinds of barriers to entry that have historically ex-
isted. But, other factors infl uence students’ choices
subtly, but powerfully. Sociologist Shelly Correll has
done innovative experiments with undergraduate
students that demonstrate how cultural beliefs about
gender shape individuals’ career aspirations. When
exposed to the idea that men are better at certain
the 1960s: while students from all backgrounds are
now more likely to graduate from college, the rates
have increased more quickly for whites and Asians.
Social class continues to be the strongest predictor
of who will attend and graduate from college—one
that far outweighs the effects of either gender, or
race and ethnicity. Surveys by the U.S. Department
of Education show that 70 percent of high school
students from wealthy families will enter four-year
colleges, compared to only 21 percent of their peers
from low-income families. Gender differences also
vary by social class background. According to
education policy analyst Jackie King, for the
wealthiest students, the gender gap actually favors
men. (For families in the highest income quartile,
men comprise 52 percent of college students,
compared to 44 percent in the lowest income
quartile, and 47 percent in the middle two quartiles.)
Age also plays a role: among adults 25 years and
older, women are far more likely than men to return
to college for a bachelor’s degree. But among those
24 and under, women make up only 55 percent of
all  students, and the gender difference among
enrollment rates for recent high school graduates is
small (41 percent of men and 44 percent of women).
In other words, women’s overall advantage in
earning college degrees is not shared equally among
all women. White women, Asian women, and
wealthy women outpace women from other back-
grounds. Gender differences are largest among stu-
dents 25 years and up, Asians, and low-income
students. But differences in relation to class, race
and ethnicity greatly overshadow gender gaps in
degree attainment.
NOT AT CALTECH
In assessing gender equity in higher education, it’s
also necessary to take into account where men and
women earn their degrees. While more women than
men tend to graduate from college, women are dis-
proportionately represented in less competitive insti-
tutions. Sociologist Jayne Baker and I found that
women earned more than 60 percent of degrees in
the least selective institutions, but only slightly more
than half in the most selective institutions. Women’s
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READING 44: The Not-So-Pink Ivory Tower 413
greater concerns about fi nancing their education.
Women study harder than men during college,
spend more time talking with their professors, and
get better grades, while men are more likely to miss
classes and not complete homework. By focusing
only on the relative numbers of men and women at
college, we overlook the ways their college experi-
ences diverge, and the different obstacles and chal-
lenges they encounter along the way.
AFTER COLLEGE
Paradoxically, women’s success in closing the
gender gap in higher education has not closed the
gender gaps in the labor market. Men and women
still generally work in different kinds of jobs, and
women still earn considerably less than men (even
with the same levels of education). Occupational
segregation remains high and the trend toward nar-
rowing the gender gap in pay has slowed. Currently,
young, college-educated, full time working women
can expect to earn only 80 percent of the salaries
of men ($40,000 annually compared to $49,800), a
ratio identical to that of 1995. In fact, women with
bachelor’s degrees earn the same as men with associ-
ate degrees. Some of this pay gap can be attributed to
students’ undergraduate fi elds of study. Engineering
graduates, for example, earn about $55,000 annually
in their fi rst year after graduation, while education
majors bring home only $30,500. However, even
after taking into account fi elds of study, women still
earn less than men.
These pay disparities suggest an economic
rationale for women’s vigorous pursuit of higher
education. Not only do women need to acquire
more education in order to earn the same salaries
as men, they also receive higher returns on their
educational investments. Education scholar Laura
Perna has found that even though women’s salaries
are lower than men’s, women enjoy a greater pay-
off in graduating from college than men do. In the
early years after graduating, a woman with a col-
lege degree will earn 55 percent more than a
woman with a high school degree. For men, that
difference is only 17  percent. What’s more, men
with only a high school education earn a third
tasks, male participants in the study rated their own
abilities higher than the women, even though they
were all given the same scores. These subjective as-
sessments of their own competencies then infl uenced
students’ interest in related careers. Correll argues
that widely shared cultural beliefs about gender and
different kinds of competencies (like math and sci-
ence) bias men’s and women’s perceptions of their
own abilities, and their interest in pursuing these
fi elds. She fi nds that men assess their own capabilities
in math more generously than do women, which then
encourages them to go into math and science fi elds.
Education researcher Maria Ong has studied the
challenges young women of color majoring in
physics face. Because their bodies do not conform
to prevalent images of “ordinary” white, male sci-
entists, their belonging and competence are ques-
tioned. To persevere in physics, these women
confront the necessity of developing strategies for
managing their physical appearance. In my own
work, I found that students at an elite liberal arts
institution choose majors in order to both carve out
intellectual identities and settle on a career path.
Students identify with the qualities of knowledge of
different fi elds of study, which they often interpret
in gendered ways. Men tend to reject female-
dominated fi elds because of their perceived lack of
rigor and objectivity.
Men and women also experience college differ-
ently. Education scholar Linda Sax uses 40 years of
data about college freshmen, along with research
from the 1990s that tracked individual students over
time. She found some gender differences that have
persisted over the past four decades, such as women’s
lower levels of academic self-confi dence. Among
fi rst-year college students, according to Sax, women
rate themselves lower than men on three out of four
indicators of confi dence, in spite of their signifi –
cantly higher high school grades. In terms of overall
intellectual self-confi dence, only about half of
women consider themselves above average or in the
highest 10 percent compared to over two-thirds of
men. This gender gap widens even further during the
college years.
Because more women than men come from low-
income families, women also come to college with
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414 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
In the early 1970s, when men earned 57 percent
of college degrees, women faced exclusion and dis-
crimination in the labor market and earned less than
two-thirds of what men earned. Many professions,
and most positions of power and authority, were al-
most completely closed to women. While the ratio
of college graduates now favors women, women are
not benefi ting from more education in ways that
men did 40 years ago. In terms of the economic re-
wards of completing college, women are far from
matching men, let alone outpacing them.
By paying exclusive attention to the gender ratio,
we tend to overlook much more serious and endur-
ing disparities of social class, race and ethnicity.
This lessens our ability to understand how gender
advantages vary across groups. If there is a crisis of
access to higher education, it is not so much a gen-
der crisis, as one of race and class. Young black and
Hispanic men and men from low-income families
are among the most disadvantaged, but women
from these groups also lag behind their white, Asian
and middle-class counterparts. Addressing the for-
midable racial and economic gaps in college access
will improve low-income and minority men’s
chances far more than closing the gender gap
would.
The higher proportion of degrees earned by
women does not mean that higher education is
feminizing, or that men are getting crowded out. It
seems that if women hold an advantage in any area,
even a relatively slim one, we jump to the conclu-
sion that it indicates a catastrophe for men. In the
case of access to college degrees, that’s simply
not true.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Why do you think the popular discussion about
gender differences in higher education has
been so misinformed?
2. In your own words, explain why it is erroneous
to describe higher education as increasingly
feminized.
3. How would you explain women’s lack of aca-
demic self-confi dence and men’s excess of it?
more than women do, and are more likely to fi nd
work in traditionally male blue-collar jobs that
offer health care and other benefi ts—which are not
available in the sales and service jobs typically
held by women.
Though men with high school educations enjoy
higher salaries and better benefi ts than do women,
they are also more vulnerable to unemployment. In
general, the rates of unemployment are twice
as  high for high school graduates as they are for
college graduates. They are also slightly higher for
men than for women at all educational levels below
the bachelor’s degree. According to data from a
2010 U.S. Census survey, the unemployment rate
for high school graduates was 11.3 percent for
men versus 9 percent for women (compared to
4.8 percent and 4.7 percent, respectively, for those
with at least a bachelor’s degree), due in part to the
effects of the recent recession on the manufactur-
ing sector.
In addition to offering access to better jobs,
higher salaries, and less risk of unemployment,
going to college offers a host of other advantages.
College graduates live longer, healthier lives. They
are less likely to smoke, drink too much, or suffer
from anxiety, depression, obesity, and a variety of
illnesses. They are more likely to vote, to volunteer,
and to be civically engaged. Because of this broad
array of social and economic benefi ts, we should be
concerned about patterns of underrepresentation
for any group.
INCOMPLETE INTEGRATION
To some, the fact that women earn 57 percent of all
degrees to men’s 43 percent suggests the gender
pendulum has swung too far. They claim that if the
ratio still favored men, there would be widespread
protest. But such claims fail to see the full picture:
though women earn more degrees than men, the
gender integration of higher education is far from
complete. Men and women still diverge in the
fi elds of study they choose, their experiences
during college, and the kinds of jobs they get after
graduating.
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READING 45: The Gender Revolution: Uneven and Stalled 415
the shape of most of the trends is not in dispute
among scholars, the explanations I offer for the
uneven and halting nature of change have the
status of hypotheses rather than well-documented
conclusions.
I will argue that there has been little cultural or
institutional change in the devaluation of tradition-
ally female activities and jobs, and as a result,
women have had more incentive than men to move
into gender-nontraditional activities and positions.
This led to asymmetric change; women’s lives have
changed much more than men’s. Yet in some sub-
groups and arenas, there is less clear incentive for
change even among women; examples are the rela-
tively low employment rates of less educated
women and the persistence of traditionally gen-
dered patterns in heterosexual romantic, sexual,
and marital relationships.
I also argue, drawing on work by Charles and
Bradley, that the type of gender egalitarianism that
did take hold was the type most compatible with
American individualism and its cultural and insti-
tutional logics, which include rights of access to
jobs and education and the desideratum of upward
mobility and of expressing one’s “true self”
(Charles 2011; Charles and Bradley 2002, 2009).
One form this gender egalitarianism has taken has
been the reduction of discrimination in hiring.
This has made much of the gender revolution that
has occurred possible; women can now enter
formerly “male” spheres. But co-occurring with
this gender egalitarianism, and discouraging such
integration is a strong (if often tacit) belief in gen-
der essentialism—the notion that men and women
are innately and fundamentally different in inter-
ests and skills (Charles forthcoming; Charles and
Bradley 2002, 2009; Ridgeway 2009). A result of
these co-occurring logics is that women are most
likely to challenge gender boundaries when there
is no path of upward mobility without doing so,
but otherwise gender blinders guide the paths of
both men and women.
R E A D I N G 4 5
The Gender Revolution: Uneven
and Stalled
Paula England
We sometimes call the sweeping changes in the
gender system since the 1960s a “revolution.”
Women’s employment increased dramatically
(Cotter, Hermsen, and England 2008); birth con-
trol became widely available (Bailey 2006);
women caught up with and surpassed men in rates
of college graduation (Cotter, Hermsen, and
Vanneman 2004, 23); undergraduate college ma-
jors desegregated substantially (England and Li
2006); more women than ever got doctorates as
well as professional degrees in law, medicine, and
business (Cotter, Hermsen, and Vanneman 2004,
22–23; England et al. 2007); many kinds of gen-
der discrimination in employment and education
became illegal (Burstein 1989; Hirsh 2009);
women entered many previously male-dominated
occupations (Cotter, Hermsen, and Vanneman
2004, 10–14); and more women were elected to
political offi ce (Cotter, Hermsen, and Vanneman
2004, 25). As sweeping as these changes have
been, change in the gender system has been
uneven—affecting some groups more than others
and some arenas of life more than others, and
change has recently stalled. My goal in this arti-
cle is not to argue over whether we should view
the proverbial cup as half empty or half full (argu-
ments I have always found uninteresting) but,
rather, to stretch toward an understanding of why
some things change so much more than others. To
show the uneven nature of gender change, I will
review trends on a number of indicators. While
Paula England is a professor of sociology at New York
University.
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416 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
are reliant on the employment of male partners (if
present) or their own employment. Thus, women
have had a strong incentive to seek paid employ-
ment, and more so as wage levels rose across the
decades (Bergmann 2005). As

Figure 1 shows,
women’s employment has increased dramatically.
But change has not been continuous, as the trend
line fl attened after 1990 and turned down slightly
after 2000 before turning up again. This turndown
was hardly an “opt-out revolution,” to use the
popular-press term, as the decline was tiny relative
to the dramatic increase across 40 years (Kuperberg
and Stone 2008; Percheski 2008). But the stall after
1990 is clear, if unexplained.

Figure 1

also shows the asymmetry in change
between men’s and women’s employment; wom-
en’s employment has increased much more than
men’s has declined. There was nowhere near one
man leaving the labor force to become a full-time
homemaker for every woman who entered, nor did
men pick up household work to the extent women
Devaluation of “Female” Activities
and Asymmetric Incentives for
Women and Men to Change
Most of the changes in the gender system heralded
as “revolutionary” involve women moving into po-
sitions and activities previously limited to men,
with few changes in the opposite direction. The
source of this asymmetry is an aspect of society’s
valuation and reward system that has not changed
much—the tendency to devalue and badly reward
activities and jobs traditionally done by women.
Women’s Increased Employment
One form the devaluation of traditionally female
activities takes is the failure to treat child rearing as
a public good and support those who do it with state
payments. In the United States, welfare reform took
away much of what little such support had been
present. Without this, women doing child rearing
1962 1967 1972 1977 1982 1987 1992 1997 2002 2007
Year
40.0%
50.0%
60.0%
70.0%
80.0%
90.0%
100.0%
P
e
rc
e
n
t
E
m
p
lo
y
e
d
Men
Women
F I G U R E 1
Percentage of U.S. men and women employed, 1962–2007
Source: Cotter, Hermsen, and Vanneman (2009).
Note: Persons are considered employed if they worked for pay anytime during the year.
Refers to adults aged 25 to 54.
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READING 45: The Gender Revolution: Uneven and Stalled 417
partners are at middle income levels are more likely
to be employed than women whose partners have
very low or no earnings, the opposite of what the
“need for income” principle suggests. . . .
Women Moving into “Male” Jobs
and Fields of Study
The devaluation of and underpayment of predomi-
nantly female occupations is an important institu-
tional reality that provides incentives for both men
and women to choose “male” over “female” occu-
pations and the fi elds of study that lead to them.
Research has shown that predominantly female
occupations pay less, on average, than jobs with a
higher proportion of men. At least some of the gap
is attributable to sex composition because it persists
in statistical models controlling for occupations’
educational requirements, amount of skill required,
unionization, and so forth. I have argued that this is
a form of gender discrimination—employers see
the worth of predominantly female jobs through bi-
ased lenses and, as a result, set pay levels for both
men and women in predominantly female jobs
lower than they would be if the jobs had a more
heavily male sex composition (England 1992;
Kilbourne et al. 1994; England and Folbre 2005).
While the overall sex gap in pay has diminished
because more women have moved into “male”
fi elds (England and Folbre 2005), there is no
evidence that the devaluation of occupations be-
cause they are fi lled with women has diminished
(Levanon, England, and Allison 2009). Indeed, as
U.S. courts have interpreted the law, this type of
between-job discrimination is not even illegal
(England 1992, 225–51; Steinberg 2001), whereas
it is illegal to pay women less than men in the same
job, unless based on factors such as seniority, qual-
ifi cations, or performance. Given this, both men
and women continue to have a pecuniary incentive
to choose male-dominated occupations. Thus, we
should not be surprised that desegregation of occu-
pations has largely taken the form of women mov-
ing into male-dominated fi elds, rather than men
moving into female-dominated fi elds.
added hours of employment (Bianchi, Robinson,
and Milkie 2006). Men had little incentive to leave
employment.
Among women, incentives for employment vary.
Class-based
1
resources, such as education, affect
these incentives. At fi rst glance, we might expect
less educated women to have higher employment
rates than their better-educated peers because they
are less likely to be married to a high-earning man.
Most marriages are between two people at a similar
education level (Mare 1991), so the less educated
woman, if she is married, typically has a husband
earning less than the husband of the college gradu-
ate. Her family would seem to need the money from
her employment more than the family headed by
two college graduates. Let us call this the “need for
income” effect. But the countervailing “opportunity
cost” factor is that well-educated women have more
economic incentive for employment because they
can earn more (England, Garcia-Beaulieu, and Ross
2004). Put another way, the opportunity cost of stay-
ing at home is greater for the woman who can earn
more. Indeed, the woman who did not graduate
from high school may have potential earnings so
low that she could not even cover child care costs
with what she could earn. Thus, in typical cases, for
the married college graduate, her own education en-
courages her employment, while her husband’s high
earnings discourage it. The less educated woman
typically has a poor husband (if any), which encour-
ages her employment, while her own low earning
power discourages her employment.
2
It is an em-
pirical question whether the “need for income” or
“opportunity cost” effect predominates.
Recent research shows that the opportunity-cost
effect predominates in the United States and other
affl uent nations. England, Gornick, and Shafer
(2008) use data from 16 affl uent countries circa
2000 and show that, in all of them, among women
partnered with men (married or cohabiting), those
with more education are more likely to be em-
ployed. Moreover, there is no monotonic relation-
ship between partner’s earnings and a woman’s
employment; at top levels of his income, her em-
ployment is deterred. But women whose male
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418 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
are better off simply hiring gender-blind (for debate,
see Jackson 1998; England 1992, 54–68). Which-
ever is true, legal enforcement of antidiscrimination
laws has imposed some costs for hiring discrimina-
tion (Hirsh 2009), and this has probably reduced
discrimination in hiring, contributing to desegrega-
tion of jobs.
The “Personal” Realm
“The personal is political” was a rallying cry of 1960s
feminists, urging women to demand equality in pri-
vate as well as public life. Yet conventions embody-
ing male dominance have changed much less in “the
personal” than in the job world. Where they have
changed, the asymmetry described above for the job
world prevails. For example, parents are more likely
to give girls “boy” toys such as Legos than they are to
give dolls to their sons. Girls have increased their par-
ticipation in sports more than boys have taken up
cheerleading or ballet. Women now commonly wear
pants, while men wearing skirts remains rare. A few
women started keeping their birth-given surname
upon marriage (Goldin and Shim 2004), with little
adoption by men of women’s last names. Here, as
with jobs, the asymmetry follows incentives, albeit
nonmaterial ones. These social incentives themselves
fl ow from a largely unchanged devaluation of things
culturally defi ned as feminine. When boys and men
take on “female” activities, they often suffer disre-
spect, but under some circumstances, girls and
women gain respect for taking on “male” activities.
What is more striking than the asymmetry of gen-
der change in the personal realm is how little gender-
ing has changed at all in this realm, especially in
dyadic heterosexual relationships. It is still men who
usually ask women on dates, and sexual behavior is
generally initiated by men (England, Shafer, and
Fogarty 2008). Sexual permissiveness has increased,
making it more acceptable for both heterosexual
men and women to have sex outside committed rela-
tionships. But the gendered part of this—the double
standard—persists stubbornly; women are judged
much more harshly than men for casual sex (Hamilton
and Armstrong 2009; England, Shafer, and Fogarty
2008). The ubiquity of asking about height in Internet
Consistent with the incentives embedded in the
ongoing devaluation of female fi elds, desegregation
of fi elds of college study came from more women
going into fi elds that were predominantly male, not
from more men entering “female” fi elds. Since
1970, women increasingly majored in previously
male-dominated, business-related fi elds, such as
business, marketing, and accounting; while fewer
chose traditionally female majors like English, edu-
cation, and sociology; and there was little increase
of men’s choice of these latter majors (England and
Li 2006, 667–69). . . .
Women have also recently increased their
representation in formerly male-dominated profes-
sional degrees, getting MDs, MBAs, and law
degrees in large numbers. Women were 6 percent of
those getting MDs in 1960, 23 percent in 1980,
43  percent in 2000, and 49 percent in 2007; the
analogous numbers for law degrees (JDs) were 3,
30, 46, and 47  percent, and for MBAs (and other
management fi rst- professional degrees), 4, 22, 39,
and 44 percent (National Center for Education
Statistics 2004–2008). There was no marked
increase in the proportion of men in female-
dominated graduate professional programs such as
library science, social work, or nursing (National
Center for Education Statistics 2009).
As women have increasingly trained for previ-
ously male-dominated fi elds, they have also integrated
previously male-dominated occupations in manage-
ment and the professions in large numbers (Cotter,
Hermsen, and Vanneman 2004, 10–13). Women may
face discrimination and coworker resistance when
they attempt to integrate these fi elds, but they have a
strong pecuniary incentive to do so. Men lose money
and suffer cultural disapproval when they choose tra-
ditionally female-dominated fi elds; they have little
incentive to transgress gender boundaries. While
some men have entered female-intensive retail
service jobs after losing manufacturing jobs, there is
little incentive for voluntary movement in this direc-
tion, making desegregation a largely one-way street.
What about employers’ incentives? There is
some debate about whether, absent equal employ-
ment legislation, employers have an incentive to
engage in hiring and placement discrimination or
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READING 45: The Gender Revolution: Uneven and Stalled 419
“male” jobs. The incentives that do exist are largely
noneconomic. For example, women may fi nd it mean-
ingful to keep their birth-given surnames and give
them to their children, and they probably enjoy sexual
freedom and initiation, especially if they are not
judged adversely for it. But these noneconomic bene-
fi ts may be neutralized by the noneconomic penalties
from transgressing gender norms and by the fact that
some have internalized the norms. When women
transgress gender barriers to enter “male” jobs, they
too may be socially penalized for violating norms, but
for many this is offset by the economic gain.
Co-Occurring Logics of Women’s
Rights to Upward Mobility and
Gender Essentialism
I have stressed that important change in the gender
system has taken the form of women integrating tra-
ditionally male occupations and fi elds of study. But
even here change is uneven. The main generalization
is shown by Figure 2, which divides all occupations
by a crude measure of class, calling professional,
management, and nonretail sales occupations
dating Web sites suggests that the convention that men
should be taller than their female partner has not
budged. The double standard of aging prevails, mak-
ing women’s chances of marriage decrease with age
much more than men’s (England and McClintock
2009). Men are still expected to propose marriage
(Sassler and Miller 2007). Upon marriage, the vast
majority of women take their husband’s surname.
The number of women keeping their own name in-
creased in the 1970s and 1980s but little thereafter,
never exceeding about 25 percent even for college
graduates (who have higher rates than other women)
(Goldin and Shim 2004). Children are usually given
their father’s surname; a recent survey found that
even in cases where the mother is not married to the
father, 92 percent of babies are given the father’s last
name (McLanahan forthcoming). While we do not
have trend data on all these personal matters, my
sense is that they have changed much less than gen-
dered features of the world of paid work.
The limited change seen in the heterosexual per-
sonal realm may be because women’s incentive to
change these things is less clear than their incentive
to  move into paid work and into higher-paying
F I G U R E 2
Sex segregation of middle-class and working-class occupations in the United
States, 1950–2000
Source: Cotter, Hermsen, and Vanneman (2004, 14).
Note: Middle-class occupations include professional, management, and
nonretail sales. All others are classified as working-class occupations.
70
60
50
40
30
1950 1960 1970 1980
Year
In
d
e
x
o
f
D
is
s
im
il
a
ri
ty
(
D
)
1990 2000
Working Class
Middle Class
ros27020_rd37-54_359-480.indd 419ros27020_rd37-54_359-480.indd 419 01/09/15 1:26 PM01/09/15 1:26 PM

420 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
earnings and/or status, or at least avoid moving
down. But up or down relative to what reference
group? I suggest that the implicit reference group is
typically those in the previous generation (or previ-
ous birth cohorts) of one’s own social class back-
ground and one’s own sex. For example, women
might see their mothers or aunts as a reference, or
women who graduated with their level of education
10 years ago. Persons of the same-sex category are
the implicit reference group because of strong be-
liefs in gender essentialism, that notion that men and
women are innately and fundamentally different
(Charles forthcoming; Ridgeway 2009). While lib-
eral individualism encourages a commitment to
“free choice” gender egalitarianism (such as legal
equality of opportunity), ironically, orienting toward
gender-typical paths has probably been encouraged
by the emerging form of individualism that stresses
fi nding and expressing one’s “true self.” Notions
of  self will in fact be largely socially constructed,
pulling from socially salient identities. Because of
the  omnipresent nature of gender in the culture
(Ridgeway 2009; West and Zimmerman 1987), gen-
der often becomes the most available material from
which to construct aspirations and may be used even
more when a job choice is seen as a deep statement
about self (Charles and Bradley 2009).
Given all this, I hypothesize that if women can
move “up” in status or income relative to their ref-
erence group while still staying in a job typically
fi lled by women, then because of gender beliefs and
gendered identities, they are likely to do so. If they
cannot move up without integrating a male fi eld,
and demand is present and discrimination not too
strong, they are more likely to cross the gender
boundary. Applying this hypothesis, why would
women not enter male blue-collar fi elds? To be
sure, many women without college degrees would
earn much more in the skilled blue-collar crafts or
unionized manufacturing jobs than in the service
jobs typically fi lled by women at their education
levels—jobs such as maid, child care worker, retail
sales clerk, or assembler in the textile industry. So
they have an economic incentive to enter these jobs.
But such women could also move “up” to clerical
“middle class,” and all others “working class” (in-
cluding retail sales, assembly work in manufactur-
ing, blue-collar trades, and other nonprofessional
service work). Using the index of dissimilarity to
measure segregation,

Figure 2

shows that desegrega-
tion has proceeded much farther in middle-class
than working-class jobs. Middle-class jobs showed
dramatic desegregation, although the trend lessened
its pace after 1990. By contrast, working-class jobs
are almost as segregated as they were in 1950!
Women have integrated the previously male strong-
holds of management, law, medicine, and academia
in large numbers. But women have hardly gained a
foothold in blue-collar, male-dominated jobs such as
plumbing, construction, truck driving, welding, and
assembly in durable manufacturing industries such
as auto and steel (Cotter, Hermsen, and Vanneman
2004, 12–14). This is roughly the situation in other
affl uent nations as well (Charles and Grusky 2004).
This same class difference in trend can be seen if we
compare the degree of segregation among those who
have various levels of education; in the United States,
sex segregation declined much more dramatically
since 1970 for college graduates than any other
group (Cotter, Hermsen, and Vanneman 2009, 2004,
13–14).
Why has desegregation been limited to high-level
jobs? The question has two parts: why women did
not integrate blue-collar male jobs in signifi cant
numbers, and why women did integrate professional
and managerial jobs in droves. Why one and not the
other? Many factors were undoubtedly at work,
3
but
I will focus on one account, which borrows from
Charles and Bradley (Charles forthcoming; Charles
and Bradley 2002, 2009). In the United States and
many Western societies today, a certain kind of gen-
der egalitarianism has taken hold ideologically and
institutionally. The logic is that individuals should
have equal rights to education and jobs of their
choice. Moreover, achievement and upward mobility
are generally valued. There is also a “postmaterial-
ist” aspect to the culture which orients one to fi nd her
or his “true self.” The common ethos is a combina-
tion of “the American dream” and liberal individual-
ism. Many women, like men, want to “move up” in
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READING 45: The Gender Revolution: Uneven and Stalled 421
by class, however; the incentive to go to work for
pay is much stronger for women who can earn
more; thus employment levels have been higher for
well-educated women. I also noted a lack of change
in the gendering of the personal realm, especially
of heterosexual romantic and sexual relationships.
Second, I explored the consequences of the co-
occurrence of two Western cultural and institutional
logics. Individualism, encompassing a belief in
rights to equal opportunity in access to jobs and
education in order to express one’s “true self,” pro-
motes a certain kind of gender egalitarianism. It
does not challenge the devaluation of traditionally
female spheres, but it encourages the rights of
women to upward mobility through equal access to
education and jobs. To be sure, this ideal has been
imperfectly realized, but this type of gender egali-
tarianism has taken hold strongly. But co-occurring
with it, somewhat paradoxically, are strong (if tacit)
beliefs in gender essentialism—that men and
women are innately and fundamentally different in
interests and skills (Charles 2011; Charles and
Bradley 2002, 2009; Ridgeway 2009). Almost no
men and precious few women, even those who be-
lieve in “equal opportunity,” have an explicit com-
mitment to undoing gender differentiation for its
own sake. Gender essentialism encourages tradi-
tional choices and leads women to see previous co-
horts of women of their social class as the reference
point from which they seek upward mobility. I con-
cluded that the co-occurrence of these two logics—
equal opportunity individualism and gender
essentialism—make it most likely for women to
move into nontraditional fi elds of study or work
when there is no possible female fi eld that consti-
tutes upward mobility from the socially constructed
reference point. This helps explain why women in-
tegrated male-dominated professional and manage-
rial jobs more than blue-collar jobs. Women from
working-class backgrounds, whose mothers were
maids or assemblers in nondurable manufacturing,
could move up fi nancially by entering blue-collar
“male” trades but often decide instead to get more
education and move up into a female job such as
secretary or teacher. It is women with middle-class
work or teaching, higher status and better paying
but still traditionally female jobs. Many take this
path, often getting more education.
In contrast, consider women who assumed they
would go to college and whose mothers were in
female-dominated jobs requiring a college degree
like teacher, nurse, librarian, or social worker. For
these women, to move up in status or earnings from
their reference group options requires them to enter
traditionally male jobs; there are virtually no heav-
ily female jobs with higher status than these female
professions. These are just the women, usually of
middle-class origins, who have been integrating
management, law, medicine, and academia in
recent decades. For them, upward mobility was not
possible within traditional boundaries, so they were
more likely to integrate male fi elds.
In sum, my argument is that one reason that
women integrated male professions and manage-
ment much more than blue-collar jobs is that the
women for whom the blue-collar male jobs would
have constituted “progress” also had the option to
move up by entering higher-ranking female jobs
via more education. They thus had options for up-
ward mobility without transgressing gender bound-
aries not present for their middle-class sisters. . . .
CONCLUSION
Change in the gender system has been uneven,
changing the lives of some groups of people more
than others and changing lives in some arenas more
than others. Although many factors are at play,
I  have offered two broad explanations for the
uneven nature of change.
First, I argued that, because of the cultural and
institutional devaluation of characteristics and ac-
tivities associated with women, men had little in-
centive to move into badly rewarded, traditionally
female activities such as homemaking or female-
dominated occupations. By contrast, women had
powerful economic incentives to move into the tra-
ditionally male domains of paid employment and
male-typical occupations; and when hiring discrim-
ination declined, many did. These incentives varied
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422 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
Change has been as much unintended consequence
of larger institutional and cultural forces as realiza-
tion of the efforts of feminist organizing, although
the latter has surely helped.
4
Indeed, given the re-
cent stalling of change, future feminist organizing
may be necessary to revitalize change.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What is gender egalitarianism?
2. What stereotypes and double standards still re-
main for women?
NOTES
1. In this article, I use the term class to cover both categoric
notions of class and gradational notions of socioeco-
nomic position. Often I use education or occupation as
imperfect but readily available indicators of class.
2. A complementary hypothesis about why employment
rates are lower for less educated women is that, compared
to women with more education, they place a higher value
on motherhood and fi nd less intrinsic meaning in the jobs
they can get. In this vein, Edin and Kefalas (2005) argue
that low-income women place a higher value on mother-
hood because they have so few alternative sources of
meaning. However, Ferree (1976) found that working-
class women were happier if employed; they worked for
the money but also gained a sense of competence, con-
nectedness, and self-determination from their jobs.
McQuillan et al. (2008) fi nd that neither education nor
careerism is associated with the value placed on mother-
hood. Overall, there is no clear conclusion on class differ-
ences in how women value motherhood and jobs.
3. One important additional factor is that blue-collar male
jobs have been contracting (Morris and Western 1999),
so integrating them would have been more diffi cult even
if women had wanted to do so. Moreover, male cowork-
ers may fi ght harder to harass and keep women out of
blue-collar than professional and managerial jobs; lack-
ing class privilege, blue-collar men may feel a stronger
need than more privileged men to defend their gender
privilege. Finally, it is possible that the Equal Employ-
ment Opportunity Commission had an institutional bias
toward bringing cases challenging discrimination in
highlevel managerial and professional positions, partic-
ularly when they became concerned with the “glass ceil-
ing.” This could explain why Burstein (1989) found
more discrimination cases in high-level jobs.
4. Risman (2009) reminds us that our own teaching has
probably had an effect on keeping feminism alive, as
today’s young feminists often say that the college class-
room is where they began to identify as feminists.
backgrounds, whose mothers were teachers or
nurses, who cannot move up without entering a
male-dominated career, and it is just such women
who have integrated management, law, medicine,
and academia. Yet even while integrating large
fi elds such as academia, women often gravitate to-
ward the more female-typical fi elds of study.
As sociologists, we emphasize links between
parts of a social system. For example, we trace how
gender inequality in jobs affects gender inequality
in the family, and vice versa (England and Farkas
1986). Moreover, links between parts of the system
are recognized in today’s prevailing view in which
gender is itself a multilevel system, with causal ar-
rows going both ways from macro to micro (Risman
2004). All these links undoubtedly exist, but the un-
evenness of gender-related change highlights how
loosely coupled parts of the social system are and
how much stronger some causal forces for change
are than others. For example, because it resonated
with liberal individualism well, the part of the femi-
nist message that urged giving women equal access
to jobs and education made considerable headway
and led to much of what we call the gender revolu-
tion. But even as women integrated employment
and “male” professional and managerial jobs, the
part of feminism challenging the devaluation of tra-
ditionally female activities and jobs made little
headway. The result is persistently low rewards for
women who remain focused on mothering or in tra-
ditionally female jobs and little incentive for men to
make the gender revolution a two-way street.
While discussing the uneven character of gender
change, I also noted that the type of gender change
with the most momentum—middle-class women
entering traditionally male spheres—has recently
stalled (Cotter, Hermsen, and Vanneman 2004,
2009). Women’s employment rates stabilized,
desegregation of occupations slowed down, and
desegregation of fi elds of college study stopped.
Erosion of the sex gap in pay slowed as well (Cotter,
Hermsen, and Vanneman 2009). While the reason
for the stalling is unclear, like the unevenness of
change, the stalling of change reminds us how con-
tingent and path-dependent gender egalitarian
change is, with no inexorable equal endpoint.
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behavioral sciences, vol. 4, edited by Neil J. Smelser and
Paul B, Baltes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
West, Candace, and Donald H. Zimmerman. 1987. Doing
gender. Gender & Society 1:125–51.
McQuillan, Julia, Arthur L. Greil, Karina M. Shreffl er, and
Veronica Tichenor. 2008. The importance of motherhood
among women in the contemporary United States.
Gender & Society 22:477–96.
Morris, Martina, and Bruce Western. 1999. Inequality in
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view of Sociology 25:623–57.
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Tanya McNeill is a sociologist and independent scholar
researching cultural and political representations of gender-
creative children.
SEXUALITY
R E A D I N G 4 6
Sex Education and the Promotion
of Heteronormativity
Tanya McNeill
What can I do if I am attracted to someone of the
same sex?
You probably have many friends that are of the same
sex as yourself. Some teenagers today are confused
about the differences between friendship and homo-
sexuality. This confusion comes from how television
and movies present sex. Too often, homosexuality is
shown as a legitimate lifestyle equal to a heterosexual
lifestyle. These same sex “unions” cannot provide an
adequate means of achieving a genuine physical rela-
tionship with another human being because this type
of “union” is contrary to the laws of nature. There
can be no real union because same sex bodies do not
even physically fi t together. If you or someone you
know is struggling with same sex attraction, you can
fi nd help and obtain more information at these
websites: narth.com; peoplecan-change.com; and
couragerc.net. (Kelly and Houck, 2006).
Nearly two decades ago, Lisa Duggan proposed
that queer theorists and scholars organize under a
campaign of “No Promo Hetero” (1994: 9). She
argued that such a project should “outline the ways
in which heterosexuality is endorsed through state
activity (education, tax law, marriage, family life
and so on), specifying the unfair preferences that
operate in each area” (1994: 9). This remains an
imperative political and scholarly project, particu-
larly within the context of the state’s increasingly
explicit promotion and regulation of heterosexual-
ity.
1
The quotation with which I open this article is
from a pamphlet distributed to students at a public
Alabama middle-school in May 2006 as part of a
school sponsored sexuality education program
( Associated Press, 2006). One of the students who
received this pamphlet was a 12-year-old whose
mother is a lesbian. Like many school children in
the USA, this young girl was informed, at her pub-
lic school, that her family is unacceptable. Such
curricula are common, particularly in schools that
provide abstinence-only and abstinence-until-
marriage sexuality education to students.
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READING 46: Sex Education and the Promotion of Heteronormativity 425
Arizona, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina,
and Utah require that sexuality education present
homosexuality in a negative light (see the Sexuality
Information and Education Council of the United
States publication SIECUS, 2011b). For example,
Alabama State Code (Section 16-40A-2) requires
“an emphasis, in a factual manner and from a public
health perspective, that homosexuality is not a life
style acceptable to the general public and that ho-
mosexual conduct is a criminal offense under the
laws of the state.”
2
Not only does the state here spe-
cifi cally articulate lesbian, gay and bisexual sexu-
alities as “unacceptable,” but this statute references
anti-sodomy laws, which are still on the books in
South Carolina, despite the Supreme Court’s 2003
Lawrence vs. Texas decision, 3 which declared such
laws unconstitutional. Arizona state code prohibits
schools from “promoting homosexuality” in its
sexuality education curriculum. “No district shall
include in its course of study instruction which:
(1)  Promotes a homosexual lifestyle. (2) Portrays
homosexuality as a positive alternative life-style.
(3)  Suggests that some methods of sex are safe
methods of homosexual sex” (Arizona State Legis-
lature, n.d.). Louisiana prohibits the use of “any
sexually explicit materials depicting male or homo-
sexual activity” (Louisiana State Legislature, n.d.).
Mississippi mandates that schools teach that “a
mutually faithful, monogamous relationship in the
context of marriage is the only appropriate setting
for sexual intercourse.”
4
Oklahoma requires schools
to provide AIDS education and mandates that
such  education “specifi cally teach students that
(1)  engaging in homosexual activity, promiscuous
sexual activity, intravenous drug use or contact with
contaminated blood products is now known to be
primarily responsible for contact with the AIDS
virus” (Oklahoma State Department of Education,
n.d). In addition to pathologizing “homosexuality,”
these policies are medically inaccurate; sex between
two females, for example, is a relatively low-risk
sexual activity (Center for Disease Control and
Prevention, 2006).
5
Such state laws also pathologize
any sexual activity that occurs outside of hetero-
sexual marriage. The articulation of hetero sexuality
as normative and homosexuality as diseased is
In this article, I take up Duggan’s call and ana-
lyze how sexuality education policy and curricula
promote heterosexuality, or more precisely, hetero-
normativity. I engage in a discourse analysis of
federal- and state-level sexuality education laws
and policies. . . . I fi nd that these policies and docu-
ments promote a specifi c normative form of
monogamous, marital, middle-class, normatively
gendered, and in many implicit and explicit ways,
white, heterosexuality—that is best described as
heteronormative. In other words, they promote a
specifi c family form—a nuclear family made up of
married heterosexual parents with children who are
biologically theirs. . . .
“Heteronormativity promotes the norm of social
life as not only heterosexual but also married, mo-
nogamous, white, and upper middle class” (Brandzel,
2005: 190). Heteronormativity is not equivalent to
heterosexuality; it posits a very specifi c normative
form of heterosexuality, one that also regulates hetero-
sexuals (see e.g., Cohen, 1997). . . . The promotion of
heteronormativity occurs within a larger cultural and
social context that simultaneously reproduces hetero-
sexuality as an affectively sacred, special and spar-
kly space (e.g., in children’s movies, see Martin and
Kazyak, 2009) and simultaneously as “mundane,”
everyday practice (Myers and Raymond, 2010).
Schools, as sites of the production of citizens,
exert a powerfully disciplining force on heterosexual
and LGBTQ non-heteronormative family forms
(Pallotta-Chiarolli, 2010). Within schools, sexuality
education is perhaps one of the most explicit sites of
the regulation of gender and sexuality. As Mayo ar-
gues, sexuality education curricula and policies in-
clude “clear and specifi c messages about properly
gendered behavior and proper sexual behavior”
(2004: 65). Sexuality education policy can also be
read as an explicit form of bio-politics, which entails
political or governmental regulation and disciplining
of all aspects of life at the level of the body, and at the
level of population (Foucault, 1990: 139). . . .
Pathologizing Homosexuality
It is not uncommon for public schools to patholo-
gize homosexuality. State laws in Alabama,
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426 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
an educational or motivational program which . . .
(A) has as its exclusive purpose, teaching the social,
psychological, and health gains to be realized by
abstaining from sexual activity;
(B) teaches abstinence from sexual activity outside
marriage as the expected standard for all school age
children;
(C) teaches that abstinence from sexual activity is the
only certain way to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy,
sexually transmitted diseases, and other associated
health problems;
(D) teaches that a mutually faithful monogamous
relationship in context of marriage is the expected
standard of human sexual activity;
(E) teaches that sexual activity outside of the context
of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological
and physical effects;
(F) teaches that bearing children out-of-wedlock is
likely to have harmful consequences for the child, the
child’s parents, and society;
(G) teaches young people how to reject sexual
advances and how alcohol and drug use increases
vulnerability to sexual advances; and
(H) teaches the importance of attaining self-
suffi ciency before engaging in sexual activity
(Section 510 of Title V of the Social Security Act).
While there has been some variation in how
strictly states have been required to meet these stan-
dards,
8
Title V may be the federal government’s
most explicit articulation and promotion of hetero-
normativity. It lays out a set of sexual standards for
U.S. citizens and emphasizes the importance of
teaching these sexual standards in schools.
While I focus here on Title V sexuality educa-
tion funds, there are at least three other programs
through which the federal government funds
abstinence-only education. In 1981, the federal
government passed the Adolescent Family Life Act
(AFLA), which funds abstinence-only education in
an effort to prevent teen pregnancy (Perrin and
DeJoy, 2003). Additional abstinence-only funds are
available to state and community organizations
made explicit in South Carolina’s state code on
health education, which prohibits any “discussion
of alternate sexual lifestyles from heterosexual re-
lationships including, but not limited to, homosex-
ual relationships except in the context of instruction
concerning sexually transmitted diseases.”
6

Although these six states may seem extreme in
their explicit pathologization of gay, lesbian, and
bisexual sexualities, an additional 22 states require
public schools to “stress” or “cover” abstinence if they
offer sexuality education (Guttmacher Institute,
2011). The abstinence-until-marriage education man-
dated by many federal and state policies is inherently
heteronormative and frequently ignores and/or deni-
grates the existence of gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans-
gender and intersex youth (Irvine, 2006; Lipkin, 1999;
Mayo, 2004). The emphasis on “sex” as heterosexual
penetrative intercourse is one aspect of this hetero-
normativity (Jackson, 1995: 21 cited in Weeks et al.,
2001). This limited defi nition of “sex” precludes other
forms of sexual behavior in which students (whether
or not they are heterosexual) may engage. The empha-
sis on “marriage,” which is central to many sexuality
education curricula is another aspect of the heteronor-
mativity of much sexuality education. . . .
The federal government’s emphasis on absti-
nence-only sexuality education has been a key
aspect of its regulation of poor women’s sexuality
for over 30 years. Welfare policy has always been a
racial project (Omi and Winant, 1994) that regulates
sexuality, race, and gender and imposes heteronor-
mative (white, marital, monogamous, heterosexual,
and middle-class) familial standards on poor women
(Mink, 1995; see also Collins’ discussion of the
“normative yardstick” 1990: 46). The 1996 Personal
Responsibility Act, which draws on language eerily
similar to the Moynihan report,
7
pathologizes single
mothers (who were racialized as black and Latina
during the welfare reform debates of the late 20th
century) and disproportionately regulates the repro-
ductive and familial lives of women of color, created
a new funding source for abstinence-only-until-
marriage programs through Title V, Section 510(b)
of the Social Security Act. Title V sexuality educa-
tion is described in the law as
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READING 46: Sex Education and the Promotion of Heteronormativity 427
conform to the marriage mandate, who choose to
have non- monogamous relationships, or who other-
wise deviate from heteronormativity. In some cases
this is achieved through the articulation of the
superiority of heteronormative nuclear families in
curricula and policy.
THE HETERONORMATIVE
FAMILY AS SUPERIOR
Only 12 states and Washington DC require that
schools include what SIECUS and the Guttmacher
Institute describe as “positive” information about
LGBTQ issues.
9
California, for example, is required
to provide sexuality education curricula “appropri-
ate for use with pupils of all races, genders, sexual
orientations, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and
pupils with disabilities” (Offi cial California Legis-
lative Information, n.d.a). Moreover, the California
Education Code prohibits discrimination on the
basis of “disability, gender, nationality, race or eth-
nicity, religion, [or] sexual orientation” (Offi cial
California Legislative Information (n.d.b). Despite
the state’s anti-discrimination mandate, the state
policy document Health Framework for California
Public Schools: Kindergarten Through Grade
Twelve articulates the superiority of heteronorma-
tive families. It does so in two brief paragraphs that
describe such families in an affectively dense man-
ner. This description demonstrates the ambivalence
of the state towards non-heteronormative or “non-
traditional” individuals and families.
A functional family unit is vital to the well- being of
children. Children usually develop best when they live
in a stable environment with their mother and father
and receive from their parents consistent love, support,
and direction. However, children from nontraditional
families can also develop successfully. Given the vari-
ety of nontraditional families in contemporary society,
it is important that children not reared in two-parent
families be convinced that their situation can also be
conducive to growth and development.
Further, it is important that children not be deni-
grated because of their living arrangement or the
composition of their family. All students, regardless
through Community Based Abstinence Education
grants, established by the federal government in
2001. In 2010, Congress created the Personal
Responsibility Education Program, which funds
comprehensive sexuality education. The range of
federal funding streams for sexuality education are
emblematic of the ambivalence of federal policy
and of sexuality education as a fl exible and varied
form of regulation. For example, even as Title V
policies require sexuality education to follow het-
eronormative guidelines, the call for proposals for
Personal Responsibility Education Program
(PREP) grants suggests that states should take into
account the needs of LGBTQ youth and to strive to
be “inclusive . . . and non-stigmatizing.” While this
is a clear move away from the explicit heteronor-
mativity of Title V and AFLA sexuality education
funds, the fact that states can apply for both Title V
and PREP funds means that sexuality education
curricula can be contradictory within a given state.
This demonstrates a peculiar kind of ambivalence
on the part of federal and state policy around the
regulation of sexuality.
Curricula that promote abstinence—particularly
abstinence until marriage—assume that full belong-
ing as an adult and a citizen in the community, fam-
ily, and nation requires heteronormative family
relations. This co-exists with a national imagery of
an American character of fairness, equality, and
tolerance, which creates a contradiction emblematic
of the state’s attitude towards gender noncon formity
and non-heteronormative sexualities (heterosexual
and LGBTQ). As Cohen (1997) points out, the pro-
motion of heteronormativity not only pathologizes
LGBTQ families and individuals, but relies on the
stigmatization of single mothers, particularly poor
women of color. The state engages in the affective
production and regulation of the family when it up-
holds heteronormative families and sexuality and
gender normativity as desirable by the community
and the nation. Even in states where same-sex
marriage is permitted (which does not actually
change the regulatory logic of heteronormativity),
abstinence-only curricula pathologize and margin-
alize all individuals (and families) who do not
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428 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
feelings that might emerge for students whose fam-
ilies look “different.”
11
Although these statements
seem to be articulating the importance of respecting
all students and all families, they produce the very
ideas about “non-traditional families” that they then
attempt to counter. The discussion of the superiority
of heteronormative families produces inequality and
itself is a form of “denigration” of children from gay
and lesbian families, single-parent families, foster
families, grandparent or legal guardian headed
families, polyamorous families, or any number of
other non-heteronormative family formations.
These assumptions about both normative and “non-
traditional” families permeate U.S. public policy
and demonstrate the limitations of diversity dis-
courses. Discussions of family “difference” in sex-
uality education policy and curricula reveal a deep
ambivalence towards diversity; these texts create a
hierarchy of family forms within schools, and
within society at large. Certain families are more
valuable to the state than others.
12

Teaching that the heteronormative family is
preferable to all other family forms generates
tensions around how to manage students’ feelings
of “worth” and belonging. This illustrates the affec-
tive nature of heteropatriarchy as a social structure.
It is also a moment of ambivalence in public school
policy; it pits confl icting pedagogical goals
against  each other. How are students to be taught
self-esteem and feelings of competence and worth
(all included in Virginia’s standards), when they are
simultaneously taught that their families do not fi t
the desired norm? These moments of ambivalence
and contradiction are frequent in curricular docu-
ments dealing with sexuality and family. . . .
Conclusion
In 1991, Eve Sedgwick wrote, “it’s always open sea-
son on gay kids,” (1991: 18). Moreover, she continued
a few pages later, “. . . the scope of institutions whose
programmatic undertaking is to prevent the develop-
ment of gay people is unimaginably large. There is
no major institutionalized discourse that offers a
fi rm resistance to that undertaking . . .” (1991: 24).
of their current living arrangement, can benefi t from
classroom instruction and discussion on family liv-
ing. They can learn how they can contribute to mak-
ing the family unit harmonious and successful now
as well as in the future—when they will likely
become parents (California Department of Education,
2003: 63).
Heteronormative families are characterized as
“functional,” “stable,” and “consistent,” which links
normative and affective concepts. The description
links these normative families as sites of “love, sup-
port, and direction.” Positive affects and affective
states are linked with normative family forms.
The  juxtaposition of the description of two-parent
hetero sexual, married families with a discussion of
“non-traditional” families (and the use of the word
“however”) implies that non-heteronormative fami-
lies are not “functional,” “stable,” or “ consistent”
and that they are unlikely to offer the same level of
“love, support, and direction” as “ traditional” fami-
lies can. This logic pathologizes unmarried hetero-
sexual parents as well as LGBTQ parents. Moreover
the state articulates the norm of parenthood, and
family as central to adulthood and citizenship
by positing that these students “will likely become
parents.”
The Prince William County School District (in
Virginia) articulates a similar message in its eighth-
grade curriculum objectives.
Teachers will teach that, although it is desirable for
a family to include both a mother and a father, due
to circumstances beyond the control of a child, this
does not always occur. As many children in a class-
room will not have a traditional family, the teacher
should reinforce that these children should not feel
“less worthy” because their family does not resemble
the family of other students (Prince William County
Public Schools, 2009: 4; emphasis in original).
The assertion of the superiority of a particular
family form raises affective and pedagogical
problems in the classroom. According to these state
policies, teachers in California
10
and in Prince
William County must simultaneously teach their
students that the heteropatriarchal family is most
“desirable” and manage (or discipline) the negative
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READING 46: Sex Education and the Promotion of Heteronormativity 429
students regularly experienced verbal harassment
because of their sexual orientation or gender iden-
tity in schools with abstinence-only curricula”
(GLSEN, 2012: 50). In schools with abstinence-
only sexuality education, 65.9% of students re-
ported harassment due to sexual orientation and
48% due to gender identity, compared with 55.5%
and 41.2% in schools with “other sexual health ed-
ucation” (GLSEN, 2012: 50). Moreover GLSEN
found “inclusive curriculum,” defi ned as “curricu-
lum that includes positive representations of LGBT
people, history and events” (2012: xvi), correlated
with lower rates of absenteeism, “a greater sense of
connectedness,” less homophobic language preva-
lent in schools, and greater reported acceptance.
GLSEN reports that “less than half (43.4%) of stu-
dents in schools with an inclusive curriculum felt
unsafe because of their sexual orientation, com-
pared to almost two thirds (67.5%) of other stu-
dents” (2012: xvi). This evidence suggests that the
state’s policies and curriculum may indeed legiti-
mate homophobic, transphobic, sexist, and racist
bullying in schools. . . .
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Would changing state laws prevent situations
where “it’s always open season on gay kids”?
2. What effect do you think the increased accep-
tance of gay marriage will have on sex educa-
tion programs?
NOTES
1. For example, the federal government explicitly pro-
motes marriage, through the Healthy Marriage Initia-
tive, through marriage incentives in welfare policy and
through abstinence-only sexuality education. Most
states regulate marriage through state-level Defense of
Marriage Acts and/or state constitutional amendments
that ban same-sex marriage.
2. Section 16-40A-2 of the Alabama State Code (Code of
Alabama, 1975).
3. Lawrence vs. Texas itself needs to be understood within
the racialized regulation of sexuality (Puar, 2007).
4. See Mississippi Code of 1972 Miss. Code Ann. § 37-13-
171 (LexisNexis Custom Solution, 2011).
While the cultural and legal terrain has shifted
signifi cantly in the past 20 years, Sedgwick’s
indictment is still all too relevant. Schools do not
“offer resistance” to the “prevention of develop-
ment of gay people.” In fact, educational policies
and school curricula often actively pathologize and
stigmatize LGBTQ youth. As I have demonstrated
throughout this article, the state actively regulates
sexuality and promotes a normative form of hetero-
sexuality through sexuality education policy and
curricula. The promotion of normative heterosexu-
ality and the structuring force of heteronormativity
offer a framework of legitimacy that produces the
symbolic and material exclusion of non-heteronor-
mative families of all kinds from full participation
in the nation and in their communities. . . .
Discourses about school bullying and school
safety for LGTBQ youth locate homophobic, trans-
phobic, and misogynistic harassment as external to
the standards, goals, and daily practices of schools.
Yet, as I have demonstrated here, the pathologiza-
tion of homosexuality, and the valorization of het-
erosexuality, are actually central to much sexuality
education policy and curricula. And these are only
the most visible and explicit of these forms of het-
eronormativity. The institutions and the larger
socio-cultural-legal structures that surround the
debates around school bullying elide the extent to
which heteronormativity structures school stan-
dards, curricula and state education policies. In
other words, while we frequently hear critiques
(and fears) over the “promotion of homosexuality”
in schools when policies and curricula are inclusive
and accepting of LGBTQ individuals and families,
the range of explicit and implicit educational poli-
cies and curricula that promote heteronormativity
are rarely central to public debates about the safety
of LGBTQ students. The fact that in some schools
students are explicitly told that their sexual desires
are immoral, unhealthy or socially unacceptable is
not central to debates about homophobic bullying.
The fi ndings of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Edu-
cation Network’s (GLSEN) 2011 School Climate
Survey suggests that further research and advocacy
are needed on this. “A greater percentage of LGBT
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430 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
(Smith, 2005), the internment of Japanese Americans
during the Second World War and immigration poli-
cies (Luibhéid, 2002). These are all examples of the
state’s regulation of the family—and its preference
for a specifi c (white, middle-class, heteronormative)
family form.
REFERENCES
Arizona State Legislature (n.d.) Available at: www.azleg
.gov/ars/15/00716.htm (accessed 21 June 2011).
Associated Press (2006) Lesbian mom objects to sex educa-
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legacy.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/news/060503/sex
.shtm (accessed 20 June 2011).
Brandzel A (2005) Queering citizenship? Same-sex mar-
riage and the state. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay
Studies 11(2): 171–204.
California Department of Education (2003) Health Frame-
works for California Public Schools. Available at: www
.cde.ca.gov/ci/he/cf/ (accessed 7 March 2011).
Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2006) HIV/AIDS
among Women Who Have Sex with Women: CDC HIV/
AIDS Fact Sheet. Available at: www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics
/women/resources/factsheets/wsw.htm (accessed 29 May
2012).
Code of Alabama (1975) Available at: http://alisondb
.legislature.state.al.us/acas/ACASLoginFire.asp (accessed
21 June 2011).
Cohen C (1997) Punks, bulldaggers, and welfare queens: The
radical potential of queer politics? GLQ 3(4): 437–465.
Collins PH (1990) Black Feminist Thought. New York:
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Davis A (1983) Racism, birth control, and reproductive
rights. In: Davis A (ed.) Women, Race and Class. New
York: Vintage Books, pp. 202–221.
Duggan L (1994) Queering the state. Social Text 39
(Summer): 1–14.
Duggan L (2003) The Twilight of Equality: Neoliheralism,
Cultural Politics, and the Attack on Democracy. Boston,
MA: Beacon Press.
Fields J (2008) Risky Lessons: Sex Education and Social
Inequality. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University
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Foucault M (1990) The History of Sexuality: An Introduc-
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Gans H (2011) “The Moynihan Report and its aftermath”:
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5. Because some men might not be male (e.g., female to male
transsexuals), and some women not female (e.g., male to
female transsexuals), I use the terms “female” and “male”
here in an attempt to gesture towards the difference
between gender and sex and the possibility of disjunc-
ture between them (i.e., male ≠ man). It is also important
to point out that “sex” is no more natural a category than
“gender” (see e.g., Butler, 1990; Kessler, 1990).
6. See South Carolina Legislature Online (n.d.) S.C. Code
Ann. § 59-32-30(A)(5).
7. See Gans 2011 for a discussion of the Moynihan
Report.
8. In some years, grantees for Title V funds have been
permitted to use grants for programs that met some of
the requirements, but were not required to meet all re-
quirements. The 2007 call for applications for Title V
funds had very strict guidelines. All of the requirements
(A–H) needed to be “meaningfully represented” in state
curricula funded by Title V monies. As a result, a num-
ber of states decided not to apply for Title V funds for
the 2007 fi scal year. In many cases, state legislation re-
garding AIDS prevention in sexuality education prohib-
ited states from meeting the stricter requirements. In
2010, curricula funded by using Title V funds were sim-
ply forbidden from contradicting requirements A–H
(SIECUS, 2011a).
9. These states are: California, Delaware, Iowa, Maryland,
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico,
Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin
(see Guttmacher, 2011; SIECUS, 2011b).
10. It is possible that California’s 2011 Fair, Accurate, In-
clusive and Respectful (FAIR) Education Act, which
mandates the inclusion of LGBTQ individuals’ contri-
butions to California and U.S. history, and prohibits
materials that discriminate against LGBTQ individuals
will supersede the language discussed in this section.
11. I cannot make a claim, of course, about what happens in
the classroom. The point here is that these documents
create particular mandates and whether or not they are
always followed, the epistemological and psychic ef-
fects are worthy of interrogation. Again, the ethno-
graphic research conducted by Jessica Fields (2008) and
Lorena Garcia (2009) demonstrates that in-class sexual-
ity education experiences in public schools tend to
reinforce heteronormative, sexist, and racist social mes-
sages about sexuality.
12. This is, of course, not a new message. The state has
always valued some families over others, as even a
cursory glance at U.S. history demonstrates. See for
example, eugenics policy and forced sterilization
(Davis, 1983), the enslavement of Black adults and
children (Collins, 1990), the removal of Native
American children from their homes and communities
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READING 46: Sex Education and the Promotion of Heteronormativity 431
Offi cial California Legislative Information (n.d.a) Available
at: www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section
=edc&group=51001-52000&fi le=51933 (accessed 23
June 2011).
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(edc:220-221.1). Available at: www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi
– b i n / d i s p l a y c o d e ? s e c t i o n = e d c & g r o u p = 0 0 0 0 1 –
01000&fi le=220–221.1 (accessed 23 June 2011).
Oklahoma State Department of Education (n.d.) Title
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/title-210-state-department-education-38 (accessed
14 September 2013).
Omi M and Winant H (1994) Racial Formation in the
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Routledge.
Perrin K and De Joy (2003) Abstinence-only education:
How we got here and where we’re going. Journal of Pub-
lic Health Policy 24(3–4): 445–459.
Prince William County Public Schools (2009) Family Life
Education Grade 8 Health: Curriculum Objectives for
Use in Mapping Family Life Education Instruction
August 2009. Available at: http://english.pwcs.science
.schoolfusion.us/modules/locker/fi les/group_riles.pht
ml?parent=5499258&gid=1179544&sessionid=f6536d
90d2dbcc8217472138053c7cl0 (accessed 14 June
2011).
Puar J (2007) Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in
Queer Times. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Sedgwick E (1991) How to bring your kids up gay. Social
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SIECUS (2011a) State by State Decisions: The Personal Re-
sponsibility Education Program and Title V Abstinence-
Only Program. Available at: http://siecus.org/index.cfm?
fuscaction=Featurc.showFeaturc&FeaturcID=l934 (ac-
cessed 11 August 2011).
SIECUS (2011b) Sexuality Education Policies-Select Topics.
Available at: www.siecus.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=page
.viewPage&pageID=l163&nodeID=l (accessed 8 August
2011).
Smith A (2002) Conquest: Sexual Violence and American
Indian Genocide. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.
Weeks J, Heaphy B and Donovan C (2001) Same Sex Intima-
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New York: Routledge.
GLSEN – Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network
(2010) 2009 National School Climate Survey. Available
at: www.glsen.org/cgi-bin/iowa/all/news/record/2624
.html (accessed 7 March 2011).
GLSEN – Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (2012)
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.glsen.org/cgi-bin/iowa/all/library/record/2897.html?state
=rcsearch&type=rescarch (accessed 18 October 2012).
Guttmacher Institute (2011) State policies in brief as of
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432 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
Gay marriage as an activist target seems to complete
a long process of human classifi cation that began in
the late nineteenth century and is ongoing today.
This process that began by making fundamental as-
sumptions about human difference by distinguish-
ing between people with homo and people with
hetero desires comes full circle when homo people
ask to be recognized just like hetero people.
One theorist, Michel Foucault, someone who has
greatly infl uenced the ways that academics write
and think about sex, linked the emergence of the
category of “homosexual” (1869) to the onset of in-
dustrialization, the rise of a culture of expertise (a
medical culture then but nowadays more of a talk
show culture—think Dr. Phil and self-help litera-
ture), the increasing intrusion of medical terms into
J. Jack Halberstam is a professor of American studies and eth-
nicity, gender studies, and comparative literature at the Univer-
sity of Southern California.
P E R S O N A L A C C O U N T
Learning My Own Privilege
My social class has afforded me the privilege to go about
my daily life and education with relative ease and comfort,
despite the fact that as a mixed-race, learning disabled
woman I belong to many socially devalued groups. I grew
up in a safe yet diverse area where my ethnicity and sta-
tus as the daughter of an immigrant, on the one hand,
and a gay man on the other, had few negative social con-
sequences. My father, an American diplomat, met my
mother and got married while stationed in the Philippines.
We moved around a lot, which caused a great deal of fa-
milial stress. Despite the fact that their marriage was fall-
ing apart, my mom and dad provided a very happy home
and a good education for both their children. They di-
vorced in the late 1990s; my mother remarried, and while
I was in high school, my father came out.
Likely because my father came out later in life, and he
and my mother divorced relatively amicably, the legal cus-
tody he had over my sister and me was never contested.
I also never directly encountered anti-immigrant resent-
ment or the threat of my mother being deported. My par-
ents did such a good job insulating me from the prejudice
they encountered, that I did not realize what kind of in-
vestments and sacrifices they made until I was in college.
Growing up, I often thought about how my learning dis-
ability disadvantaged me. I felt ashamed of being pulled
out of my regular class during English. I also resented not
being able to take electives because I had to spend that
extra time catching up with everyone else in my grade.
I remember the summer between third and fourth grade,
when I realized that most of my friends were going to the
school for “gifted” children. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t
go with them. My father explained that I needed a little bit
more help than everyone else, and that I’d be spending a
lot more time outside my normal class in the coming years
working with “special” teachers. I came to hate the word
“special.” I wanted to be “special” in the same way the
“gifted” kids were—no one cared how great I was at social
studies or how fast I could run. I felt like the only thing that
made me “special” was the fact I couldn’t read well.
I didn’t realize how incredibly fortunate I was to be able
to attend quality schools that had the resources to detect
my disability early and give me the extra attention I des-
perately needed. The reason I got that kind of help was
because my parents could afford to buy a house in a na-
tionally ranked school district. They also had the resources
to send me to specialists, as well as the leisure time to
help me at home. So, whereas the story of my “overcom-
ing” my disability, eventually taking Advanced Placement
classes in high school, and going on to college can be told
as a great personal triumph, it can be more fully under-
stood as the most likely outcome for a very upper middle-
class girl who was always expected to go to college.
Mireille M. Cecil
R E A D I N G 4 7
Gaga Relations: The End
of Marriage
J. Jack Halberstam
Without getting too academic about this, it’s impor-
tant to understand the activist emphasis on marriage
within a much longer history of homo/sexuality.
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READING 47: Gaga Relations: The End of Marriage 433
“fairy” or “homosexual” altogether and think of his
identifi cation with the term “gay” as liberatory! So
how, you might ask, did we begin with a diagnosis,
move through social marginalization, and arrive at
gay pride and gay marriage? But even if you don’t
ask, you might want to ask, because the struggles
that people endured before us have often afforded
us our sense of “liberation.” And what is more,
other political trajectories would have led to other
kinds of goals for liberation.
Indeed, the desire for marriage completes a long
process by which LGBT people, having been
separated out from normative society and called
pathological, now are embraced and in turn em-
brace the very cultures that previously rejected
them. In fact, I would take this point further: the
participation of LGBT couples in state-sanctioned
marriages lends credibility to the very institution
that has acquired meaning precisely through ex-
cluding gays and lesbians, among others, from mar-
riage in the fi rst place. In other words, marriage has
been an exclusionary system rather than an inclu-
sionary one; it has functioned precisely by drawing
lines between those who can and those who cannot
legally marry. In the twentieth century, people who
have been prohibited from marrying include gays,
lesbians, trans people, and mixed-race couples. An
institution that has been defi ned through such ex-
clusions and that has been enforced as a system of
class alliance, of racial purity, of religious sanction,
should surely be dismantled rather than expanded!
Just as new classifi cations (medical and psycho-
logical) of personhood at the end of the nineteenth
century created “homosexual” people and “hetero-
sexual” people, they also, through a kind of concep-
tual sleight of hand, forced people to speak about
homo- and heterosexuals, men and women, as if
they belonged to different species and as if the dif-
ferences between each group was distinct, clear,
and, above all, natural. One legacy of this division
of sexualities and genders into “separate species,”
has been a lasting inability to see connections when
we might want to make more general statements
about shifts and changes in gender and sexuality
across the culture. And so we speak of gay and les-
bian history as if there is one single narrative for all
everyday modes of identifying oneself, and the frag-
mentation of society/groups/families into people/
individuals/subjects: these developments, many
people agree, are the hallmarks of the modern world.
Foucault did not stop there, however; he also pro-
posed that a transition occurs between seeing people
as part of a group or class and as engaged in actions
or practices to seeing folks as defi ned by hardwired
identities and as separate selves. This process begins
in the medical lab or the therapist’s offi ce but it is
only confi rmed when the very people whom the
doctors are busily classifying actually begin to think
of themselves in those terms: while doctors and
psychologists might have agreed upon defi nitions of
“normal” and “perverse,” those defi nitions do not
take on a sense of permanence and inevitability until
someone actually identifi es with the terms.
So, while in the 1910s an effeminate man in
New York City who has sex with other men may
think of himself as a “fairy” may not have ruled out
the possibility of marrying a woman, and may con-
sider himself as harboring a vice or as sinning
against God, some twenty or thirty years later, a
similar kind of man may think of himself as incur-
ably homosexual, as doomed to a life of loneliness
and stigma and as someone whom society has mar-
ginalized and cast as a pedophile. He will certainly
think of himself as having a homosexual identity
and may be seeking psychiatric help. Evidence for
this framework can be found in the many fi lms of
the 1930s to 1960s that depict male homosexuality
in precisely these terms—as sad, compulsive, path-
ological, and antisocial. Such fi lms—like Alfred
Hitchcock’s Rope (1948), Richard Brooks’s Cat on
a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Basil Dearden’s Victim
(1961), and John Huston’s Refl ections in a Golden
Eye (1967)—never had to name the sin they de-
picted (they literally could not name it, because the
Hays Code, enforced to control media infl uence,
forbade the depiction of homosexuality); they
merely had to indicate that there was something
“unmentionable” about the pathology from which
the main character suffers.
And by the 1970s, a similar man will think of
himself as gay, out, proud; he may be super invested
in his masculinity and may resist the categories of
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434 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
tended to be the attempt to change society, to model
a different way of relating, of cohabiting, of desir-
ing. So how did we arrive at this historical juncture
where an assimilationist politics of marriage now
stands in for all queer political aspiration? Many
queers today still believe in social movements far
less focused on marriage equality and far more in-
terested in changing the structures of intimate
modes of relating, belonging, and cohabiting
altogether. Many activists outside of the main-
stream LGBT marriage-equality movement try to
make connections between homophobia and other
forms of social and political exclusion. Not content
to slip smoothly into already existing corrupt and
bankrupt institutions, radical queers still hold on to
the idea that something lies “beyond marriage” (as
one group calls itself), and, moreover, that human
difference should fl ourish not in the rounding out of
existing structures but in the creative invention of
new ones.
THE CASE AGAINST GAY
MARRIAGE
Let’s discuss a more imaginative kind of activism,
one that is less tied to a politics of respectability,
one that is more committed to change and transfor-
mation, and one that is less invested in maintaining
U.S. social institutions as they have been formu-
lated in relation to racist and homophobic commit-
ments. I want to summarize quickly the opposition
to gay marriage as formulated by progressive or
left-leaning groups such as Beyond Gay Marriage,
think about the question posed in a number of con-
versations as to whether “gay marriage is racist” or
even specifi cally “anti-black,” and then end with
some speculations on activism less focused on
changing laws and more intent upon the transfor-
mation of social, psychic, and political worlds. At
stake here are questions about what counts as po-
litical in any given context, oppositions between
pragmatism and utopianism, and more questions
about how to argue for change, how to recognize
change when it actually occurs, and how to think
about political pasts, presents, and futures in ways
that do not simply produce a sense of political in-
evitability.
lesbians and all gay men and as if that narrative has
coherence and unfolds in terms of exclusion and
marginalization followed by protests and revolts
and then resolves in terms of accommodation and
assimilation. But of course, history unfolds along
very different lines for people in different classes,
people in different racial groups, and people of dif-
ferent genders. Gay male history does not line up
nicely with lesbian history; black histories of sexu-
ality look very different from white ones; histories
involving queer people who emigrate from one
region to another look massively different from his-
tories of people who spend their whole lives in one
area, one city, one neighborhood, even.
Scholars have grappled for years with the chal-
lenge of mapping these very disparate differences,
and so, too often, one history, a history of white gay
men, has come to represent all of gay, lesbian, and
transgender history. Why? Because there are paper
trails for gay male history that are missing for other
histories—gay men have been legally prosecuted,
tried, convicted, and sentenced to prison (Oscar
Wilde’s famous trial, for example, in the late
nineteenth century); gay male history has inter-
sected with the histories of dominant culture, but
lesbian and trans histories tend to leave less archival
material and less traces. For this reason, conven-
tional histories of sexual minorities often take the
form of focusing on one event (Stonewall) and then
turning it into a representative moment. And so
while the history of early twenty-fi rst century LGBT
politics will inevitably get told later as a story of the
struggle for gay marriage, gay marriage is merely a
part of the much more diverse and radical fabric of
queer activism, and it may not even be the most
popular cause for gays and lesbians and trans
people. It has become the most visible, however,
because its goals mesh well with the status quo and
they seem to confi rm the rightness of the social val-
ues in which heterosexuals have chosen to invest.
And gay marriage may have very different
meaning for different queer communities: as even
the Williams Institute studies make clear, gay mar-
riage will do little for queer people currently living
in poverty, while it has defi nite tax benefi ts for the
middle class and the very rich. The hallmark of
post–World War II LGBT social movements has
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READING 47: Gaga Relations: The End of Marriage 435
Reactive politics are weak and defensive, are defi ned
by the opposition, and tend to retreat into justifi ca-
tions instead of moving forward through provoca-
tions. Furthermore, marriage-equality movements
have the unfortunate tendency to bolster other con-
servative marriage movements, often Christian, by
lending credibility to a failing arrangement in its
hour of need.
Inclusion Maintains the Status Quo
Gay marriage is being formulated by legal-reform
groups as a “stand-alone” issue, it tends not to be
linked to other social justice projects, and it bor-
rows heavily from a civil rights-era “rights” dis-
course around inclusion and extension of the status
quo. Making marriage into a stand-alone issue
actually makes nonsense of the comparison to civil
rights struggles. While the civil rights struggles
against institutionalized racism sought to transform
the whole society, the marriage-equality activists
seek to maintain the status quo while demanding a
bigger slice of the pie. When gay people get mar-
ried, keep in mind, they may well extend the insti-
tution of marriage, but they do not change it. What
is more, while many marriage activists make the
analogy to civil rights struggles, much of the white
gay-marriage leadership make no connections
between race and sexuality and few overtures to
communities of color harboring misgivings about
gay marriage. . . .
In some popular media, gay marriage is depicted
as a black-and-white issue, with white gays wanting
to get married and black Christians opposing them.
The opposition to gay marriage is all too often read
monolithically as part and parcel of right-wing
moral outrage and a “values” agenda when in fact
people from different backgrounds may have differ-
ent reasons for opposing not simply gay marriage
but what it represents in terms of the landscape of
political action in the United States. For black fami-
lies that have long been represented as dysfunc-
tional, and that have been destabilized by prison
expansion and welfare reform, many of the so-called
rights attached to marriage have not necessarily
benefi ted them. As feminist and queer scholar Priya
Kandaswamy put it in an interview published in
As I have said, not all queer people are advocates
of gay marriage; indeed, according to some activist
groups, for most queer people this is not their main
political priority. In mainstream political circles,
however, gay marriage has become the cause célèbre
and has come to stand in for gay and lesbian politics
as a whole. Any heterosexual celebrity who wants to
be seen as an ally to LGBT communities will stick
the gay-marriage feather in his or her cap as a sign of
solidarity. Indeed, Lady Gaga has dedicated public
appearances to giving speeches calling for marriage
equality, as she did for the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t
Tell. While this only adds to her appeal to white gay
men in particular, it reminds us that we should not
confuse the representational mayhem that Lady
Gaga has been able to wreak in her videos with her
actual politics. I am not saying that Lady Gaga
should stop talking about gay causes, but I am saying
that what makes her interesting, what makes her
gaga, has very little to do with the clichéd political
positions she takes. In other words, while it is brave
to stand up and speak on behalf of sexual minorities,
and while it is important, especially to young people,
for fans to see their idols support meaningful causes,
it is still the case that actions and words are two very
different things. And while Lady Gaga’s words in
political speeches are ordinary, her performances,
her costumes, her gestures, the worlds she creates
and peoples are extraordinary. For this reason, I build
gaga feminism on the bedrock of the outrageous per-
formance archive that Lady Gaga has created and not
in relation to her speeches on behalf of marriage
equality or gays in the military, positions that offer
no critique of marriage on the one hand or the mili-
tary on the other.
So, for Lady Gaga and others who wonder why
some queer people actually oppose gay marriage,
consider the following points.
Reactive Politics Are Weak Politics
Gay marriage has become a central issue partly
because right-wing Christian groups mount such a
furious opposition to it. In other words, “we” have
made it into a big issue because “they” have made it
into a big issue—the politics around gay marriage,
then, in part is reactive rather than proactive.
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436 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
economic disenfranchisement that they see all
around them.
. . . And of course, I am not at all suggesting here
that gays and lesbians are white and communities of
color are straight, I am rather trying to unpack the
complex racial politics at work in these struggles that
get represented as streamlined and simple. The main
problem with a politics of inclusion, where a group
of people seek to be folded into existing institutions
like marriage, ultimately lies with the economic divi-
sions that marriage politics ignore. Marriage remains
an issue that appeals to affl uent white gays and lesbi-
ans who will benefi t from it. It has far less appeal to
queers living in poverty or queers actively working
on social justice issues that stretch beyond securing
individual benefi ts or tax breaks.
Rights Should Not Be
Marriage-Dependent
. . . As Nancy D. Polikoff comments in her astute
book Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage, the
problem for many couples seeking to secure health
benefi ts, . . . cannot be resolved through either
marriage or domestic partnership. Only universal
health coverage would really allow everyone ac-
cess to the benefi ts that some people seek through
marriage and civil unions. Polikoff provides a
quick historical sketch of how the United States
came to bundle health insurance into employment
pay packages rather than structuring it as a univer-
sally accessible system. She reminds us that con-
cepts like the “family wage,” which emerged in the
nineteenth century, assumed that men earned the
money and then shared their resources with their
wives and children in ways that made women and
children structurally dependent upon men. Polikoff
writes: “Consistent with the concept of the family
wage, when benefi ts became a part of employee
compensation, employers took into account a
worker’s responsibility to support his wife and
children. Women presumed not to have such needs,
did not receive equal benefi ts.”
2

Arguing that as family forms have changed—
more women have entered the workplace, more
2004: “While many of its advocates argue that gay
marriage would secure parental rights for gay and
lesbian couples, I think this actually depends on a
lot more than marital status. In the U.S., race is the
strongest determinant of whether or not the state
chooses to recognize your parental ties. Black fami-
lies are the most likely of any racial group to be
disrupted by Child Protection authorities and 42%
of all children in foster care in the U.S. are black. If
being married does not protect straight black fami-
lies from having their children taken away, it’s un-
likely it will protect queer black families.”
1

Black communities are also sometimes angered
by simple comparisons between gay-marital-equality
struggles and black civil rights battles—gay main-
stream groups catering to white people have used this
language of comparison without any accompanying
attention to racism within white gay and lesbian com-
munities or to poverty issues or health care issues for
people of color, and the mainstream groups pushing
for marriage almost never link their struggle to other
social justice issues like prison reform. And marriage
is not the only arena where white gays and lesbians
seem to be locked in a struggle for political credibility
with communities of color.
For example, one fi lm, Flag Wars, a documen-
tary from 2003 by Linda Goode Bryant and Laura
Poitras, has documented the ways in which black
communities get pitted against gay and lesbian
white home-owners, with the gay and lesbian real-
tors and buyers trying to access property and gen-
trify, while the local black communities face
housing discrimination and redlining. The fi lm tells
a rather unwelcome story about the impact of gen-
trifi cation, portraying white gays and lesbians as
part of the system that economically oppresses peo-
ple of color rather than as people who share in the
experience of marginalization. The fi lm depicts a
warts-and-all confrontation between house-proud
gentrifi ers and long-term residents, renters, in the
neighborhood. The white home-buyers, though
never overtly racist, fail to appreciate, whether de-
liberately or not, the impact that they are having on
a historically black neighborhood. And they never
link their own experience with oppression to the
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READING 47: Gaga Relations: The End of Marriage 437
other equally valid ones. Polikoff s work, again, is
very useful here, as she gives the legal perspective
on why marriage equality is not the solution for
working toward the recognition of diverse house-
holds. Polikoff comments:
. . . Given the vast increase in couples living together
without marrying, in the context of a legal system that
has made getting married and staying married more
optional, there is no basis for requiring marriage or its
same-sex analogue for someone to count as a family
member.
3

For example, one could argue that everyone should
have the option to extend their benefi ts packages to
others, to a “plus one” instead of verifi able rela-
tives. If the guy in the offi ce next to me has fi ve kids
with three different women and can add any of
these kids to his medical insurance, why can’t
I sign up the old lady who lives next door and who
watches my apartment for me when I am gone? Or
the man down the street who is between jobs but
does odd jobs around the neighborhood? Why not
have a system where anyone can pay for up to six
others as a “family”? Why not value forged connec-
tion as much as blood in terms of ways we think
about belonging? We could argue that these “alter-
native intimacies” would make society much stron-
ger and in much more elaborate ways than marriage
does. Marriage pits the family and the couple
against everyone else; alternative intimacies stretch
connections between people and across neighbor-
hoods like invisible webs, and they bind us to one
another in ways that foster communication, respon-
sibility, and generosity. If we are really committed
to making life better for as many people as possi-
ble, then we should consider replacing marriage
with wider units of connection and relation.
And in fact, new family arrangements involving
gender-variant partners in queer relationships are
changing the sex/gender styles and beliefs of a
whole new generation, and it is quite possible that
within our lifetimes, gays and lesbians and LGBT
families will become as ubiquitous and as accepted
as divorced households and that divorced house-
holds will lose their stigma and simply be seen as a
marriages have ended in divorce, more elderly peo-
ple have moved in with their middle-aged children,
and so on—so too should the system that assigns
benefi ts and access to health care. Polikoff is
succinct in her evaluation of the present state
of  health benefi ts, and she proposes adjusting
“ eligibility to refl ect today’s families,” adding, as
she explains why employers should cover all the
diverse forms that families take now, that “marriage
should not be required.” There is no better way to
say it— marriage and domestic partnerships should
not be required in the fi rst place in order for part-
ners and children and dependents to access adequate
health care.
Alternative Intimacies Are Not Served
by the Marriage Model
There are many ways of creating family, kinship,
intimacy, and community that exceed the marriage
model. Some of these may include: shared parent-
ing arrangements, split families, communities liv-
ing together without children, and, last but certainly
not least, threesomes. (A Los Angeles group called
the Toxic Titties developed a fabulous performance
piece where they sought to be married as three
people.) The privileging of long-term, permanent
arrangements between couples, especially those
that include childrearing, grants priority to forms of
relation that can be tracked and documented over
forms of relation that are ephemeral and temporary.
Given that there can easily be more intimacy in an
occasional relationship with spark and passion than
in an inert domestic partnership that has long out-
lived its original intensity, why value one over the
other when it comes to social stability, or happi-
ness, or the benefi t of children?
One of the most compelling reasons given to
push for gay marriage, as mentioned above, has
been the access to health and other benefi ts that
marriage would confer upon gay as well as straight
couples. But again, as I note above, this issue can
be approached and resolved in other ways, and in
its privileging of marriage, it calls attention to the
way we value some forms of social connection over
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438 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
intimacy is so tethered to a one-size-fi ts-all format
of cohabitation and marriage.
Marriage, the supposedly “big” event in the life
of a young person, is, as so many feminists have
pointed out, as much of an ending as a beginning
(as Jane Eyre states quietly at the end of the famed
eponymous novel about looking for love in all the
wrong places: “Reader, I married him.”). And for
too many people, especially young women, alterna-
tive life paths are shut down, by themselves and
society, almost before they have even been consid-
ered. While feminists of a certain stripe have spent
years opposing marriage and trying to unseat mar-
riage from its central place in the gendered imagi-
nary, it is ironic to see marriage as an unquestioned
good and a worthy goal in a gay imaginary. And it
is not as if the opposition to marriage is a new thing
and has gone unexpressed until now. Indeed, some
of the earliest opposition to marriage came in the
form of feminist critiques of what was then called
“patriarchy.” Feminists like Mary Wollstonecraft in
the late eighteenth century in her A Vindication of
the Rights of Woman described marriage as “legal
prostitution.” John Stuart Mill, some seventy years
later, argued against marriage on the grounds that it
coerced women to legally submit to unequal rela-
tions with men. Simone de Beauvoir, one hundred
years later, reiterated Mill’s point that marriage can
never be freely chosen by women as long as it is
based upon unequal relations between men and
women, and she depicted marriage in The Second
Sex as a trap for both sexes: however, while men
can escape the confi nes of marriage through prosti-
tution and the indulging of their “sexual caprices,”
women can only fi nd a way out by cheating. In-
deed, she writes: “Adultery becomes a natural part
of marriage.”
4
And it is this argument, that marriage
necessitates adultery, that fi nds its way into con-
temporary feminist critiques of marriage by Laura
Kipnis and others.
Laura Kipnis, in a hilarious and razor-sharp po-
lemic, Against Love, 5 reveals how love lures young
and unsuspecting idealists into marriage and then
traps them there through a series of social set pieces
that establish couples as each others’ jailors (she
gives the example of how couples have to tell each
practical way of raising children outside of nuclear-
ity. The goal here, then, should be to recognize the
variety within which households can come—the
diversity of domestic relations, the inventiveness of
human connection, and not the singling out of one
form of relation (coupledom, marriage) over all
others.
Marriage Is an Oppressive Ideology
In terms of principled opposition to gay marriage,
some queer scholars have tried to expose the ways
in which young people are led to believe that mar-
riage and babies represent the only possible future
within which they can live out their adult desires.
And so, we lead young girls in particular to believe
that they will be swept naturally along from one
life-defi ning event to another—that love leads to
marriage, marriage to babies, babies to family con-
tentment, and that once in the shelter of the family,
life will be sweet, simple, and fulfi lling. And for
some people, fairy tales really do come true. But for
most of us, the arc along which our lives will play
out will be considerably more complicated than this
normal timeline implies. There will be stops and
starts, ups and downs, and the family, rather than a
sanctuary, may for many be a kind of prison that we
assiduously avoid.
I read a story in a magazine a few years ago
about a guy, a young man, handsome and on his
way to a successful career, who was missing one
thing in his life: a wife. His parents were deeply
disappointed in him, dismayed that he could go for-
ward in life without a (female) partner. The young
man started dating; became serious about a young
woman; proposed to her; and walked out on her the
day before their wedding. His therapist diagnosed
him as suffering from a fear of intimacy, and his
parents were hurt and bewildered. The guy eventu-
ally left the United States altogether and went to
live in Germany, alone; he never married and was
totally happy without a partner. While the magazine
story used this man to think through intimacy disor-
ders, it is quite possible that there is no disorder
here at all—only a perfectly reasonable desire to be
alone, to live alone, to avoid intimacy where
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READING 48: Queers without Money: They Are Everywhere. But We Refuse to See Them 439
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Should marriage equality be the prime goal of
gay activists? What other goals might be more
important?
2. Why do you think the marriage equality move-
ment has been so successful?
REFERENCES
1. “Is Gay Marriage Racist? A Conversation with Marlon
M. Bailey, Priya Kandaswamy, and Mattie Udora
Richardson,” in That’s Revolting! Queer Strategies for
Resisting Assimilation, ed. Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
(Brooklyn, NY: Soft Skull Press, 2008), 89.
2. Nancy Polikoff, Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage:
Valuing All Families Under the Law (Boston: Beacon
Press, 2008), 147.
3. Ibid., 151.
4. Simone De Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. Constance
Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier, introduced by
Judith Thurman (orig. 1949; New York: Knopf, 2009), 63.
5. Laura Kipnis, Against Love: A Polemic (New York:
Pantheon Books, 2003).
R E A D I N G 4 8
Queers without Money: They Are
Everywhere. But We Refuse to
See Them
Amber Hollibaugh
I mean, homosexuals have high incomes, they have
high levels of education; they’re owners of major
credit cards. There was a survey done. So you’re not
talking about poor people, homeless people living un-
der a bridge.— Reverend Lou Sheldon, a conservative
Christian leader
I lived the fi rst year of my life in a converted
chicken coop in back of my grandmother’s trailer.
The coop was hardly tall enough for my 6’4” father
and 5’8” mother to stand up in. My dad, a carpen-
ter, tore out the chickens’ egg-laying ledges and
other everything they are doing, report back on
where they are going and with whom, and check in
periodically throughout the day or evening— recall
the Lady Gaga video Telephone and the recurrent
lyric “stop calling, stop calling”). Eventually one or
both of the members of this “domestic gulag” rebels
and escapes through an adulterous affair that offers
a brief glimpse of freedom before it becomes love
. . . and then marriage . . . and then the cycle begins
again. In Kipnis’s polemic, the social structure
within which love occurs is the real problem, but
because it is hard to change structural conditions,
we instead blame each other for the dysfunction of
love and marriage and agree to “work on it,” going
to therapy to do so. Kipnis’s polemic is all the more
effective for the way it nails some of the most famil-
iar routines of married or even just coupled life, and
so lets no one off the hook. The clichés of the wed-
ding and romantic love, as she shows, quickly
harden into the formulaic routines of married life;
and so we tame, domesticate, and manage the explo-
sive intimacies between lovers and turn them into
the humdrum schedule of the everyday, leaving all
the fantasy, the action, and the Utopian possibility
behind and dreaming of it only when we go to see
the latest lame romantic comedy. . . .
So, to summarize: marriage is an agenda forced
upon LGBT groups by the widespread opposition
to gay marriage, and while some gays and lesbians
choose to marry, it’s not a cause that lies at the
heart of queer community. Marriage fl attens out
the varied terrain of queer social life and reduces
the differences that make queers, well, queer, to
legal distinctions that can be ironed out by the
strong hand of the law. Why not work on other
forms of legal recognition than marriage, forms
that allow for conventional and unusual household
arrangements? Why invest only in long-term,
permanent attachments? Why not think beyond
marriage, especially at this moment when marriage
is a fl oundering institution even for heterosexuals?
In other words, how in the world did we end up
with a gay agenda that seeks marriage equality
when the world is going to hell in a handbag and
what we  really need is complete and utter social
transformation? . . . Amber Hollibaugh is a writer, fi lmmaker, and political activist.
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440 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
surveys, which were done largely to serve the inter-
ests of gay and lesbian publications and a few
marketing companies,” says economist M. V. Lee
Badgett in her book, Money, Myths, and Change:
The Economic Lives of Lesbians and Gay Men.
“Those surveys are deeply fl awed.”
Badgett notes that “opposition to gay people is
often based on the perception that queers are better
off than everybody else; that we’re really asking for
‘special rights’—and that breeds resentment.”
Badgett’s research shows something else. It consti-
tutes the fi rst true picture of queer economic reality.
Among other things, Badgett found that:
Gays, lesbians, and bisexuals do not earn more
than heterosexuals, or live in more affl uent
households.
Gay men earn 13 to 32 percent less than simi-
larly qualifi ed straight men (depending on the
study).
Though lesbians and bisexual women have in-
comes comparable to straight women—earning
21  percent less than men—lesbian couples earn
signifi cantly less than heterosexual ones.
But . . . try fi nding representations of poor or
working-class gay people on Will & Grace. See
how hard you have to search for media images of
queers who are part of the vast working poor in this
country. Find the homeless transgendered folks.
Find stories of gay immigrants, lesbian moms
working three jobs, bisexual truckers falling asleep
from too many hours on the road, gay men in the
unemployment line. Try fi nding an image of queer
people who are balancing on the edge—or have
fallen off.
The myth of our wealth goes deep, so deep that
even other gay people seem to believe it. We have
tried to protect ourselves from the hard truths of our
economic diversity by perpetuating the illusion of
material wealth, within the confi nes of male/female
whiteness. This is a critical aspect of how we
present ourselves in this country at this point in
time. We treat the poverty that exists among us—as
well as the differences of class—as a dirty secret to
be hidden, denied, repelled. We treat economic
struggle as something that functions outside the
rebuilt the tiny inside space to fi t a bed, a table, two
chairs, a basin they used as a sink (there was no
running water), a shelf with a hot plate for cooking,
and a small dresser. They used the hose outside to
wash with, and ran extension cords in from my
grandmother’s trailer for light and heat. My bed, a
dresser drawer, sat on top of the table during the
day. At night it was placed next to where they slept.
I was sick the entire fi rst year of my life. So was
my mother, recovering from a nasty C-section and
a series of ensuing medical crises. By the time she
and I were discharged, three months later, whatever
money my parents had managed to save was used
up, and they were deeply in debt. They had been
poor before my birth, and poor all of their lives
growing up, but this was the sinker.
After my fi rst year, we moved from the chicken
coop into a trailer. My father worked three jobs si-
multaneously, rarely sleeping. My mother took
whatever work she could fi nd: mending, washing,
and ironing other people’s clothes. But we never
really recovered. We were impoverished. Growing
up, I was always poor. I am also a lesbian.
This, then, is my queer identity: I am a high-
femme, mixed-race, white-trash lesbian. And even
after all these years of living in a middle-class gay
community, I often feel left outside when people
speak about their backgrounds, their families. And
if you listen to the current telling of “our” queer
tale, people like me would seem an anomaly.
Because, we are told—and we tell ourselves—
queerness can’t be poor.
Yet this seeming anomaly is the tip of the
proverbial iceberg. It represents hundreds of thou-
sands of us who come from poor backgrounds, or
are living them still—and are very, very queer.
That would seem obvious when you combine
the proportion of the population reputed to be queer
(between 4 and 10 percent) with the 37 million
poor people in America. Yet the early surveys done
on gay and lesbian economic status in this country
told a different tale: that queers had more dispos-
able income than straights, lived more luxurious
lives, and were all DINKs (Dual Income No Kids).
“My book begins as a critique of those early
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READING 48: Queers without Money: They Are Everywhere. But We Refuse to See Them 441
domestic-partner benefi ts. There are going to be
more and more of us who are affected by jobless-
ness and economic crisis. . . .”
Ingrid Rivera, director of the Racial & Eco-
nomic Justice Initiative of the National Gay and
Lesbian Task Force, has lived this issue. “I was on
welfare, I was homeless, I thought I’d be lucky if
I fi nished high school. I am a woman of color, I am
a mother, and I am queer. I’ve worked and lived in
a poor world and I’ve worked in queer organiza-
tions that are primarily white. I’ve seen it from both
perspectives, and there’s a kind of disconnect. In
the gay, mostly white world, race and economic
justice isn’t talked about as a queer issue. And be-
cause of that split, queerness becomes a white
thing.”
Poverty and outright destitution can happen to
anyone—and the queerer you are, the fewer safety
nets exist to hold you up or bounce you back from
the abyss. Queerness intensifi es poverty and com-
pounds the diffi culty of dealing with the social ser-
vice system. The nightmares . . . include:
Being separated from your partner if you go into
the shelter system. Straight couples can remain
together by qualifying for the family system.
Being mandated into homophobic treatment
programs for drug or drinking problems and
having the program decide to treat your queerness
instead of your addiction. If you leave the pro-
gram, you lose any right to benefi ts—including
Medicaid.
Being unable to apply as a family for public
housing.
Ending up a queer couple in the only old-age
home you can afford and being separated when you
try to share a room.
Barbara Cassis came from a wealthy Long
Island family. But when he began to understand
and acknowledge his transgendered nature, his
parents kicked him out. He was homeless, young,
and broke. “Thank God for drag queens,” she
says, looking back. “A drag queen found me cry-
ing in Times Square and took me home. She talked
to me about what I was going through, let me
stay with her in her apartment, taught me how to
pull of queer desires, removed from our queerly
lived lives.
As Badgett notes, by celebrating the myth of
queer affl uence, we have “drawn attention to ex-
actly the kind of picture that Lou Sheldon is draw-
ing of gay and lesbian people.” There is a richer—and
ultimately more sympathetic—queer reality: “We
are everywhere—but we’re all different.”
Why is it so hard to acknowledge this? Why is
poverty treated as a queer secret? And why does it
produce a particular kind of homosexual shame?
Bear with me. Imagine what you’ve never allowed
yourself to see before.
When I directed the Lesbian AIDS Project at
Gay Mens’ Health Crisis, stories of the hundreds
of  HIV-positive lesbians who were a part of that
project literally came roaring out of those women’s
mouths. These were lesbians who had almost never
participated in queer politics or visited any of New
York City’s queer institutions. On those rare occa-
sions when they had tried, they quickly departed,
unseen and unwelcomed.
Anorew Spieldenner, a young gay organizer of
color who has worked for years with men who have
sex with men, has a name for this phenomenon. He
calls it “a queer and invisible body count.” It is
made up of poor lesbians and gay men, queer peo-
ple of color, the transgendered, people with HIV
and AIDS and—always and in large numbers—the
queer young and the queer elderly.
The Metropolitan Community Church, a largely
gay denomination, reports that the demand for food
at its New York pantry has doubled since the begin-
ning of welfare reform in 1996. The Lesbian & Gay
Community Services Center says that homeless
people in their addiction programs have tripled
since then. The Hetrick-Martin Institute, which
serves “gay and questioning youth,” estimates that
50 percent of homeless kids in New York City are
queer.
“We are entering a time when the economy is
going into a slump,” says Joseph De Filippis,
who  coordinates the Queer Economic Justice
Network. “This isn’t going to be like the ’90s,
when it was easy for employers to give things like
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442 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
sexuality is more explosive, more explicit, more de-
manding, more predatory.
And so it goes for poor people: part stereotype
(read trailer trash or welfare queen), part object of
blame for being too stupid not to have done better.
The underlying assumption is that the only appro-
priate desires are those that rest comfortably atop
plenty of money. The desires and needs afforded by
wealth—and plenty of it, earned or not—are appro-
priate, acceptable, good. But messy desires? De-
sires that combine with class and color? Desires
and needs that ricochet around the erotic? These
needs are not acceptable. They are condemned.
No wonder the gay movement can’t see the
poverty in its midst. The one thing this culture
longs for and seems to value in queer life is the
image of wealth. It appears to be the only thing we
do right. And it is the only piece of our queerness
that we can use when our citizenship is at stake. We
learned this at the beginning of the AIDS crisis,
when we activated that wealth to do what the
government wouldn’t: We built institutions to care
and protect and serve our own. It is a riveting
example of how we have claimed our own and
valued what the mainstream culture despised about
our lives. We could do the same with queer poverty.
“If the community got involved in the issues of
being queer and poor,” says Jay Toole, a lesbian in
the LGBT caucus of the Coalition for the Home-
less, “it would be like the community saying, ‘I’m
here, and here’s my hand. You can go further,
I’m here.’ ”
Toole is fi nishing school now. She plans to work
as a substance abuse counselor, to go back into the
shelters and bring gay people into the community,
“so that they don’t have to be so alone as I was. Be-
cause when Ann Dugan [from the Coalition] brought
me back down to the Lesbian & Gay Center from
the shelter, it was fi nally like coming home.”
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Why do poor gays and lesbians seem to be
invisible if they are everywhere?
2. Why do we punish people for being poor?
support myself, how to get clients as a prostitute
or in the gay bars where I could work as I transi-
tioned. But then she died of AIDS and I was
homeless again.”
The homeless shelters were the worst experi-
ence of all for Barbara as a trans woman. Often, it
felt easier to just stay on the streets. If you’re home-
less, and you haven’t transitioned—which costs a
fortune—you’re forced to go to a shelter based on
birth gender. The risk of violence and danger is al-
ways high for everyone; the shelters are crowded,
short of staff, and the staff that is there has no train-
ing in how to deal with trans or gay issues. So if you
are a trans person, just taking a shower means that
you’re taking your life in your hands.
“It took me years to get on my feet,” says Cassis,
now an administrative assistant at the Positive
Health Project, “to start dealing with being HIV-
positive, and get the training and education
I needed to fi nd a decent job. It has also taken years
for me to reconcile with my family, which I have.
If it hadn’t been for the kind of people the gay com-
munity often discounts and despises, I wouldn’t be
here today.”
Like my mother said, the only difference be-
tween a poor drunk and a rich one is which drunk
can hide it. The shame of being poor is an acutely
public shame, diffi cult to hide. And queer homo-
sexuality—the kind of queerness that makes gender
differences and radical sexual desires crystal
clear—this queerness triggers similar ruinous
social perils.
We punish people in this country for being poor
and we punish homosexuality. When both are com-
bined, it does more than double the effect: It twists
and deepens it, gives it sharper edges, and height-
ens our inability to duck and cover or slide through
to a safer place. It forces you to live more perma-
nently outside than either condition dictates.
The problem intensifi es when you realize what
queers are in the mind of America. We stand for the
culture’s obsession with the erotic. It is we who are
portrayed as always doing it or trying to, we who
quickly become the sexual criminals at the heart of
any story. We are the ones who are dangerous; our
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READING 49: Rethinking American Poverty 443
collective and societal obligations are seen as
limited. The age-old distinction between the de-
serving versus the undeserving poor refl ects this
perspective—unless the working-age poor have
very good grounds for their poverty, they’re deemed
largely undeserving of help. Poverty is therefore
understood as primarily affecting those who choose
not to play by the rules of the game. Ultimately, this
perspective refl ects and reinforces the myths and
ideals of American society: there are economic op-
portunities for all, individualism and self-reliance
are paramount, and hard work is rewarded.
This overall mindset has long infl uenced both
the general public’s attitudes toward the poor and
much of the policy and academic work analyzing
poverty. Nevertheless, it seriously misconstrues the
true nature of poverty and fosters a lack of political
and social will to address the problem itself. Three
major changes are essential for realistically and
proactively reframing American impoverishment.
A fi rst fundamental shift in thinking is the rec-
ognition that poverty affects us all. All too often we
view poverty as someone else’s problem, or think
that poverty is confi ned to certain areas and neigh-
borhoods (such as inner cities or remote rural
areas), and that by avoiding such areas we can sim-
ply ignore the issue. The notion is “out of sight, out
of mind.”
Clearly, this perspective is incorrect and intel-
lectually lazy. In one way or another, poverty af-
fects us all. There are at least two ways of thinking
about this. The fi rst is that whether we realize it or
not, we pay a steep price for our high rates of pov-
erty. As mentioned earlier, the extent and depth of
poverty and economic inequality in the U.S. are far
greater than in any other Western industrialized
country.
As a result, we spend considerably more money
than needed on social problems associated with pov-
erty. These include greater health problems, family
problems, a less able work force, and so on down a
long list. When we speak about homeland security,
these are the issues that undermine us and our
R E A D I N G 4 9
Rethinking American Poverty
Mark R. Rank
It’s a fundamental paradox: in America, the wealth-
iest country on earth, one also fi nds the highest
rates of poverty in the developed world. Whether
we examine children’s rates of poverty, poverty
among working age adults, poverty within single
parent families, or overall rates of poverty, the story
is much the same—the United States has exceed-
ingly high levels of impoverishment.
As a result, half of U.S. children will reside in a
household that uses food stamps at some point dur-
ing childhood. Life expectancy in Harlem is shorter
than in Bangladesh. The bottom 60 percent of the
American population currently holds less than
1 percent of the fi nancial wealth in the country. And
two thirds of the counties that black children are
growing up in are considered high poverty with re-
spect to impoverished neighborhoods.
Although there are several possible explanations
for why these conditions exist, the argument devel-
oped here is that a major reason has to do with how
we as a society have tended to conceptualize the
issue of poverty and, based upon this thinking, how
we have acted (or better put, failed to act) toward
the issue.
The traditional manner of thinking about pov-
erty in the U.S. has viewed impoverishment as
largely the result of individual inadequacies and
failings. These shortcomings include not working
hard enough, failure to acquire suffi cient skills, or
just making bad decisions. Consequently, the prob-
lem of poverty is often seen through a lens of indi-
vidual pathology. Since individuals are perceived
as having brought poverty onto themselves, our
SOCIAL CLASS
Mark Rank is a professor of social welfare at the University of
Wisconsin.
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444 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
development of a major health problem. In addition,
recent research has shown that this life course risk of
poverty and economic instability has been rising
since the 1990s. More and more families, including
middle class ones, are experiencing greater income
volatility, greater instability in the labor market, and
a lack of benefi ts such as health and unemployment
insurance. Jobs are no longer as stable as they once
were, health care benefi ts are harder to get, and the
safety net has weakened over time.
A fi rst shift in thinking therefore asks the ques-
tion, “Who is at risk of poverty and its conse-
quences?” The answer is: virtually all of us. As a
result, each of us has a vested interest in and an
imperative for reducing poverty in the U.S.
A second critical change in thinking is a recog-
nition that American poverty is largely the result of
failings at the economic and political levels, rather
than at the individual level. In the past, we’ve em-
phasized individual inadequacies as the major rea-
son for poverty; that is, people aren’t motivated
enough, aren’t working hard enough, have failed to
acquire enough skills and education, or have just
made bad decisions. These behaviors and attributes
are seen as leading people into poverty and keeping
them there. And in fact, we tend to confront most
social problems in this country as individual
pathologies.
In contrast to this perspective, the basic problem
lies in a shortage of viable opportunities for all
Americans. Certainly, particular individual short-
comings, such as the lack of education or skills,
help explain who is more likely to be left out in the
competition to locate and secure good opportuni-
ties, but they cannot explain why there’s a shortage
of such opportunities in the fi rst place. In order to
answer that question, we must turn to the inability
of the economic and political structures to provide
the supports and opportunities necessary to lift all
of us out of poverty.
The most obvious example is in the mismatch
between the number of decent paying jobs and the
pool of labor in search of those jobs. Over the past
30 years, the U.S. economy has been producing
more and more low-paying jobs, part-time jobs,
security as a nation. We wind up paying a tremen-
dous price for quietly allowing so many of our citi-
zens and communities to remain mired in poverty.
As an example, a study by the economist Harry
Holzer and colleagues attempted to quantify the an-
nual monetary cost of childhood poverty in the U.S.
They calculated the economic costs that growing
up in poverty had for future earnings, risk of engag-
ing in crime, and health quality in later life. Their
estimate was that the overall cost of childhood pov-
erty was an eye opening $500 billion per year—
nearly 4 percent of this country’s GDP.
The result is that we end up spending much of
our tax dollars and resources on the by-products of
poverty, assuredly a more expensive approach over
the long term than preventing poverty in the fi rst
place. In short, each of us pays dearly in a number
of ways for letting poverty exist at such levels, but
we too often fail to see this connection.
However, there is also a second way of thinking
about poverty as affecting us all. And that comes in
considering the chances that an average American
will directly encounter poverty at some point dur-
ing his or her lifetime. As it turns out, the number of
Americans who are touched by poverty during
adulthood is exceedingly high. My co-author, soci-
ologist Thomas Hirschl, and I have estimated that
between the ages of 20 and 75, nearly 60 percent of
Americans will experience at least one year below
the poverty line and three quarters will experience a
year either in or near poverty. Perhaps more sur-
prising is the fact that two thirds of Americans be-
tween the ages of 20 and 65 will wind up using a
social welfare program such as Food Stamps or
Medicaid; 40 percent will use such a program in at
least fi ve years scattered throughout their working
age adulthood.
Consequently, although those in poverty and wel-
fare recipients are routinely vilifi ed and portrayed as
members of “marginalized groups” on the fringes of
society, most of us will fi nd ourselves below the pov-
erty line and using a social safety net program
at some point. After all, during the course of a life-
time, any number of unexpected, detrimental things
can happen—job loss, family break ups, or the
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READING 49: Rethinking American Poverty 445
decades have been largely ineffective in reducing
poverty rates. We’ve spent our attention and re-
sources on altering players’ incentives and disincen-
tives through various welfare reform measures, or, in
a very limited way, upgrading their skills and ability
to compete with various job training programs, but
we’ve left the structure of the game untouched.
Overall rates of poverty do go up and down, but
primarily as a result of changes on the structural
level (that is, increases or decreases in the number
of available opportunities—the “chairs”). In par-
ticular, the performance of the economy has been
historically important, since, when the economy is
expanding, more opportunities are available for the
competing pool of labor and their families. The re-
verse occurs when the economy slows down, as we
saw in the 2000s and the economic collapse that
began in 2008. To attribute the rise of poverty over
the past ten years to individual inadequacies or low-
ered motivation is absurd. Rather, the increase in
poverty has everything to do with deteriorating eco-
nomic conditions, particularly in the last few years.
Likewise, changes in various social supports and
the social safety net affect how well families are
able to avoid poverty. When such supports were in-
creased by the War on Poverty initiatives of the
1960s and buoyed by a strong economy, poverty
rates declined signifi cantly. Likewise, when Social
Security benefi ts were expanded during the 1960s
and 1970s, poverty rates among the elderly dropped
sharply. Conversely, when social supports have
been eroded, as in the case of children’s programs
over the past 30 years, rates of poverty among those
relying on such services have gone up.
The recognition of poverty as a structural failing
also makes it clear why the U.S. has such high rates
of poverty when compared to other Western coun-
tries. It’s not that Americans are less motivated or
less skilled than those in other countries, but that
our economy has been producing millions of low-
wage jobs and our social policies have done rela-
tively little to economically support families
compared to other industrialized countries.
From this perspective, one key to addressing
poverty is to increase the labor market opportunities
and jobs without benefi ts (it’s estimated that ap-
proximately one third of all jobs are low-paying—
less than $11.50 an hour). And of course, beyond
those in low-paying jobs, there are millions of un-
employed Americans at any point in time. During
the recent economic downturn, six to seven people
have been competing for every single job opening.
Coupled with the country’s lack of universal cover-
age for child care, health care, and affordable hous-
ing, this situation leaves an increasing number of
families economically vulnerable.
In class, I often use the analogy of musical chairs
to help students recognize this disconnect. Picture a
game with ten players, but only eight chairs. When
the music stops, who’s most likely to be left stand-
ing? It will be those who are at a disadvantage in
terms of competing for the available chairs (less
agility, reduced speed, a bad position when the
music stops, and so on). However, given that the
game is structured in a way such that two players
are bound to lose, these individual attributes only
explain who loses, not why there are losers in the
fi rst place. Ultimately, there are simply not enough
chairs for those playing the game.
The critical mistake that’s been made in the past
is that we’ve equated the question of who loses at
the game with the question of why the game inevita-
bly produces losers. They are, in fact, distinct and
separate questions. So while characteristics such as
defi ciencies in skills or education or being in a sin-
gle parent family help to explain who’s at a height-
ened risk of encountering poverty, the fact that
poverty exists in the fi rst place results not from these
characteristics, but from a failure of the economic
and political structures to provide enough decent
opportunities and supports for the whole of society.
By focusing solely upon individual characteris-
tics, we can shuffl e people up or down in terms of
their likelihood to land a job with good earnings, but
when there aren’t enough of these jobs to go around,
somebody will still end up in poverty. We’re playing
a large-scale version of musical chairs.
The recognition of this dynamic represents a fun-
damental shift in thinking from the past. It helps
explain why the social policies of the last three
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446 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
Or consider the distance between the average
worker’s salary and the average CEO’s salary. In
1980, the average CEO of a major corporation
earned around 42 times the pay of the average
worker. Today, it is well over 400 times. Adding
insult to injury, during the past 30 years, an increas-
ing number of companies have demanded conces-
sions from their workers, including pay cuts and the
elimination of health benefi ts in order to keep their
labor costs down, while those at the top have pros-
pered beyond any sense of decency.
Patterns of wealth accumulation have become
even more skewed. The top one percent of the U.S.
population currently owns 42 percent of the country’s
entire fi nancial wealth, while the bottom 60 percent
of Americans are in possession of less than 1 percent.
And while all of these trends have been emerging, our
social policies have continued to give more to the
well-to-do and less to the economically vulnerable,
with the argument that these policies help all
Americans through “trickle-down economics.”
A new way of thinking recognizes this as a
moral outrage. Injustice, rather than blame, be-
comes the moral compass with which to view pov-
erty amidst abundance. The magnitude of such
injustice constitutes a strong impetus for change. It
signals that a wrong is being committed and cries
out for a remedy. A shift in thinking is premised
upon the idea that social change is essential for ad-
dressing the injustices of poverty.
This is in sharp contrast with the old way of
thinking, in which the moral focus is upon individ-
ual blame. Such thinking simply reinforces the sta-
tus quo by letting us do little while poverty rates
climb. The perspective of injustice exhorts us to ac-
tively engage and confront poverty, rather than com-
fortably settling for widespread impoverishment.
In his last book, Where Do We Go from Here:
Chaos or Community?, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. wrote, “A true revolution of value will
soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of
many of our past and present policies. We are called
to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside; but
that will be only an initial act. One day the whole
Jericho road must be transformed so that men and
and social supports available to American house-
holds. We must shift our thinking to recognize
the  fundamental distinction between who loses at
the game and why the game produces losers in the
fi rst place.
Let’s turn to the third shift in thinking that’s
needed to create a more realistic and proactive ap-
proach toward poverty. And that is the moral ground
on which we view poverty in America must change.
In the past, our moral perspective has been rooted
in the ethos of individual blame, with a resulting
general acceptance of the status quo. In other
words, since people bring it upon themselves, pov-
erty’s their problem, not mine.
But poverty is a moral problem. It represents an
injustice of a substantial magnitude. Severe depriva-
tion and hardship have been documented in count-
less studies—not to mention millions of human
lives. And, as argued earlier, a large portion of this
poverty is the result of failings at the structural
rather than the individual level, which places much
of the responsibility for poverty beyond the poor.
However, what makes this injustice particu-
larly grievous is the stark contrast between the
wealth, abundance, and resources of America and
its levels of destitution. Something is seriously
wrong when we fi nd that, in a country with the
most abundant resources in the world, there are
children without enough to eat, families who can-
not afford health care, and people sleeping on the
streets for lack of shelter.
It should also be noted that the gap between ex-
treme prosperity and vulnerability has never been
wider. The venerable economist Paul Samuelson,
writing in the fi rst edition of his introductory eco-
nomics textbook in 1948, observed that if we were
to make an income pyramid out of a child’s play
blocks, with each layer representing $1,000 of
income, the peak would be somewhat higher than
the Eiffel Tower, but almost all of us would be
within several yards of the ground. By the time of
Samuelson’s 2001 edition of the textbook, most of
us would still be within several yards of the ground,
but the Eiffel Tower would now have to be replaced
with Mount Everest to represent those at the top.
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READING 50: Tearing Down the Gates 447
the contrary, the American education system actu-
ally helps perpetuate inequality of opportunity.
INCREASING CLASS
STRATIFICATION
Colleges and universities have been vigorous advo-
cates of diversity, but on the whole they have not
been as vigorous as advocates for addressing in-
equality of educational opportunity. Although af-
fi rmative action programs in admissions and
fi nancial aid became the primary tools for achiev-
ing diversity, it would be a mistake to conclude that
the affi rmative action movement was fueled by
higher education’s drive for social justice or its de-
sire to remedy inequality. After the civil rights bat-
tles, affi rmative action morphed from a social
justice remedy to an educational rationale, based on
the notion that diversity of cultures, races, and
points of view all contribute to the educational mis-
sion of the university. As a result, institutions of
higher education have seen diversity primarily
through the lens of race, ethnicity, and gender—a
limitation that, regrettably, has hampered the drive
for a deeper and perhaps more meaningful kind of
diversity. Because the diversity movement has nar-
rowly focused on race, and not necessarily justice,
the movement has left intact the very mechanisms
in admissions and fi nancial aid that institutions
have long employed systematically to sort potential
students by class.
In terms of enrollments at America’s most selec-
tive colleges and universities, the class divide in
higher education had become quite extreme by the
end of the twentieth century. When Anthony
Carnevale and Stephen Rose (2003) examined the
socioeconomic distribution of freshmen enroll-
ments at the most selective 146 colleges and univer-
sities in the United States, they discovered that
more than 90 percent of the freshmen came from
families in the top half of the socioeconomic distri-
bution. Just 10 percent came from families at the
bottom half of the socioeconomic distribution.
Even as race-based affi rmative action policies have
been expanded over the years, class has become a
women will not be beaten and robbed as they make
their journey through life. True compassion is more
than fl inging a coin to a beggar; it understands that
an edifi ce that produces beggars needs restructur-
ing. A true revolution of values will soon look un-
easily on the glaring contrast of poverty and
wealth.” This revolution of values must begin with
a fundamental shift in how American society un-
derstands, and ultimately acts toward, the poverty
in which so many of our citizens live. These are the
building blocks on which to challenge and confront
the paradox of poverty amidst plenty.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What are some of the consequences of child-
hood poverty?
2. What should be the government’s role in
preventing poverty?
3. What would change if the United States recog-
nized poverty as a structural failing?
R E A D I N G 5 0
Tearing Down the Gates
Confronting the Class Divide in
American Education
Peter Sacks
When we Americans talk about access to a college
education, we tend to narrow the acceptable bound-
aries of the conversation. We ask why the cost of
college has gotten so out of control compared to the
costs of other goods and services, and we some-
times talk about the closely related subject of fi nan-
cial aid. But very rarely do we discuss the dramatic
changes to the fi nancial aid system that have made
college increasingly unaffordable to the very stu-
dents who need fi nancial aid most. In researching
my book Tearing Down the Gates, I came to the
conclusion that, despite the oft-repeated rhetoric to
Peter Sacks is an author, economist, essayist, and social critic.
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448 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
One glaring aspect of class stratifi cation in
American higher education is the growing concen-
tration of poor and working-class students at the
bottom of the educational pyramid, in community
colleges. Four-year colleges and universities have
become more exclusive domains for America’s
upper-middle class and above. In the early 1970s,
public four-year institutions enrolled 40 percent of
all Pell Grant recipients; by 2001, this fi gure had
dropped to just 31 percent. Private four-year insti-
tutions enrolled 22 percent of Pell Grant recipients
in the early 1970s, but only about 13 percent a quar-
ter of a century later (Snyder, Tan, and Hoffman
2004). Where did these lower-income students end
up? If they went to college at all, they increasingly
wound up going to public community colleges.
Community colleges represent a conundrum in
terms of creating meaningful educational opportu-
nity for students of modest means. Admirably, two-
year colleges have, by defi nition, greatly expanded
access to college, and those students who attain as-
sociate’s degrees or who transfer to four-year insti-
tutions to attain a bachelor’s degrees are better off
than they would be without community colleges.
What remains a controversial question, however, is
whether community colleges have made a suffi –
cient difference for a suffi cient number of people.
The vast majority of community college
students—some 63 percent—would like to earn at
least a bachelor’s degree, but relatively few actually
do so. In fact, of students who start at a community
college and expect eventually to transfer to a four-
year institution, just one in fi ve will have earned a
bachelor’s degree six years later (Hoachlander,
Sikora, and Horn 2003). Thus, when we talk about
the kind of equal educational opportunity, what
we’re really saying is that anybody has a shot at
college because of the large number of relatively
inexpensive, open-admission community colleges.
We have, in a sense, created a system of educa-
tional reservations by separating the low-class
masses from the higher-class elites who matriculate
at four-year colleges and universities and, thus,
obtain the credentials necessary for coveted leader-
ship positions in our society.
more formidable barrier to access than even race.
Carnevale and Rose found that 22 percent of the
freshmen at the most selective colleges and univer-
sities were from underrepresented minority groups,
compared to just 3 percent from low-income
families.
Notwithstanding these disparities, some observ-
ers will contend that anybody who really wants to
go to college can still gain admission to some col-
lege or university in America. But just how true is
this contention? It seems hard to fathom, given our
persistent belief that, in America, educational op-
portunity is widespread, but the chance of getting a
bachelor’s degree by age twenty-four has improved
only for those from families in the upper half of the
nation’s income distribution. In 1970, just 6 percent
of high school graduates from families in the bot-
tom income quartile attained a bachelor’s degree by
age twenty-four. This statistic essentially fl atlined
in subsequent decades, and remained at 6 percent in
2002. The number of students from lower-middle-
class families—those in the second-lowest income
quartile—who attained a bachelor’s degree also
stagnated during this period, remaining at
10–15 percent. In contrast, students from upper-
middle-income families—those in the third income
quartile—saw their prospects nearly double, from
15 percent to 28 percent. And for students from the
highest income families, the prospect of attaining a
bachelor’s degree by age twenty-four improved
signifi cantly—from 40 percent to more than
70  percent (Mortensen 2008).
Over the past twenty or thirty years, the
American higher education system has become
deeply stratifi ed along class lines. Whether a high
school graduate goes to college, and where he or
she goes to college, powerfully depends on his or
her class status at birth and during childhood. That
is, one’s prospects for post-secondary education
depend signifi cantly on whether one’s parents went
to college, on the family’s annual income, and on
fi nancial wealth. What is more, the correlations
between class status and prospects for success in
higher education have become even more
pronounced in recent decades.
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READING 50: Tearing Down the Gates 449
the American fi xation with mental testing of the
standardized variety, add the commercial interests
behind standardized testing, and then mix in a bit
of an unspoken elitist superiority. The result is a
powerful brew of pseudo-meritocracy. The SAT
has long been a tool for the intentional exclusion
of unwanted classes and races—a point not widely
enough understood. Early mental testers clearly
recognized the close correlation between the
economic and social class of a student’s fam-
ily  and his or her performance on the early IQ
tests. In his writings about the development of his
IQ scale, Alfred Binet himself remarked on how
the children who did best on his test were the sons
and daughters of physicians, professors, and
lawyers.
The confl ict between the elitist tendencies of
American education and the egalitarian spirit of
our democracy has also been evident throughout
the history of the SAT. Because the SAT was born
from the IQ testing movement, its backers have
had to battle for its legitimacy over the years in the
face of changing public sentiments about the com-
patibility of IQ testing and education in a demo-
cratic society. One adaptation, for instance, was to
change the name of the test from the Scholastic
Aptitude Test to simply the SAT, an attempt to
sever the test—if just in name only—from its IQ
testing bloodlines.
Despite occasional fl are-ups that challenge the
hegemony and the utility of the SAT and similar
admissions tests, the SAT—and, increasingly, the
ACT—has remained the linchpin of selective ad-
missions systems in American education. We came
to believe that how a student performs on the SAT
is synonymous with how smart he or she is and how
well he or she will do in college. Over the years, a
pseudoscientifi c legitimacy has fl owered around
the SAT enterprise, creating its own self-perpetuating
and self-serving ideology of merit.
What, alas, did the SAT sort for? The entrance
exam’s amazingly successful run as a commercial
enterprise has had little relationship to any meaning-
ful defi nition of merit. We’ve known for many years
that, compared to other assessments of learning, the
THE SAT AND COLLEGE
RANKINGS
Higher education appears to be reaching a critical
historical juncture: the end of the SAT era may be at
hand. Only by understanding how this particular
version of meritocracy came to be, and why it is no
longer suitable for American society, can we go for-
ward in creating new, more broadly defi ned sys-
tems of merit that select individuals less by class,
race, and ethnic origins and more by their real-
world talents, motivations, accomplishments, and
achievements.
The story begins with a series of historical acci-
dents, starting with the invention of IQ testing in
Europe. Next came the importation and subsequent
commercialization of mental aptitude testing in the
United States. The uses of IQ testing technology
were pushed to extremes in Europe and the United
States, shaped in part by a eugenics ideology holding
that certain individuals with defi cient bloodlines—
variously including Poles, Italians, Jews, Africans,
and so on, depending on the historical period—were
cognitively doomed to an intellectual inferiority that
no amount of schooling could remedy.
The SAT is a direct descendent of this ideology.
So, too, are the countless IQ and other aptitude tests
still used by scores of elite private and public
schools to identify the supposed best and brightest
students for admission. As a norm-referenced test,
the SAT has never been about solving meaningful
problems using math or science, but rather about
how many multiple-choice questions one could an-
swer in a given period of time compared to other
test takers. In other words, the SAT is primarily a
sorting device, not an educational tool. Using the
IQ test as a sorting mechanism was emphatically
not what Alfred Binet intended for the early IQ
scale he developed for French schoolchildren. Yet
that’s exactly how we Americans commercialized
Binet’s invention.
The founders of the SAT believed that scien-
tifi c testing would legitimately reward the best and
brightest with coveted spots at the best universities.
Thus, the cocktail of American meritocracy: take
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450 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
scores, then you need only to consult the research
showing that a college’s average SAT or ACT score
correlates almost perfectly to its U.S. News & World
Report ranking. One such study concluded that
“once the average SAT/ACT score is taken into ac-
count, the other so-called ‘quality’ indices have
little additional infl uence on where an institution
falls on the list” (Kuh and Pascarella 2004, 53).
Hence, the college rankings game, refereed by U.S.
News & World Report, further entrenches the domi-
nance of SAT (or ACT) scores as the primary mea-
sure of college quality. Instead of measuring what
colleges actually do for students, in an educational
sense, once they arrive on campus, the current rank-
ings paradigm says that a good college is one that
admits students with high SAT scores and that turns
away those with modest SAT scores.
We are left with a system that is dominated by
privilege, elitism, and money. More often than not,
a marginally bright rich kid can get into a top col-
lege because of a well-trained SAT performance.
And more often than not, the creative genius from
an impoverished family is lucky to attend a com-
munity college—or even to go to college at all.
To be sure, some colleges and universities are
devising new kinds of admissions tests, some of
which seek to measure so-called “noncognitive”
characteristics that are not captured by tests such as
the SAT. And we’re fi nding that these new tests ac-
tually do a pretty good job of predicting college
success. Recently, too, the National Association of
College Admissions Counseling (2008) released a
landmark report calling on colleges and universities
to rethink their reliance on admissions tests like the
SAT. There are also efforts underway to create bet-
ter indicators for consumers about college quality
than traditional rankings from the likes of U.S.
News & World Report.
Yet despite these efforts, the old paradigm re-
mains the dominant paradigm. It is highly resistant
to change because, so far, there has been little in-
centive for the educational establishment to change.
This brings us to the subject of fi nancial aid, and
particularly those aspects of the fi nancial aid sys-
tem that rarely receive public attention.
SAT is a relatively weak predictor of academic suc-
cess in college. The SAT adds little value to what
admissions offi cers can glean from high school
grades, writing samples, and other assessment tools
that predict performance in the real world, including
the classroom. So if the SAT is not a particularly
useful correlate to academic performance, then
what explains its longevity for selective college
admissions? The early adopters of the SAT saw it
as a useful tool for excluding certain kinds of peo-
ple  based on race, religion, and socioeconomic
background—and for doing so under the legitimat-
ing guise of meritocracy. Today, that rationale has
been superseded by a less intentional but no less
fl awed and damaging means of exclusion.
Despite the rhetoric extolling colleges and
universities as democratic enterprises dedicated to
servicing the public good and rooted in egalitarian
values, these institutions are businesses that oper-
ate  within a competitive marketplace. They are
strange  businesses, to be sure, but they’re money-
maximizing enterprises nonetheless. Colleges and
universities don’t maximize profi ts, but they are
very much in the business of maximizing institu-
tional prestige and endowments. Endowment
building and prestige are reliant on the higher edu-
cation marketplace’s determination of relative
“quality.” This determination is almost entirely
based on selectivity in admissions, which, in turn,
is wholly a function of the average SAT score of
entering freshmen.
Thus did the dominant paradigm of individual
merit and college quality evolve from historical ac-
cident, commercial ambition, and political ideol-
ogy. And from this paradigm was born a modern-day
prophet, who trumpets the notion that colleges can
be ranked based on this particular prophet’s deter-
mination of academic quality. Because the essential
ideology of the SAT was already in place and
widely accepted, this prophet—in the form of a
weekly newsmagazine we all know as U.S. News &
World Report —had simply to collect the data and
rank the colleges.
If you think that a lot more goes into the deter-
mination of America’s “Best Colleges” than SAT
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READING 50: Tearing Down the Gates 451
burden had increased to 9 percent (National Center
for Public Policy and Higher Education 2008).
The interrelated trends in affordability, fi nancial
aid, and college admissions practices have created an
American higher education system that is increas-
ingly hostile to lower-income students and families.
Moreover, these students and families often lack the
social, cultural, and economic capital on which col-
leges and universities place such high value in their
admissions and fi nancial aid systems. What do I
mean by “cultural capital”? Consider the tenth grader
who doesn’t have a computer at home, whose par-
ents don’t read magazines or newspapers and don’t
expose the child to a world beyond his or her neigh-
borhood. Or consider the family that doesn’t know
what the FAFSA is or even what the SAT is.
Instead of being a great democratic force for
rectifying economic inequality, colleges and uni-
versities have played an important, if unwitting,
role in worsening inequality. Despite our belief that
education is a great equalizer, our education system
tends to be a procyclical rather than countercyclical
force for addressing inequality. We have created in-
stitutional rules of the game that reinforce huge dis-
parities in educational opportunity. The vicious
cycle is rarely broken.
Following the prevailing business model, the
most ambitious colleges and universities have
sought to improve their position in national rank-
ings by tightening admissions standards and real-
locating fi nancial aid to students from relatively
affl uent backgrounds. Yet ongoing demographic
and economic trends have made this business
model increasing unsustainable tor individual insti-
tutions. By 2013, for example, fully half of all high
school graduates will come from families earning
$50,000 a year or less. Just 15 percent of high
school graduates will come from families earning
$100,000 or more—the sort of families tradition-
ally targeted by selective colleges (Western Inter-
state Commission for Higher Education 2008). In
order to avoid steep and possibly fatal declines in
enrollments, colleges and universities that rely
mostly on tuition revenue will have to reform their
admissions and fi nancial aid policies to make them
TRENDS IN FINANCIAL AID
All selective colleges want certain students as their
customers. These students primarily include the
sons and daughters of affl uent professionals. They
attend excellent schools, live in safe and attractive
neighborhoods, and—most important—score rea-
sonably well on the SAT. Colleges covet such stu-
dents not because they believe the SAT is the fi nal
word on the potential for success in college, but
rather because these students and their SAT scores
enhance the prestige of the institution. Colleges
want these students so badly that they’re even will-
ing to pay for them. Under the guise of “merit,” col-
leges have drastically increased the amount of
scholarship money they offer high-scoring students.
Indeed, the most-coveted students rarely pay full
tuition—the “sticker price” that colleges advertise.
The tuition hikes we all hear about are borne in
dramatically different ways by students from differ-
ent economic classes. Mounting evidence shows
that the lion’s share of the merit awards and steep
tuition discounts have been directed to wealthier
students—those who would go to college even with-
out the merit aid—at the expense of need-based
scholarships to lower-income students. Unfortu-
nately, need-based fi nancial aid from other federal,
state, or private sources has not made up for the dra-
matic shrinkage in institutional aid for lower- income
students. In fact, many states have created their own
merit scholarship programs, and most of the funds
are also going to wealthier students.
As a result of these perverse trends in fi nancial
aid, the dream of a college education has become
increasingly unattainable for students from families
earning low and modest incomes. As evidence, con-
sider the class disparities in net college costs as a
percentage of family income. To send a child to a
four-year public university in 1999, a family in the
lowest income bracket faced a net cost equivalent to
39 percent of the total family income. By 2008, the
net cost had risen to the equivalent of 55 percent of
family income. By contrast, in 1999, a family in the
top income bracket faced a net cost equivalent to just
7 percent of the total family income; by 2008, that
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452 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National
Center for Education Statistics.
Kuh, G. D., and E. T. Pascarella. 2004. What does institu-
tional selectivity tell us about academic quality? Change
36 (5): 53–58.
Mortensen, T. 2008. Family income and educational attain-
ment, 1970 to 2007. Postsecondary Education Opportunity
143.
National Association of College Admissions Counseling.
2008. Report of the Commission on the Use of Standard-
ized Tests in Undergraduate Admission. Arlington, VA:
National Association of College Admissions Counseling.
National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.
2008. Measuring up 2008: The national report card on
higher education. San Jose, CA: National Center for
Public Policy and Higher Education.
Snyder, T. D., A. G. Tan, and C. M. Hoffman. 2004. Digest
of education statistics 2003. U.S. Department of Educa-
tion. Washington, DC: National Center for Education
Statistics.
Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. 2008.
Knocking at the college door: Projections of high school
graduates by state and race/ethnicity 1992–2022.
Boulder, CO: Western Interstate Commission for Higher
Education.
Copyright of Liberal Education is the property of Association
of American Colleges & Universities and its content may
not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a
listserv without the copyright holder’s express written
permission. However, users may print, download, or email
articles for individual use.
R E A D I N G 5 1
Wealth Stripping: Why It Costs
So Much to Be Poor
James H. Carr
Within the public policy arena, the contemporary
use of the term wealth stripping has generally referred
to fi nancial products and services like payday lend-
ers, rent-to-own stores, and the like that exploit the
lack of fi nancial sophistication among economically
less hostile to lower-income students. Yet an era
of  severe retrenchment in taxpayer support has
only  served to fan the fi res of elitism at our best
public universities. To the grave detriment of fi rst-
generation and low-income students, these so-called
“public” universities have cut enrollments and
raised admissions standards.
The macroeconomic implications of these trends
are not pleasant. We are fostering an increasingly
class-bound education system in which only a small
segment of the population can realistically hope to
earn postsecondary degrees. If we continue along
this path, the United States will become a second- or
even third-tier economic power. Indeed, this decline
has already begun. In terms of educational attain-
ment, we are entering a period of stagnation. Unlike
recent cohorts of college-age people in many
European and Asian countries, who are earning
postsecondary degrees at far higher rates than previ-
ous generations, recent cohorts of Americans are no
better educated than previous generations (National
Center for Public Policy and Higher Education
2008). This is just one of many educational and eco-
nomic indicators that demonstrate the urgent need
to shed the last vestiges the old paradigm. We must
tear down the gates and make higher education
more inclusive, rather than more exclusive.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. According to Peter Sacks, why haven’t univer-
sities been advocates for reducing economic
inequalities?
2. Sacks’s article was fi rst published in 2009. Do
you think things have changed since then?
3. Would you be in favor of eliminating the SAT
requirement for college admission? Do you
think it will ever be eliminated?
REFERENCES
Carnevale, A. P., and S. J. Ruse. 2003. Socioeconomic status,
race/ethnicity, and selective college admissions. New
York: The Century Foundation.
Hoachlander, G., A. Sikora, and L. Horn. 2003. Community
college students: Goals, academic preparation, and outcomes.
James H. Carr is a housing fi nance, banking, and urban policy
consultant. He is also a senior fellow with the Center
for  American Progress and Distinguished Scholar with the
Opportunity Agenda.
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READING 51: Wealth Stripping: Why It Costs So Much to Be Poor 453
subprime lending. Millions of households that nei-
ther accessed a predatory loan product nor were
foreclosed upon have nevertheless experienced ex-
ceptional wealth loss due to the concentration of
foreclosures in their neighborhoods. Millions of
borrowers also now hold mortgages that are valued
at more than the price of their homes. While the
recently established Consumer Financial Protec-
tion Bureau (CFPB) should help in eradicating
much of the predatory lending that occurred prior
to the Great Recession, the CFPB is not empowered
to address the fallout from the fi nancial crisis. Deal-
ing with that aftermath is essential to avoid further
substantial wealth stripping as we climb out of the
recession’s rubble.
According to the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation, roughly nine million households are
unbanked. Adults in these homes do not have a sav-
ings or checking account from a mainstream bank
or credit union. An additional 21 million house-
holds are underbanked, meaning they have a check-
ing or savings account but rely instead on alternative
fi nancial services provided by check cashers, pay-
day lenders, pawn shops, and automobile-title
lenders. This translates into roughly 60 million
adults who operate outside of the fi nancial-services
mainstream. More than half of all African
Americans and nearly 45 percent of Latinos and
American Indian/Alaskans fall into this category.
The alternative fi nancial-services industry is big
business, with an estimated 340 million transactions
each year costing customers $13 billion annually.
Janneke Ratcliffe, executive director of the Center
for Community Capital, points out that check-
cashing and payday-lending storefronts outnumber
all McDonald’s, Burger King, Target, Sears, J.C.
Penney, and Wal-Mart stores and branches com-
bined (33,000 versus 29,000 respectively). The fees
these alternative (also known as fringe) lenders
charge are steep. Nonbank check-cashing costs on
average $40 per payroll check. Although expensive,
relatively speaking, that’s a bargain compared, say,
to rent-to-own stores, where a computer that retails
for $851 can end up costing $4,459 ($49 per week
for 21 months or 91 payments). Ratcliffe further
disadvantaged populations. Awareness of the prob-
lem among policy-makers and advocates arguably
originated with Michael Sherraden’s 1991 book,
Assets and the Poor. Sherraden’s landmark work
spawned a virtual avalanche of research, proposals,
and innovative initiatives on asset building. Out of
that body of research grew signifi cant attention to-
ward wealth stripping. John Caskey’s seminal 1996
book, Fringe Banking: Check-Cashing Outlets,
Pawnshops, and the Poor, was the subject’s founda-
tional text, highlighting how the high cost of alter-
native or fringe lenders strips away the fi nancial
resources of the poor. Many other scholars have
since followed with different perspectives on both
saving opportunities and the wealth-stripping chal-
lenges confronting the poor.
Even today, writings on the subject of wealth
stripping tend to focus principally on the high cost
of alternative fi nancial services. But the Great
Recession—driven by the foreclosures that hit mi-
nority communities especially hard—demands a
broader examination of the issue to include ways in
which the failure to impose or enforce consumer
protection and anti-discrimination laws can lead to
even greater harms. This broader perspective is es-
sential if we are to understand and address the
unique hurdles faced by low- and moderate-income
households and people of color, who are dispropor-
tionately affected by these problems.
Wealth stripping has only increased during the
economic crisis. Since the onset of the Great Re-
cession, Americans have lost $7 trillion in equity in
their homes. The Federal Reserve estimates the me-
dian American family has lost nearly two decades
of wealth, or almost 40 percent of their assets. In a
separate report, the Pew Research Center estimates
that Latinos, Asians, and African Americans have
experienced wealth losses of 66 percent, 54  percent,
and 53 percent respectively, compared to 13  percent
for whites. These losses are largely due to home
foreclosures and lost equity.
In the wake of the crisis, it is imperative that we
understand wealth stripping to include both preda-
tory fi nancial services and the huge loss in wealth
that resulted from foreclosures that stemmed from
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454 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
Disappointingly, there are substantial and grow-
ing connections between mainstream banks and al-
ternative lenders. One study found that more than
40 percent of the payday-loan industry is fi nanced
by the nation’s largest banks.
Moreover, some recent bank products mirror
those of the most predatory alternative storefront
lenders. Many traditional banks have entered the
payday-loan arena, for example, with a product
called a “checking account advance” loan. Those
loans typically are for a ten-day period and carry an
annualized interest rate of 365 percent. It’s worth
noting that the nation’s largest banks are able to
borrow at a practically 0 percent interest rate due to
the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy.
Of course, the most damaging and predatory
loan product of all was the subprime mortgage that
triggered the ongoing foreclosure crisis. The loss of
wealth from foreclosures has been unnecessarily
compounded by our inability to respond adequately
to the crisis and the continued failures of the federal
foreclosure-prevention programs.
The higher numbers of foreclosures among
minority households related to predatory loan
products has been extensively documented. Prince
George’s County in Maryland is the highest-in-
come majority African-American county in the na-
tion and, ironically, also the foreclosure capital of
that state. In a recent study on foreclosures in that
community, high-income borrowers in African-
American neighborhoods were 42 percent more
likely to go into foreclosure than typical borrowers
in white neighborhoods. High-income borrowers in
Latino communities fared worse: They were about
160 percent more likely to experience a foreclosure.
The reasons for the differences in foreclosure
rates between residents in minority and nonminor-
ity communities are not known; they are not ex-
plained by differences in basic money management
or loan or product type, since these variables are
controlled for. Some possible causes could be a
failure to apply for or receive similar treatment
with respect to loan modifi cations, fewer savings
to cushion fi nancial shocks, higher levels of
unemployment or underemployment, and higher
fi nds that a subprime credit card with a $300 limit
can come with fees totaling $250.
Initial high-cost fees are not the only or even
greatest fi nancial harm that can result from using an
alternative fi nancial-services provider. Relying on
an auto-title lender, for example, can result in the
loss of one’s automobile since the borrower’s car
title is pledged as collateral for the loan. The typical
auto-title loan is generally only 30 to 50 percent of
the value of the vehicle used as collateral, but if the
borrower fails to make the full repayment on time,
he or she stands to lose the entire value of car, not
just the outstanding loan amount. (And if that car is
needed for work, then the loss of it can mean the
loss of a job.)
Payday loans are widely known for being fi nan-
cially ruinous to their customers. Such loans are
generally 14-day cash advances that cost between
$15 and $30 per $100 borrowed, and range in size
from $100 to $1,000 with the median loan size
about $350. In addition to interest rates that typi-
cally exceed 400 percent annually, payday loans
can trap consumers into rolling over the same debt
multiple times, incurring excessive expenses on
relatively small initial loan amounts. The Center for
Responsible Lending estimates that more than
75 percent of all payday loans are the rollovers of
previous unaffordable debt.
In their defense, these lenders claim they serve
communities that banks do not. To some extent,
they have a point. There are far fewer banks in mi-
nority neighborhoods than in white ones. But phys-
ical proximity is not the only barrier to greater bank
usage cited by lower-income and minority consum-
ers. Many alternative fi nancial-services customers
do not trust banks, do not feel welcome at them, do
not understand the products they offer, and cannot
afford the steep fees they charge. For debit cards,
the typical overdraft fee of $34 is triggered by
transactions that average just $17. And bank fees
have been rising since the onset of the current eco-
nomic crisis. According to a report by the Pew
Charitable Trust, the median extended overdraft
penalty fee at the nation’s 12 largest banks has in-
creased 32 percent since 2010.
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READING 51: Wealth Stripping: Why It Costs So Much to Be Poor 455
public purpose and disproportionately harms those
families and communities most affected by the
current foreclosure crisis. It has been estimated
that  bankruptcy protection could have prevented
thousands of foreclosures, and at no cost to the
American taxpayer.
Second, credit reports should distinguish whether
poor credit repayment behavior is the result of a
mainstream or predatory fi nancial product. Such a
distinction would permit many subprime mortgage
borrowers—whose default was due to deceptive
loan products, not their unwillingness to pay—to
obtain credit cards or other consumer credit, as well
as to secure employment opportunities.
Third, policy-makers and regulators should re-
main aware that access to a full continuum of af-
fordable and reliable fi nancial products and
services is essential, and that vulnerable consum-
ers need to be protected. They need to exercise
their authority with both urgency and care—
urgency in purging the excessive and exploitative
costs of fringe fi nancial products and services, care
in maintaining the customer-friendly marketing
and operations that alternative-lending customers
value. This includes affordable homeownership fi –
nancial products that will be essential to jump-start
the housing market and begin the process of re-
building the enormous wealth loss resulting from
the pre-crisis proliferation of reckless and unsus-
tainable subprime mortgages.
The recently established CFPB goes a long way
toward addressing the concerns I’ve laid out here.
The agency has broad authority over predatory
lending in the mortgage markets as well as retail
consumer fi nancial services. The worst of the sub-
prime lending practices that were virulent prior to
2008 have already been eliminated and the CFPB
has the authority to ensure they do not return. And,
for the fi rst time, the federal government, through
the CFPB, has direct authority over the fi nancial-
services practices of alternative or fringe lenders.
But the CFPB is not a panacea. For example, it is
not authorized to address the challenges presented
by vacant and abandoned properties resulting from
foreclosures.
levels of negative equity for minority households.
Gaining a full understanding of these causes is
critical.
In addition to this direct loss of wealth, neigh-
boring residents in the communities in which fore-
closures have been concentrated have also suffered.
Distressed home sales drag down adjacent home
prices, and improperly maintained vacant and
abandoned properties can cause home prices in a
community to collapse. (Not all neighborhoods are
treated the same by the mortgage servicers who are
responsible for the maintenance of their foreclosed
properties: A recent investigation by the National
Fair Housing Alliance found that foreclosed prop-
erties in communities of color were more than
80 percent more likely than those in white areas to
have broken or boarded-up windows and other vis-
ible maintenance defi ciencies.) Failing to prevent
foreclosures and maintain vacant and abandoned
properties has contributed to wealth stripping, par-
ticularly in minority communities. Research by the
Woodstock Institute found that African-American
and Latino communities in the Chicago area
are likely to experience twice the amount of nega-
tive home equity (that is, when the value of a mort-
gage exceeds the value of a home) as non-Hispanic
white communities.
Foreclosures have other harmful impacts on
community. One consequence is a decrease in
property tax revenue as a result of falling property
values, which can harm local schools and other
essential social services. Large numbers of foreclo-
sures can also cause a loss in community cohesion
and stability as families that have lost their homes
relocate out of the neighborhood. And large num-
bers of foreclosures can lead to increasing crime
that accompanies vacant and abandoned properties.
Going forward, there are some changes that
must at a minimum be made. First, people should
be able to access bankruptcy protection in order to
maintain their homes. Right now, the family home
is the only asset that cannot be restructured in bank-
ruptcy proceedings—though the outstanding debt
on a luxury yacht, vacation home, or investment
property can be modifi ed. This serves no legitimate
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456 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Considering the risks and costs of alternative
lenders, why do you think people use them?
2. How do foreclosed houses affect the surround-
ing community?
While much progress has been made, a great deal
of work still needs to be done. The failure of private
institutions to serve all families and communities
equally has been an important impediment to disad-
vantaged families. Getting our leaders to begin caring
about such families is essential to creating greater
economic equality and a fi nancially stronger America.
DISABILITY
R E A D I N G 5 2
Disability Trouble
Bradley A. Areheart
Disability has long been understood as a simple
consequence of biology. Because this perspective
encourages “biological determinism”
1
and ignores
the role of culture in disabling people, disability ad-
vocates developed the social model of disability
(“social model”) as a response. The social model
has been called the “the big idea” of the disability
movement.
2
It reframed disability as being in part a
social construct by distinguishing social disable-
ment from physiological impairment.
3
Disablement—
in contrast to impairment—was “all the things that
impose restrictions on disabled people; ranging
from individual prejudice to institutional discrimi-
nation, from inaccessible public buildings to unus-
able transport systems, from segregated education
to excluding work arrangements, and so on.”
4

Separating disability into its biological and so-
cial components has thus been the linchpin for a
social model of disability.
5
Indeed, Michael Oliver,
who is widely credited with formalizing and estab-
lishing the social model in Western academia,
6
em-
phasized disability’s social nature precisely by
distinguishing disablement from impairment.
7
He
explained that disablement has “nothing to do with
the body.”
8
Impairment, however, is “nothing less
than a description of the physical body.”
9
Oliver
thus used the disability binary to emphasize the con-
structed nature of disability. The disability binary
has since been considered key to the social model.
10

The social model’s constructionist account of-
fers several benefi ts for disability advocates: (1) It
dispels uncritical assumptions that a disadvantage
resulting from disability is natural or necessary;
11

(2) it explains how social conditions contribute to
disability disadvantage (which implies that such
disadvantage can be changed through political
struggle);
12
and (3) it liberates disabled persons by
shifting the attention from an individual’s physical
or mental defi cits to the ways in which society in-
cludes or excludes them.
13
The social model has
been discussed widely both as it pertains to the
meaning of disability and as a justifi cation for cer-
tain policy and legal prescriptions, and it has be-
come a fi xture in legal disability scholarship.
14

One major drawback of the social model is that it
has not been substantially developed, revised, or re-
thought since the 1970s.
15
Other social movement
ideologies such as feminism have developed and
transformed substantially over time—responding
to criticism and changing circumstances.
16
But so-
cial disability theory has clung to a strict reading of
its founding assumptions.
17

One possible explanation for this lack of criti-
cality is that disability has been theorized largely
by advocates.
18
The social model, for example, was
forged by disability rights advocates with policy
preferences already in mind.
19
It provided Bradley A. Areheart is a professor of law at Baylor University.
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READING 52: Disability Trouble 457
disability trouble evokes and invites new ideas
about the meaning of disability.
Before proceeding, it bears noting that while
many social model theorists use the term “disabil-
ity” instead of “disablement” to refer to disability
that is socially constructed, I have used “disable-
ment” for two reasons. First, this is the term used
most often by Michael Oliver, who formalized and
popularized the disability binary within disability
studies. Second, there is an analytic benefi t to using
“disablement” to denote disability that is con-
structed socially: Doing so preserves “disability” as
a holistic term that encompasses both impairment
and disablement. In other words, using “disable-
ment” to refer to the socially constructed compo-
nent of the disability binary avoids confusion over
whether “disability” is being discussed generally or
as part of a dichotomy. Here, I have endeavored to
use “disability” exclusively as a non-dichotomous,
holistic term. However, it is important to note that
many of my sources equivocally use “disability” as
both a holistic term and as the dichotomous coun-
terpart to “impairment” within the disability
binary.
30
. . .
. . . Is impairment solely biological? Put another
way, is impairment devoid of social input? Oliver
and other social modelists like him would seem to
answer this question in the affi rmative. As Oliver
stated, impairment is “nothing less than a descrip-
tion of the [disabled person’s] physical body.”
31

Contemporary disability scholars have consistently
recognized that this biology-centered defi nition of
impairment is fundamental to the social model.
32

Such a defi nition of impairment raises the critical
question of who is disabled in the fi rst place. What
or who determines whether someone is disabled?
IMPAIRMENT AS DIAGNOSIS
In answering the question of how a person comes to
be considered disabled, the issue of diagnosis im-
mediately emerges since the disabled person’s body
is described as impaired principally through medi-
cal diagnoses. Diagnosis is a core element for
structuring and understanding disability. Indeed,
without diagnoses, many disabilities would not be
intellectual justifi cation for the predetermined goals
of the disability rights movement.
20
Later, as lead-
ers of the disability rights movement became aca-
demics, “the social model became an intellectual
export. It moved from interest group device to
scholar’s tool.”
21
. . .
While the social model has provided a useful
vocabulary for theorizing disability, its terms merit
greater scrutiny. The social model—by relying on a
binary division between social disablement and
physiological impairment—unwittingly under-
scores the notion that disability has a biological es-
sence. In other words, although the social model
was formulated to indicate disability’s constructed
nature, it inadvertently reifi es the idea that disabil-
ity is built in part upon non-social, biological, and
essential facts. . . .
22

In this article, I argue that impairment is actually
substantially socially constructed and thereby make
“disability trouble.” I have coined this phrase as an
allusion to Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble, 23 a sem-
inal contribution to feminist scholarship that chal-
lenged the gender/sex binary.
24
The gender/sex
binary states that sex is physiological, while gender
is socially constructed.
25
One of Butler’s con-
cerns was that the gender/sex binary, by effectively
designating sex as non-social, left room for bio-
logical determinism.
26
I am similarly concerned
that the disability binary, by designating impair-
ment as non-social, has left room for biological
essentialism. Accordingly, I seek to make disabil-
ity trouble by suggesting that (1) the meaning of
disability is not fi xed and has a way of transcend-
ing the disablement/impairment binary; and (2) dis-
ability is more social and less biologically laden
than previously theorized.
27

I am not invoking Butler’s popular theory that
gender is performative by, for example, building a
case that disablement is merely a stylized repetition
of acts that, over time, produce the appearance of
substance.
28
My argument instead focuses on ap-
propriating Butler’s claim that biological sex is just
as culturally constructed as social gender, and
applying it to the disability context.
29
Just as gender
trouble became a rallying cry for scholars seeking
to rethink sex and gender, it is my hope that
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458 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
thus exist as a confl uence of both biological and
cultural factors. Despite the modern tendency to see
new diagnoses as the natural result of cumulative
scientifi c progress, this section will show that the
creation of diagnoses is often a multi-factored pro-
cess spurred along by political negotiation, fi nancial
incentives, and/or social judgments and norms.
1. Mental Illness
Mental illness is a keen example of how diagnoses
can be constructed when key interests among medi-
cal scientists, doctors, patients, and businesses
align. For example, the creation of Chronic Fatigue
Syndrome—despite its nonspecifi c pathology—was
benefi cial for a variety of social groups. Medical
scientists received credit for discovering a new con-
dition, clinicians found a diagnostic solution to idio-
syncratic suffering, patients received relief from
uncertainty and the promise of effective therapy,
and businesses (especially insurance and pharma-
ceutical companies) saw the prospect of additional
revenue.
36
The “discovery” of Chronic Fatigue Syn-
drome can thus be seen as resulting from a confl u-
ence of key social factors and interests.
37

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders (DSM), the authoritative man-
ual of the American Psychiatric Association
(APA), provides a window into how the creation
of diagnoses is both politically and economically
driven. The DSM plays a critical gatekeeping role
in determining which mental illnesses are valid
for insurance and clinical purposes. Each time a
new edition of the DSM is forthcoming, expert
panels are established to meet and deliberate
about which diagnoses should be included and
excluded.
38

[The 2012 iteration of the DSM involved heated
battles between] various political and legal interests.
For example, many transgendered persons [fought]
diagnostic categories of Gender Identity Disorder
and Transvestite Fetishism.
39
Binge Eating,
40
In-
ternet Addiction,
41
and Parental Alienation Syn-
drome
42
are also tentative diagnostic categories
[that] engender great controversy.
understood as such by either the person diagnosed
or by others. Moreover, most disabled persons in-
terface with medical professionals who diagnose
them throughout their lives. . . . And medical diag-
noses are often diffi cult to escape, given that medi-
cal (and especially psychiatric) records seem to
have unusually long shelf lives.
33
In short, impair-
ments, understood as the physical traits associated
with disabilities, seem to be little more than diag-
nosis. Thus, in answering the question of how a
person comes to be considered disabled, we may
pose a second, closely related question: Is the diag-
nosis of impairments based solely on biology?
My argument in this part is that diagnosis in-
volves more than non-social biology. Rather, diag-
nosis is a social concept in at least two tangible
ways. First, acceptable categories of diagnoses are
created by a variety of non-medical factors and take
form as interested parties interact. The very exis-
tence of many impairments is thus largely contin-
gent upon political and social factors. Second, the
actual process of diagnosing an individual includes
various social inputs that assist the medical profes-
sional in concluding that a person has a particular
impairment. Examining the creation of diagnoses
and the acts of diagnosis through the lens of spe-
cifi c impairments illuminates the constructed and
contested nature of impairment. . . .
THE CREATION OF DIAGNOSES
It may be tempting to assume that diagnoses are di-
vined from nature, that they are a “self-evident re-
fl ection of biological and epidemiological facts.”
34

Indeed, this seems to be the default, unrefl ective
view. Yet, in a very real sense, an impairment does
not exist until we agree that it does—until it is
created.
35
For example, a child who 100 years ago
might have been described as a “bad student” might
today be described as having dyscalculia (a learning
disorder associated with comprehending mathemat-
ics) or dysgraphia (a defi ciency in the ability to
write). Similarly, a person who at one time might
have been seen as a “glutton” might now be under-
stood as having bulimia nervosa. Such diagnoses
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READING 52: Disability Trouble 459
twenty-eight members of the forthcoming DSM-V
task force have ties to the drug industry.
53

2. Sensory Impairments
Sensory impairments provide an example of how
even diagnoses with seemingly unassailable bio-
logical foundations are constructed in signifi cant
respects.
Who is blind? We certainly do not live in a
world with only two types of people: the blind and
the sighted. Similarly, a diagnosis of blindness is
not a dividing line between those without sight
and those with perfect sight. Indeed, eighty per-
cent of people who are legally blind have some
amount of vision.
54
Rather, the diagnosis of blind-
ness represents a dividing line on a continuum that
ranges from perfect sight to total lack of sight.
And drawing the line requires judgment about
who ought to count as blind (and just how much
inability to see the label “blind” entails). Accord-
ingly, a diagnosis of blindness is not just an issue
of the body; it is also a social judgment by the
medical community about who ought to be con-
sidered “blind.”
55
Deafness may be understood in
much the same way.
3. Eating Disorders
One way of examining whether diagnosis is a so-
cial creation is to ask whether diagnoses are new or
transient, i.e., whether they exist or have existed
only at certain times and in certain places (and are
thus context-dependent).
56

Although identifi ed in the 1870s, anorexia ner-
vosa was a rare disorder for nearly a century.
57

However, in the 1970s and 1980s, the nature of an-
orexia’s symptomatology began to change and its
incidence increased dramatically in America.
58

Two new (but now common) symptoms emerged:
compulsive physical activity and bulimia (bingeing
and purging).
59
The reasons given for the symptom
of not eating also began to shift from somatic (for
example, “I cannot eat because it hurts”) to psycho-
somatic (for example, “I don’t need to eat; I am too
fat”).
60
What exactly happened?
Such battles over whether a diagnostic category
ought to exist in the fi rst place are legion. Past ex-
amples include the exclusion of homosexuality,
43

the inclusion of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders,
44

and the proposal and rejection of the gender-biased
Self-Defeating Personality Disorder.
45
Each of
these aforementioned decisions had deep cultural
implications and was ultimately effected by pres-
sure from political constituencies—demonstrating
that far more was at work than just raw biology and
objective science.
46

The creation of mental illnesses is also driven by
fi nancial incentives in the form of pharmaceutical
money. While the role of pharmaceutical compa-
nies in the development of diagnoses has histori-
cally been less publicized than many of the political
interests noted above, the connection between these
companies and the DSM is starting to receive more
press. Pharmaceutical companies have a general fi –
nancial interest in expanding the number of diag-
nostic categories (and concomitantly, the total
number of persons who can be diagnosed),
47
and
the individual companies also have particular fi nan-
cial interests in medical practitioners prescribing
their specifi c medications.
48
Pharmaceutical com-
panies also provide substantial funding to the
APA.
49
However, even more direct evidence of
fi nancial connections between pharmaceutical
companies and the DSM has surfaced within the
last fi ve years.
In 2006, researchers at the University of
Massachusetts and Tufts University published a
study entitled Financial Ties Between DSM-IV Panel
Members and the Pharmaceutical Industry. 50 This
study provided empirical support for what many had
suspected all along: Pharmaceutical money was
connected to the creation of the DSM ’s diagnostic
categories. In particular, the study found that the
majority of DSM panel members for the most recently
published edition of the DSM had substantial fi nan-
cial ties to one or more pharmaceutical companies.
51

Even the APA’s President later acknowledged
publicly that such ties exist and could not be fully
eliminated.
52
Indeed, in 2008, the Center for Science
in the Public Interest found that more than half of the
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460 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
scope of what constitutes an LD has continued to
widen since the term’s inception, thereby subsum-
ing an increasing number of Americans.
71

The salient question might be “why?” While
some media outlets have loosely attributed the
growth of LD diagnoses to factors such as diet,
exposure to chemicals, and sedentary lifestyles,
72

most scholars examining the issue have concluded
that the growth is due to distinct political and
fi nancial interests.
73
Carl Elliott, a professor at the
Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota,
has argued that the ballooning of such diagnoses is
not because people have suddenly detected condi-
tions that were hidden for hundreds of years.
74

Rather, he notes it is because “all mental disabili-
ties, even those with biological roots, have a social
component.”
75
Just like the DSM diagnoses dis-
cussed above, many interests drive this trend,
including those of LD educators (who obtain
federal aid for each student diagnosed as having an
LD); psychologists (who charge thousands of
dollars to diagnose students); LD researchers (who
are incentivized by the lure of federal grants);
attorneys (who can win judgments in ADA cases);
and pharmaceutical companies (who have pock-
eted billions of dollars from medicines that target
learning disabilities).
76

5. Age-Related Impairments
A slightly different case for seeing impairment as
socially constructed is where the predicate physical
conditions have always existed, but have not always
been considered problematic and diagnosed. For ex-
ample, hip fractures, spinal deformities and loss of
height were all once thought of as normal by-
products of aging.
77
They were not considered im-
pairments or diagnosed in any meaningful way.
78

However, since 1994, the World Health Organization
has classifi ed osteoporosis (a major factor in each of
the aforementioned symptoms) as a disease that
can be diagnosed, prevented, and treated.
79
Such in-
stitutional shifts have signifi cant consequences be-
cause they affect medical norms, which in turn affect
the process of diagnosis.
80
The development of
Any attempt to explain changes in anorexia’s in-
cidence and symptomatology from a purely biologi-
cal perspective fails.
61
It is only when one adds in
heightened cultural pressure to exercise and be thin,
women’s personal freedom, desocialized eating en-
vironments, a lack of adolescent supervision, and
the ubiquity of food for purchase, that one begins to
understand how the cultural climate in America
helped make anorexia a common condition with
new symptomatology.
62
Anorexia may thus be seen
as a transient mental illness that has fl ourished at
specifi c times in specifi c places—namely contem-
porary ones that extol a particular version of
beauty.
63
In this respect, “eating disorders appear
ultimately to be cultural productions, no matter
what biological mechanisms they provoke.”
64

4. Intellectual Impairments
Mental retardation is another example of a diagno-
sis constituted by social norms. With ever-changing
criteria and tests, one might reasonably see mental
retardation as “a historically contingent way of
talking about people who appear to be in need of
assistance and who are not very good at IQ tests.”
65

Mental retardation is, in this way, a relative concept
and a social judgment of sorts.
66
None of this indi-
cates that retardation is imaginary or not a real dis-
ability. However, the diagnosis is also not a simple
refl ection of self-evident, physiological facts; it re-
quires an implicit cultural judgment about how
much competence is normal, and when deviation
from that normality is substantial enough to be con-
sidered an impairment.
Or consider learning disabilities (LDs). Much
like the diagnoses discussed above under the DSM,
the dozen or so conditions lumped together under
the umbrella term “LD”
67
have been legitimated
largely by economic and political interests.
68
The
term “learning disabilities” was itself invented in
1963 by a psychologist attempting to expand the
circle of students who could be diagnosed as “dis-
abled” and thus entitled to federal protections and
funding.
69
By the 1980s, LD diagnoses were soar-
ing and the numbers continue to grow today.
70
The
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READING 52: Disability Trouble 461
in  diagnoses that depend upon patient-reported
symptoms—the result of a trend toward “func-
tional” diagnoses, or solutions to “the problem of
idiosyncratic suffering not readily explainable by
specifi c pathology.”
87

Another reason that impairment is less objective
and more social than previously theorized is that
diagnoses for mental illness involve considerable
subjectivity and interpretation on the part of medi-
cal practitioners. Psychiatry is not like cardiology
or nephrology, where the basic diseases are well
understood and identifi able by non-subjective crite-
ria:
88
“No blood tests exist for the disorders in the
DSM.” 89 Rather, patients rely on judgments from
practitioners, who in turn rely on subjective phe-
nomena and the manual.
90
Yet once subjective phe-
nomena (such as fi nding diffi culty in practical life
tasks or not doing well on IQ tests) are re-described
as symptoms, a cultural condition is transformed
into a medically identifi able pathology.
91
There
have even been published studies in which psychia-
trists, trained in using the DSM, cannot even agree
on which class of diagnoses (such as “personality
disorder”) a disability falls into, much less reach
agreement on a specifi c diagnosis within that
class.
92
Some disagreement as to application is, of
course, natural; still, disagreement illuminates the
fact that diagnosis is a process that is not immune
from social infl uences.
93

2. Intellectual Impairments
Another example of the constructed nature of di-
agnosis can be found in considering the use of di-
agnostic assessments to determine diagnoses.
Mark Rapley, a professor of psychology at the
University of East London, has explored how in-
tellectual disabilities are constructed through the
psychological assessments intended to diagnose
them.
94
He notes that this occurs in part because of
an “acquiescence bias,” in which respondents to
surveys have a tendency to indicate a positive an-
swer to questions, or simply agree.
95
This dynamic
is amplifi ed in the realm of intellectual disabilities
because medical professionals often assume that
age- related impairments shows that normality and
disease do not issue from an unmediated form of bi-
ology; instead, biological data are interpreted
through existing knowledge of the body and in
accordance with cultural standards.
81

THE ACTS OF DIAGNOSIS
A related way of challenging the assumption that
impairment is only biological is by examining the
acts of diagnosis. To the extent that diagnosing an
individual requires interaction with the patient or
interpretation of patient-reported data, social norms
become embedded into the ultimate diagnosis.
1. Mental Illness
Mental illness is one area of medicine that relies
heavily on patient reporting. For example, in cases
of depression, the medical practitioner’s diagnosis
often relies on the patient’s psychological self-
assessment, which will almost necessarily be in-
formed by social meanings. A depressed person, to
be classifi ed and diagnosed as such, must be able to
communicate.
82
Instead of listing off symptoms,
the depressed subject must often produce a narra-
tive of her depression.
83
In producing such a narra-
tive, the person’s preconceptions relating to
depression and its symptoms will likely be incorpo-
rated. The very formation of depression as an im-
pairment thus depends upon patients’ internalization
of their distress and later articulation to a medical
professional.
84
In this sense, the diagnosis of de-
pression involves an aggregation of social norms, a
person’s view of her own symptoms, and a narra-
tive dispensed to the medical professional. Any ef-
fort to isolate the part of depression that is biological
impairment (as opposed to social disablement)
would seem artifi cial at best.
Other diagnoses can similarly be seen as con-
trolled more by the patient than the physician.
85
For
example, the criteria for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
are patient-centered, permitting the patient to ef-
fectively defi ne the disease based on her particular
symptomatology.
86
There has been a steady rise
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462 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
The same principle applies to the process of diag-
nosis; there, lines must be drawn to determine
whether particular people’s behavior or sensory
abilities fall within the realm of predetermined dis-
abilities. This line-drawing is complicated and
made inconsistent by the interactional phenomena
associated with physician and patient. Accordingly,
where we draw lines for diagnoses may change
over time (creation of diagnoses), or may change
depending on the patient and/or physician (acts of
diagnosis). The result is that impairment is most
aptly understood as a non-binary, spectrum con-
cept. This observation underscores my thesis that
impairment, understood as diagnosis, is socially
constructed.
PERHAPS IMPAIRMENT
WAS ALWAYS ALREADY
DISABLEMENT
Having explained how biological impairment is
often constructed, one might question whether im-
pairment (and ultimately disability) is entirely con-
structed. After building the case that sex was
constructed, Butler similarly questioned whether
sex “was always already gender, with the conse-
quence that the distinction between sex and gender
turns out to be no distinction at all.”
104
Within the
disability framework, given my argument that im-
pairment is thoroughly constructed, we might ques-
tion whether impairment is always already
disablement, with the result that the division be-
tween impairment and disablement turns out to be
inconsequential. And if the distinction is no distinc-
tion at all, what then is left of biology?
This latter question has often consumed the at-
tention of Butler’s critics, who argue that she has
lost sight of “the concrete, historical body that
loves, suffers, and dies.”
105
Butler acknowledges
that there is indeed something necessary and ines-
capable about such “primary and irrefutable experi-
ences.”
106
She does not claim that there is no
material body, just that we can only apprehend that
material body through discourse.
107
This means
that while the body is not reducible to language,
108

their patients are incapable of reporting on their
own conditions.
96
One result of this bias for as-
sessments is that an interviewee may be shep-
herded into apparently inconsistent answers by a
range of interactional phenomena: the interviewee’s
perceived need to reformulate responses to ques-
tions;
97
the interviewer’s pursuit of “correct” an-
swers (based on his or her expectations);
98
and the
interviewer’s desire to obtain an answer in the of-
fi cial vocabulary of the interview schedule.
99

While it is diffi cult to provide concise examples of
these phenomena, Rapley’s conclusions are sup-
ported through extensive use of case studies and
examples.
100
In such cases, inconsistencies are
produced by the logic of the interviewer’s de-
mands.
101
Raley concludes that such methods of
diagnosis necessarily shift intellectual disability
from the realm of an individual, biological prob-
lem to an interactional social product.
102

IMPAIRMENT EXISTS ON
A CONTINUUM
The creation of diagnoses and acts of diagnosis re-
veal how impairment exists as part of a continuum,
rebutting the tempting inference that impairment is
itself a binary concept (with a world full of im-
paired and non-impaired people). For example,
mental illness diagnoses implicate a wide array of
socialized behaviors, including the way in which
one responds to stress, how much anxiety or sad-
ness one should feel, and when and how one should
sleep, eat, and express oneself sexually.
103
All of
these behaviors exist on a continuum and are not
binary concepts. This means that in order to make
particular diagnoses, a line must be drawn some-
where to mark the point at which normal behavior
has crossed into pathology.
Blindness, deafness, disordered eating, and in-
tellectual impairments all represent a range of qual-
ities and/or abilities regarding certain aspects of the
body. Who is blind, deaf, bulimic, or mentally re-
tarded is thus a question of degree based on gradu-
ated differences. At some point on each continuum,
a line must be drawn to effectuate the diagnosis.
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READING 52: Disability Trouble 463
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Are there points at which you fi nd yourself
objecting to Areheart’s analysis? Which points
and why?
2. What are the practical implications of
Areheart’s analysis for the social model of
disability?
NOTES
1. My use of the term “biological determinism” is intended
to denote the idea that our genetic makeup determines
and makes inevitable our development as people with
certain traits and opportunities.
2. SHAKESPEARE, supra note 3, at 29.
3. A key moment in the social model’s intellectual and po-
litical history occurred in 1976, when the Union of the
Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPIAS) pub-
lished its Fundamental Principles of Disability. UPIAS’s
differentiation between impairment and disability would
later form the basis of what Michael Oliver coined “The
Social Model of Disability.” Union of the Physically Im-
paired Against Segregation (UPIAS), Fundamental Prin-
ciples of Disability (1976); see Oliver, Understanding
Disability, supra note 3, at 1–2 (“I should say at this point
that the original simple idea underpinning my work was
not my original idea but was an idea that I came across in
encountering Fundamental Principles of Disability for the
fi rst time.” (citation omitted)); id. at 28 ( affi rming the im-
pairment/disability distinction in Fundamental Principles
of Disability as being “valid to this day”); see also Tom
Shakespeare, “The Social Model of Disability,” in The
Disability Studies Reader, supra note 6 at 197, 197
(“While the problems of disabled people have been
explained historically in terms of divine punishment, karma
or moral failing, and post-Enlightenment in terms of
biological defi cit, the disability movement has focused
attention onto social oppression, cultural discourse, and
environmental barriers.”); id. at 198–99 (explaining that the
“redefi nition of disability itself” is what sets the social model
apart from other socio- political approaches to disability).
4. Oliver, Understanding Disability, supra note 3, at 33.
One of the most common illustrations for understanding
disability as a social construct are the architectural bar-
riers faced by wheelchair users. Adam Samaha has
stated: “It is one thing to be unable to walk. It is quite
another matter to be unable to enter a building unas-
sisted because the architect preferred stairs to ramps.”
Adam Samaha, What Good Is the Social Model of
Disability?, 74 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1251, 1258–59 (2007). In
such a situation, a person is disabled—or made to feel
it is only accessible through language.
109
In other
words, there is no reference to a pure body which is
not at the same time a further formation of that
body.”
110
Her ultimate concern is to interrogate
constructions of sex that have come to be seen as
essential and natural.
111

Here, I simultaneously converge with and depart
from Butler’s project. Like Butler, I am not denying
that biology exists, but endeavoring to show how
the version of biology with which medical profes-
sionals interact is contested and refracted by social
interests. I am unconcerned with demarcating cul-
ture from nature or social inputs from biology; in
many ways, the question of what is left of biology
reintroduces that which was problematically an as-
sumption of the gender/sex and disability binaries
from the start: the presence of a raw biological core
that may be neatly extricated from the concept of
woman or disability. I am interested in showing
how impairment is constructed and the interests
that are served by its construction, not in drawing
lines to show the boundaries of biology.
Unlike Butler, I am less focused on discourse
and more focused on attempting to provide an ac-
count of the impaired body that provides political
and historical context. Social constructionism has,
in recent years, become a trendy and often obtuse
way to discuss a subject.
112
Here, I have labored to
employ social constructionism usefully by provid-
ing concrete examples of how impaired bodies are
produced.
One fi nal point that bears reiteration is that my
argument, as applied to particular disabilities, does
not imply that those disabilities are not real or valid.
Social constructionism (here, my claim that bio-
logical impairment is socially constructed) is often
caricatured as asserting that a particular thing is a
“mere” construct and thus arbitrary or illegiti-
mate.
113
I am not denying that biology exists; in-
stead, I am challenging the idea that biological
accounts of the body (that is to say, diagnoses) are
asocial, or merely descriptive. My general point is
that we need to think more carefully about disabled
identity, not that socially constructed diagnoses are
illegitimate.
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464 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
“quite pervasive in the legal academic literature”); Mary
Crossley, Reasonable Accommodation as Part and Parcel
of the Antidiscrimination Project, 35 Rutgers L. J. 861,
875–77 (2004) [hereinafter Crossley, Reasonable Ac-
commodation] (noting that work on the social model “has
gained the attention of the legal academy”).
15. Shakespeare, supra note 3, at 33–34; see also Mairian
Corker and Tom Shakespeare, Mapping the Terrain, in
Disability/Postmodernity, supra note 6, at 1 (noting that
disability studies have “suffered from a theoretical
defi cit”); Shakespeare, supra note 10, at 199 (“Many
leading advocates of the social model approach maintain
that the essential insights developed by UPIAS in the
1970S still remain accurate and valid three decades
later.”); id. at 202 (“While acknowledging the benefi ts of
the social model in launching the disability movement,
promoting a positive disability identity, and mandating
civil rights legislation and barrier removal, it is my
belief that the social model has now become a barrier to
further progress.”).
16. Shakespeare, supra note 3, at 33–34.
17. Id. at 34.
18. See infra notes 26–28.
19. Samaha, supra note 11, at 1254 (noting that disability
rights advocates forged the social model “alongside a
political platform”); id. at 1255 (“[T]he social model
was generated within a disability rights movement with
policy objectives.”); id. at 1280–82 (“Similar notions
were percolating elsewhere, but a social model of dis-
ability was driven to the forefront by a movement of
disabled people dissatisfi ed with existing institutions
and policies. Participants sought to defi ne disability, and
thus the movement, in accord with their experience and
objectives . . . Given this history, it is not surprising that
original proponents of the social model supported social
reconstruction to ameliorate disadvantage. This goal
was the inspiration for the model in the fi rst place.”
(footnote omitted)).
20. Id. at 1282 (noting that the social model was “an accou-
trement” to the disability rights movement); id. at 1269
(noting that the regular connection between the social
model and policy “might follow from affi liation with the
disability rights movement”).
21. Id. at 1283 (footnote omitted).
22. Rapley, supra note 12, at 66 (noting that impairment and
disablement, under the social model, are paradoxically
“reifi ed as structurally given things”). In this way, im-
pairment might be seen as a remnant of the medical
model of disability, which posits biology as an essential
characteristic of the disabled individual. Id.
23. See supra note 7.
24. Toril Moi notes that Butler’s scholarship, including
Gender Trouble, was “by far the most important work on
disabled—at least in part by factors outside of the per-
son’s own body. Such factors may, under the social
model, include physical, institutional, and attitudinal
barriers. Areheart, supra note 2, at 188.
Tom Shakespeare has explained that one key to un-
derstanding the social model is viewing it as a series of
dichotomies: impairment is distinguished from disabil-
ity (or what I call “disablement,” see infra note 41)
thereby creating the disability binary; the social model is
distinguished from the medical model of disability; and
disabled people are distinguished from non-disabled
people. Shakespeare, supra note 10, at 198–99. Further-
more, under the disability binary, impairment is indi-
vidual and private, while disablement is structural and
public. Id. at 198. In this way, impairment might be seen
as a remnant of the medical model of disability, a para-
digm that historically has focused on the impact of an
individual’s own physical or mental impairments rather
than on factors that reside outside of the person’s body.
5. Colin Barnes and Geof Mercer, Disability 65 (2003);
Mark Rapley, The Social Construction of Intellectual
Disability 62 (2004) (noting that the “fractioning of a
monolithic ‘disability’ into notions of a (physical or
mental) impairment, with concomitant disability caused
by social barriers” is “central” to the social model).
6. Samaha, supra note 11, at 1251–52 (noting that although
the social model’s causation story has been around since
the 1970s, it was Michael Oliver who launched the
social model in Western academia in 1990); see also
Rapley, supra note 12, at 62 (“[T]he social model as a
formal statement of social scientifi c theory is usually
held to originate in the work of Mike Oliver . . .”).
7. See supra note 3.
8. Oliver, Understanding Disability: From Theory to
Practice (1996), at 35.
9. Id.
10. Id. (noting that the disability binary “remains valid to
this day”); Rapley, supra note 12, at 62; Samaha, supra
note 11, at 1257 (“Key to the social model is a distinc-
tion between personal impairments and disability.”).
11. Samaha, supra note 11, at 1253.
12. Id. at 1255; see also Shakespeare, supra note 3, at 30.
13. Shakespeare, supra note 3, at 29–30.
14. Samaha, supra note 11, at 1268 (noting that Mary
Crossley “helped import the social model into legal
scholarship”); see Mary Crossley, The Disability
Kaleidoscope, 74 Notre Dame L. Rev. 621, 653–59 (1999)
[hereinafter Crossley, Disability Kaleidoscope]; see also
Carlos A. Ball, Looking for Theory in All the Rights
Places: Feminist and Communitarian Elements of Dis-
ability Discrimination Law, 66 Ohio St. L. J. 105, 130–31
(2005) (noting that the social model defi nes disability as
a social construct and that this viewpoint has become
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READING 52: Disability Trouble 465
A1 (noting that the DSM -related debate over gender
identity “is already burning hot among transgender peo-
ple”); Arline Kaplan, DSM-V Controversies, Psychiatric
Times, Jan 1, 2009, www.psychiatrictimes.com/display
/article/10168/1364926.
40. Carey, supra note 88, at A1.
41. Kaplan, supra note 88.
42. Karen Franklin, Psychiatric Bible to Add New Diagno-
ses: DSM Makeover Process Shrouded in Secrecy,
Am. Chron., Oct 15, 2008, www.americanchronicle.com
/articles/view/77790.
43. See Herb Kutchins and Stuart A. Kirk, Making Us
Crazy, DSM: The Psychiatric Bible and the Creation of
Mental Disorders 18, 55–99 (1997) (explaining how
protests by gay activists led to the elimination of homo-
sexuality from the DSM-II in 1974).
44. See id. at 18, 100–25 (explaining how Vietnam veterans
fought for and achieved inclusion of Post-Traumatic
Stress Disorder in the DSM despite the opposition of
many leading psychiatric experts).
45. See id. at 19, 126–75 (explaining how feminism fought
against the inclusion of Masochistic Personality Disor-
der in the DSM, which was later relabeled and rejected
as Self-Defeating Personality Disorder).
46. See id. at 24 (“[L]ike a large and popular mutual fund,
DSM’s holdings are constantly changing as the manag-
ers’ estimates and beliefs about the value of those
holdings change.”).
47. See id. at 13. One forensic psychologist cynically
writes: It’s a tried-and-true formula: Do a quick-and-
dirty study or two. Find a huge, perhaps escalating,
problem that has heretofore been overlooked. Create a
product label (aka diagnosis). And, voila! The drug
companies will take it from there. A diagnosis that was
once just a twinkle in the eye of a creative researcher
becomes reifi ed as a concrete entity. Franklin, supra
note 91. Since the fi rst edition of the DSM, the number
of disorders has tripled—an increase paralleled by an
increase in sales of drugs. Ron Grossman, Psychiatry
Manual’s Secrecy Criticized, L.A. Times, Dec 29, 2008,
at A19.
48. See Benedict Carey and Gardiner Harris, Psychiatric
Association Faces Senate Scrutiny over Drug Industry
Ties, N.Y. Times, July 12, 2008, at A13 (noting that, on
average, psychiatrists who received at least $5,000
from newer-generation antipsychotic drugs wrote
three times as many prescriptions to children for said
drugs than psychiatrists who received less money or
none).
49. Kutchins & Kirk, supra note 92, at 13; Cosgrove et al.,
supra note 87, at 155 (“Pharmaceutical companies pro-
vide substantial funding for conventions, journals, and
research related to what is included in the DSM, because
sex and gender in the 1990s.” Toril Moi, What Is a
Woman?, in What Is A Woman? and Other Essays 3, 45
(2001); see also Alison Stone, An Introduction to
Feminist Philosophy 61 (2007) (“[Butler’s] Gender
Trouble . . . is one of the most important and infl uential
books in contemporary feminist philosophy.”).
25. Stone, supra note 35, at 30–34.
26. Butler, Gender Trouble , supra note 7, at 9 (“The pre-
sumption of a binary gender system implicitly retains
the belief in a mimetic relation of gender to sex whereby
gender mirrors sex or is otherwise restricted by it.”).
27. This use of “disability trouble” parallels Judith Butler’s
use of the phrase “gender trouble.” Butler, Undoing
Gender, supra note 7, at 42–43 (“[When] one refers to
‘gender trouble’. . . one is . . . suggesting that gender has
a way of moving beyond [the] naturalized [gender/sex]
binary.”).
28. Butler, Gender Trouble , supra note 7, at 45.
29. Id. at 9–10.
30. It is thus imperative to discern how such scholars are
using the term “disability” in order to avoid confusion.
31. Oliver, Understanding Disability , supra note 3, at 35.
32. Areheart, supra , note 2 at 188 (identifying the impairment/
disablement distinction as foundational to the social
model); Crossley, Disability Kaleidoscope, supra note 21,
at 657 (contrasting “bodily impairments” with “disabil-
ity” under the social model); Shakespeare, supra note 10,
at 197 (noting the dichotomy between biological impair-
ment and social disability as key to the social model).
33. In Madness, Distress, and Postmodernity, Anne Wilson
and Peter Beresford document their status as “psychiat-
ric system survivors” and demonstrate how medical and
psychiatric records may restrict future life opportunities,
understandings, and rights. Anne Wilson and Peter
Beresford, Madness, Distress and Postmodernity: Put-
ting the Record Straight, in Disability/Postmodernity,
supra note 6, at 143.
34. ARONOWITZ, supra note 78, at 58. Professor Aronow-
itz argues that such an approach is fl awed. He points to
the creation of Lyme disease as an example of a diagno-
sis built “implicitly and incrementally from a number of
interacting factors,” and not as a necessary result of ana-
lyzing objective biological facts. Id.
35. Rosenberg, supra note 76, at xiii.
36. See Aronowitz, supra note 78, at 36.
37. Id. at 179.
38. See generally Lisa Cosgrove et al., Financial Ties Be-
tween DSM-IV Panel Members and the Pharmaceutical
Industry, 75 Psychotherapy & Psychosomatics 154
(2006) (noting the role expert panels play in determining
which particular diagnoses are included in the DSM ).
39. Benedict Carey, Psychiatry’s Struggle to Revise the
Book of Human Troubles, N.Y. Time, Dec 18, 2008, at
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466 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
show up only at some times and some places, for reasons
which we can only suppose are connected with the
culture of those times and places.” Hacking, supra note
79, at 100.
57. Joan Jacobs Brumberg, From Psychiatric Syndrome
to  “Communicable” Disease: The Case of Anorexia
Nervosa, in Framing Disease, supra note 76, at 134, 135.
58. Id. at 138–39.
59. Id. at 138.
60. Id. at 137.
61. Id.
62. Id.
63. Hacking, supra note 79, at 2, 100–01.
64. Brumberg, supra note 106, at 149.
65. Rapley, supra note 42, at 42.
66. Id. at 41, 42, 202–03.
67. Craig S. Lerner, “Accommodations” for the Learning Dis-
abled: A Level Playing Field or Affi rmative Action for
Elites?, 57 Vand. L. Rev. 1043,1064–65 (2004) (noting that
LD is a broad term encompassing dyslexia, dysgraphia,
dyspraxia, dyscalculia, dysrationalia, Attention-Defi cit/
Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD/ADHD), “language-based
disability,” and “auditory processing disability”).
68. Kenneth A. Kavale & Steven R. Forness, The Politics of
Learning Disabilities, 21 Learning Disability Q. 245,
245 (1998); Lerner, supra note 116, at 1058, 1076; see
also Kathleen Ross-Kidder, Interventions with Comor-
bid Emotional/Behavioral Disordered Children, in Con-
temporary Interdisciplinary Interventions for Children
with Emotional/Behavioral Disorders 559, 560 (David
A. Sabatino and Benjamin L. Brooks eds., 1998) (exam-
ining the quandary faced by parents of seemingly intel-
ligent children who had “unmet educational needs,” and
the perceived need for those children to receive some
type of educational intervention).
69. Lerner, supra note 116, at 1058.
70. Id. at 1071–73.
71. Id. at 1044–45.
72. Id. at 1074.
73. See supra note 117.
74. Carl Elliott, Costing an Arm and a Leg, Slate, July 10,
2003, http://slate.msn.com/id/2085402.
75. Id.
76. Lerner, supra note 116, at 1077.
77. Jackie Leach Scully, A Postmodern Disorder: Moral
Encounters with Molecular Models of Disability, in
Disability/Postmodernity, supra note 6, at 48.
78. Id.
79. Id.
80. See id. (noting that there are signifi cant consequences
for such classifi cation).
81. Id.
what is considered diagnosable directly impacts the sale
of their drugs.”); see also Carey and Harris, supra note 97
(noting that in 2006, the  latest year for which data was
available, the drug industry accounted for thirty percent
of the APA’s $62.5 million in fi nancing).
50. Cosgrove et al., supra note 87.
51. Id. at 156. Revisions of the DSM are organized around
working groups or panels. Of the 170 DSM panel mem-
bers, ninety-fi ve of them, or fi fty-six percent, had one or
more fi nancial ties to a company in the pharmaceutical
industry. Id. However, even this statistic is understated
since DSM panels for diagnostic categories in which
pharmacological interventions are standard treatment
had much higher percentages of fi nancial ties to the
pharmaceutical industry. Id. at 156, 159. For example,
one hundred percent of the panel members for the
“Mood Disorders Work Group” (8 out of 8) and the
“Schizophrenia and Other Psychotic Disorders Work
Group” (7 out of 7) had fi nancial ties to the pharmaceu-
tical industry. Id. at 156–57. In contrast, the authors
note that the panel for “Substance-Related Disorders”—
an area in which psychopharmacological treatment is
much less likely—had a much lower concentration
(1 out of 6). Id.
The authors conclude that while receiving fi nancial
support from a pharmaceutical company should not
disqualify a person from serving on a DSM panel, “the
public and mental health professionals have a right to
know about these fi nancial ties, because pharmaceuti-
cal companies have a vested interest in what mental
disorders are included in the DSM.” Cosgrove et al.,
supra note 87, at 159.
52. Kaplan, supra note 88 (“We have anticipated and ad-
dressed questions about confl icts of interest in the DSM
process. The abolition of confl ict is a myth. . . . [W]hat
we can do is to be very clear about what those interests
are.” (quoting Nada Stotland, APA President)).
53. Psych Working Group Again Rife with Confl icts of In-
terests, Integrity in Science Watch: Week of May 5,
2008, http://cspinet.org/integrity/watch/200805051
.html#4 (last visited April 3, 2011). Confl ict-of-interest
concerns were substantial enough to prompt Congress to
launch an investigation into the APA’s funding and doc-
tors’ fi nancial arrangements with drug makers in 2008.
See Carey and Harris, supra note 87.
54. Shelley Kinash, Seeing Beyond Blindness 5 (2006).
55. See generally Tanya Titchkosky, Cultural Maps: Which
Way to Disability?, in Disability/Postmodernity, supra
note 6, at 101, 101–11 (exploring the ways in which
blindness is socially constructed).
56. In his book on social constructionism, Ian Hacking notes
that some mental illnesses are transient in that “they
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READING 52: Disability Trouble 467
98. Interviewers often do not accept a respondent’s fi rst
answer and push the interviewees into self-contradic-
tory responses. Id. at 95. However, these contradictions
are a logical consequence of the (often convoluted)
path of questioning. See id. at 94–96.
99. Id. at 96–101. Interviewers may suggest improvements
to answers to “shepherd[] the respondent’s answer into
more acceptably offi cial shape.” Id. at 205.
100. See id. at 78–110 (providing detailed analyses of con-
versations between medical professionals and people
with intellectual disabilities).
101. Id. at 89–90.
102. See id. at 202 (“[Intellectual] competence is very much a
relative concept and moreover one which is, in actual
social practices, actively negotiated.”); id. at 208 (“I
think that it is reasonable to suggest that what we have
become used to thinking [of] as an essentialised condi-
tion affl icting persons is . . . nothing but a social construct
and cultural artifact. . . . Intellectual disability is, then,
not a thing-in-the-world awaiting discovery, but rather is
a disreputable moral status socially constructed, by psy,
as a speakable truth about [people considered intellectu-
ally disabled].” (citation and quotation marks omitted)).
103. Kutchins and Kirk, supra note 92, at 15.
104. Butler, Gender Trouble, supra note 7, at 9–10.
105. Moi, supra, note 35 at 49. See generally Martha C.
Nussbaum, The Professor of Parody: The Hip, Defeatist
Feminism of Judith Butler, New Republic, Feb 22, 1999,
at 37 (criticizing Butler’s radical social constructionism).
106. Butler, supra, note 69 at xi, 66–67; see also Moya Lloyd,
Judith Butler: From Norms to Politics 70–71 (2007).
107. See Judith Butler, Sex and Gender in Simone de
Beauvoir’s Second Sex, in 72 Yale French Studies:
Simone de Beauvoir: Witness to a Century 35, 45
( Hélène v. Wenzel ed., 1986) (“As a locus of cultural
interpretations, the body is a material reality which has
already been located and defi ned within a social con-
text. The body is also the situation of having to take up
and interpret that set of received interpretations.”); see
also Sara Salih, Judith Butler 74–75 (2002) (arguing
that Butler acknowledges the material body, but noting
that she also emphasizes discourse as the only way to
apprehend that body).
108. Butler, supra note 69, at 6.
109. Id. at 10.
110. Id.
111. Id. at xi.
112. See, e.g., Hacking, supra note 79, at vii–viii, 1–3
( explaining that the language of social constructionism
is trendy, overused, and often not very meaningful).
113. Aronowitz, supra note 78, at 14.
82. Anna Mollow, “When Black Women Start Going on
Prozac . . .”: The Politics of Race, Gender, arid Emo-
tional Distress in Meri Nana-Ama Danquah’s Willow
Weep for Me, in The Disability Studies Reader, supra
note 6, at 283, 290.
83. Id. at 290.
84. Id. at 290 n.30 (noting that “the formation of depression
as an impairment category has depended in large part
upon patients’ verbal articulations of their distress”).
85. Aronowitz, supra note 78, at 31.
86. Id. at 31.
87. Id. at 16.
88. Carey, supra note 88, at A1 (“This is not cardiology or
nephrology, where the basic diseases are well known”
(quoting Edward Shorter, History Professor, University
of Toronto)).
89. Dan Vergano, Study: Medical Manual’s Authors Often
Tied to Drugmakers, USA Today, April 20, 2006, at A6
(quoting Lisa Cosgrove, psychology professor, Univer-
sity of Massachusetts Boston).
90. Id.
91. Rapley, supra note 12, at 43–44.
92. Kutchins and Kirk, supra note 92, at 52–53; see also
Lars Noah, Pigeonholing Illness: Medical Diagnosis as
a Legal Construct, 50 Hastings L.J. 241, 248 (1999)
(“[M]ental health professionals often express greater
disagreements about an appropriate diagnosis for a par-
ticular patient because the relevant symptoms tend to be
non-specifi c, which means that any number of mental
illnesses could account for the particular complaint.”).
93. See Kutchins and Kirk, supra note 92, at 53 (“Serious
confusion about distinguishing mental disorders from
nondisordered conditions and the inability of clinicians
to use the manual reliably make the development and
use of DSM vulnerable to a host of nonscientifi c pres-
sures.”). Even medicine’s technical aspects, which are
seemingly unrelated to cultural infl uences, are “shaped
in part by the shared intellectual worlds and institu-
tional structures of particular communities and sub-
communities of scientists and physicians.” Rosenberg,
supra, note 76 at xiv.
94. See, e.g., Rapley, supra note 12; Goodley and Rapley,
supra note 66.
95. Rapley, supra note 12, at 80–84.
96. See id. at 28–29 (noting that, given the tests employed, it
is unsurprising that medical professionals view people
with intellectual disabilities as unreliable reporters on
their own lives).
97. Because the normal question-and-answer means of ver-
bal exchange is suspended, the imbalance may produce
pseudo-acquiescence. Id. at 93.
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468 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
to produce scientists and technicians needed for the
U.S. to remain ahead internationally in technologi-
cal development. This charge was widely publi-
cized in numerous popular magazines (e.g., Good
Housekeeping, Time ). American schools were com-
pared with Russian schools and found defi cient.
The chief problem, critics believed, was lax stan-
dards. For example, in March of 1958, Life maga-
zine compared the schooling of two boys; one in
Moscow and one in Chicago. It reported that in the
Soviet Union, “The laggards are forced out [of
school] by tough periodic examinations and shunted
to less demanding trade schools and apprentice-
ships. Only a third—1.4 million in 1957—survive
all 10 years and fi nish the course” (“School Boys,”
p. 27). In contrast, American students lounge in
classrooms that are “relaxed and enlivened by ban-
ter,” and in which the “intellectual application ex-
pected of [students] is moderate” (p. 33).
Recommendations for reforming American edu-
cation included (a) toughening elementary reading
instruction (Trace, 1961); (b) introducing uniform
standards for promotion and graduation and testing
students’ mastery of those standards through a reg-
ular, nation-wide examination system (“Back to the
3 R’s?,” 1957; Bestor, 1958); (c) grouping students
by ability so the bright students can move more
quickly through school and then go on to college
and professional careers, while the slower students
move into unskilled or semiskilled labor (“Famous
Educator’s Plan,” 1958; “Harder Work for Stu-
dents,” 1961; Woodring, 1957); and (d) assigning
the most intellectually capable teachers to the top
group of students (Rickover, 1957). To some extent,
all these reforms were implemented in the late
1950s and early 1960s.
In reading, elementary textbooks were tough-
ened and some tests were renormed. Chall (1977)
analyzed the readability levels of widely used text-
books published between 1930 and 1973. She found
elementary readers to offer progressively less chal-
lenge from 1944 until 1962; in 1962 fi rst grade read-
ers appearing on the market were more diffi cult, a
trend that continued into the 1970s. There is also
evidence that some widely used achievement tests
R E A D I N G 5 3
Learning Disabilities: The Social
Construction of a Special
Education Category
Christine E. Sleeter
Learning disabilities were offi cially founded with
the birth of the Association for Children with
Learning Disabilities (ACLD) in 1963. Learning
disabled children suffer chiefl y from an inability to
achieve certain standards for literacy. These stan-
dards have changed historically as requirements of
the American economy and the race for interna-
tional supremacy have changed. Let us examine
how the raising of reading standards, coupled with
social expectations that schools help America’s
cold war effort and also sort students for future
work roles in a stratifi ed economy, led to the cre-
ation of learning disabilities.
Before the twentieth century, most information
could be exchanged face to face and records were
relatively simple. At that time, children with read-
ing diffi culties did not present a great social prob-
lem because most Americans did not need to be
able to acquire new information through reading.
Industrial expansion escalated literacy standards,
requiring more and more people who could keep
and understand increasingly complex records, pur-
sue advanced professional training, and follow
written directions in the workplace. As literacy
standards in society escalated, schools responded
by emphasizing reading more and by expecting stu-
dents to attain increasingly higher levels of literacy
(Chall, 1983; Resnick & Resnick, 1977).
Before the 1980s, the most recent major escala-
tion of reading standards followed the Soviet
Union’s launching of Sputnik in 1957. Americans
reacted to Sputnik by charging schools with failing
Christine E. Sleeter is a Professor Emerita in the College of
Professional Studies at California State University Monterey Bay.
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READING 53: Learning Disabilities: The Social Construction of a Special Education Category 469
moved to urban areas, and the poor already living in
inner cities and rural areas (Bloom, Davis, & Hess,
1965). They were believed severely handicapped
by home environments that lacked environmental
stimuli; systematic ordering of stimuli sequences;
language training; and training in the value of intel-
lectual work, delayed gratifi cation, individuality,
and the belief that hard work brings success (e.g.,
Deutsch, 1963; Riessman, 1962).
A fi fth category came to be known as the learn-
ing disabled. Of the fi ve categories, this is the only
one for which descriptions of the kinds of neigh-
borhoods most likely to produce them were virtu-
ally absent from literature. The closest statement
one fi nds is that they are essentially “normal” or
come from “normal family stock” (Strauss &
Lehtinen, 1963, p. 112), whatever that means
(Strauss and Lehtinen), reknown pioneers in learn-
ing disabilities research, reported 12 case studies
that give some indication of what “normal family
stock” meant to them. Of the eight whose race was
specifi ed, all were white, and of the four whose
race was not specifi ed, two were of “above aver-
age” social standing or home environment. (No
data were given for the other two.)
The cause of LD reading retardation was be-
lieved to be organic. Hypothesized causes included
minimal brain damage (e.g., Strauss & Kephart,
1955), a maturational lag in general neurological
development (e.g., Bender, 1957; Rabinovitch,
1962), a failure of the brain to establish cerebral
dominance (Orton, 1937), or a failure to achieve
certain stages of neurological development
(Delcato, 1959). . . .
WHO WAS CLASSIFIED AS
LEARNING DISABLED?
. . . The learning disabilities category probably was
not consciously established just for white middle
class children, even though it was populated
mainly by them. It was established for children
who, given the prevailing categories used to de-
scribe failing children, did not seem to fi t any other
category. Since most educators explained the
were renormed shortly after Sputnik to refl ect
escalated standards for literacy. The 1958 version
of the Metropolitan Achievement Tests were re-
normed in 1964; the new norms refl ected average
reading levels 2 to 13 months higher for students in
grades 2 through 9 (no gain was found for fi rst
grade) (Special Report No. 7, 1971). Similarly, the
1957 version of the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills was
renormed in 1964. Hieronymus and Lindquist
(1974) reported that the average gain in reading
was 1.9 months at the 90th percentile, 2.6 months
at the 50th, and 1.0 months at the 10th.
Many children were unable to keep up, but few
blamed the raising of standards. Instead, students
who scored low on reading achievement tests were
personally blamed for their failure. By the early
1960s, children who failed in reading were divided
into fi ve categories, differentiated by whether the
cause of the problem was presumed to be organic,
emotional, or environmental, and whether the child
was deemed intellectually normal or subnormal.
They were called slow learners, mentally retarded,
emotionally disturbed, culturally deprived, and
learning disabled.
Slow learners and the mentally retarded were
distinguished mainly on the basis of IQ: Those
scoring between 75 and 90 were considered slow
learners, and those scoring below were considered
retarded. Both categories included disproportionate
numbers of low-income children and children of
color. As adults, slow learners were expected to oc-
cupy semiskilled and unskilled occupations, and
retarded individuals were expected to occupy un-
skilled occupations or work in sheltered workshops
(Goldstein, 1962). The emotionally disturbed also
included large numbers from low-income back-
grounds (Dunn, 1963). A subcategory was the “so-
cially maladjusted,” who were concentrated in
Black, Puerto Rican, and immigrant neighborhoods
(Shaw & McKay, 1942). A fourth category, which
overlapped considerably with the previous three,
was referred to as the culturally deprived. The Na-
tional Conference on Education and Cultural De-
privation held in 1964 identifi ed them as Puerto
Ricans, Mexicans, southern Blacks and whites who
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470 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
of the average white middle class home. If one
were to accept such homes as normal, organic ex-
planations for failure would seem plausible. One
must view this as peculiar, since the main propo-
nents of raising school standards to help America
retain economic and political international su-
premacy were members of the white middle class.
Yet rather than questioning the culture that viewed
children as raw material for international competi-
tion, most educators questioned the organic integ-
rity of members of that culture who could not
meet the higher demands.
Third, some viewed minimal brain dysfunction
as an organ defi ciency that could potentially be
cured in the same way diseases can be cured. The
cure was hypothesized as involving the training of
healthy brain cells to take over functions of dam-
aged cells (e.g., Cruickshank et al., 1961; Frostig &
Horne, 1964; Strauss & Lehtinen, 1963), the pro-
moting of overall neurological development (e.g.,
Doman, Delcato, & Doman, 1964), the training of
the brain to assume greater hemispheric domi-
nance (Orton, 1937), or the altering of chemical
balances through diet or drugs (e.g., Feingold,
1975; Sroufe & Stewart, 1973). Professionals may
have cautioned against overoptimism, but the pop-
ular press did not. For example, in 1959, News-
week readers were told about “Johnnies” with
“very high IQ’s” who can’t read due to inherited
neurological conditions. These “Johnnies” were
described as educationally treatable using the
Gillingham reading method; “Of the 79 Parker stu-
dents taught under the method so far, 96 percent
have become average or above average readers”
(“Learning to Read,” p. 110). In 1964, Reader’s
Digest provided case descriptions of children who
were brain-injured at birth and experienced diffi –
culty learning language, physical movements, and
reading. A new program for motor development by
Delcato and the Doman brothers was reported to
“activate the millions of surviving [brain] cells to
take over the functions of the dead ones” (Maisel,
1964, p. 137). Prognosis was reported excellent,
and readers were told that it even helped affected
children learn to read.
failures of children of color and lower socioeco-
nomic backgrounds with reference to the other
four categories, such children tended not to have
been placed in LD classes. White middle class par-
ents and educators who saw their failing children
as different from poor or minority children pressed
for the creation and use of this category. By defi n-
ing the category in terms of organic causality and
IQ score, the white middle class preserved for it-
self some benefi ts.
First, the use of IQ to help distinguish LD stu-
dents from other categories of failing children
suggested its members “really” belonged in the
middle or upper tracks or ability groups. As pro-
ponents of tracking during the late 1950s clearly
pointed out, students were to be sorted for differ-
entiated education based on ability, and members
of each track were destined to hold different kinds
of jobs in the labor market (e.g., Woodring, 1957).
White children tend to score about 15 points
higher on IQ tests than children of color, ensuring
a greater likelihood that they would be seen as in-
tellectually “normal” and thus potentially able to
fi ll higher status positions. The intent of defi ning
the category partly on the basis of IQ score was
probably not to disadvantage the “disadvantaged”
further, but to provide failing children whom edu-
cators saw as intellectually normal their best
chance for moving ahead as rapidly and as far as
possible.
Second, distinguishing between environmental
and organic causes of failure helped legitimate the
“superiority” of white middle class culture. The
literature during the early 1960s contains much
about the failings of low-income homes, and espe-
cially those of people of color. For example, read-
ers of Saturday Review in 1962 were told that
“slow learners appear most frequently in groups
whose home environment affords restricted op-
portunity for intellectual development” (“Slow
Learners,” p. 53), and that “culturally deprived
children” learn “ways of living [that] are not at-
tuned to the spirit and practice of modern life”
(“Education and the Disadvantaged American,”
p.  58). One does not fi nd similar condemnations
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READING 53: Learning Disabilities: The Social Construction of a Special Education Category 471
and subsequent school responses, and a redefi nition
of mental retardation.
Although standards for school achievement
were raised immediately after Sputnik, student test
scores have caused many to believe standards were
not maintained, for a variety of reasons (Goodlad,
1984). Declines in SAT scores, beginning in about
1966, have been widely publicized, and some state
achievement tests also have shown declines (Boyer,
1983). One would think that if standards for
achievement dropped during the late 1960s, fewer
students would have been seen as failures and inter-
est in classifying students as learning disabled
would have waned. What happened was the reverse,
due to other social developments.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, minority
groups pressured schools to discard the notion of
cultural deprivation and stop classifying dispropor-
tionate numbers of minority children as mentally
retarded. In 1973, the category of mental retarda-
tion (MR) was redefi ned, lowering the maximum
IQ score from one standard deviation below the
mean to two (Grossman, 1973), which dissolved
the category of slow learner. The intent of these
moves was to pressure schools to teach a wider di-
versity of students more effectively. Instead, many
students who previously were or would have been
classifi ed as retarded, slow, or culturally deprived
were now classifi ed as learning disabled.
For example, based on a study of the racial com-
position of LD and MR classes in over 50 school
districts between 1970 and 1977, Tucker (1980)
found Black students overrepresented in MR classes
but underrepresented in LD classes until 1972. After
1972, the proportion of the total school population in
MR classes declined and Blacks lost some overrep-
resentation in that category, but they rapidly gained
representation in LD classes, where they were over-
represented by 1974. Thus, even though pressure
may have subsided during the late 1960s and early
1970s to provide a protected placement for failing
white middle class children, learning disabilities has
been used increasingly as a more palatable substitute
for other categories to “explain” the failure of lower
class children and children of color. . . .
Probably due to these optimistic perceptions,
students in LD classes seem to have suffered lesser
negative teacher attitudes than other categories of
failing students. Research studies have found that
regular teachers see the LD student as less different
from the “norm” than the emotionally disturbed or
educable mentally retarded student, and as
demanding less of their time and patience (Moore &
Fine, 1978; Shotel, Iano, & McGettigan, 1972;
Williams & Algozzine, 1979), even when they
observe behavior that contradicts their expectations
for the label (Foster & Ysseldyke, 1976; Salvia,
Clark, & Ysseldyke, 1973; Ysseldyke & Foster,
1978). Studies have not compared teacher attitudes
toward LD and “culturally deprived” students, but
there is evidence that teachers have more negative
attitudes toward and lower expectation of children
of color and lower class children than white or mid-
dle class children (e.g., Anyon, 1981; Jackson &
Cosca, 1974; Rist, 1970).
Whether teacher attitudes toward various cate-
gories of exceptionality actually affected how stu-
dents were taught in school has not been reported
in the literature. However, there is evidence from
outside special education that teacher attitudes to-
ward children based on social class or presumed
intellectual ability do affect the quality and
amount of instruction they give (e.g., Brookover
et  al., 1979; Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968; Rist,
1970). Thus, it is reasonable to assume that teach-
ers gave more and better instruction to low-
achieving students labeled as learning disabled
than to low-achieving students bearing other la-
bels, even if actual behavioral differences among
such students would not in itself warrant differen-
tial treatment.
LEARNING DISABILITIES IN
THE 1970s
Since the early 1970s, there has been a shift in who
has been classifi ed as learning disabled and how the
category has been used politically. That shift was
propelled by a decline in the late 1960s in school
standards for achievement, the civil rights  movement
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472 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
Foster, G., & Ysseldyke, J. (1976). Expectancy and halo ef-
fects as a result of artifi cially induced teacher bias. Con-
temporary Education Psychology, 1, 37–45.
Frostig, M., & Horne, D. (1964). The Frostig program for
the development of visual perception. Chicago: Follett.
Goldstein, H. (1962). The educable mentally retarded child
in the elementary school. Washington, DC: National Edu-
cation Association.
Goodlad, J. I. (1984). A place called school. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Grossman, H., Ed. (1973). Manual on terminology and clas-
sifi cation in mental retardation (rev. ed.). Washington,
DC: American Association on Mental Defi ciency.
Harder work for students. (1961, Sept. 4). U.S. News and
World Report, p. 45.
Hieronymus, A. N. & Lindquist, E. G. (1974). Manual for
administrators, supervisors, and counselors, Forms 5&6,
Iowa tests of basic skills. Boston: Houghton Miffl in.
Jackson, G., & Cosca, C. (1974). The inequality of educa-
tional opportunity in the Southwest: An observational
study of ethnically mixed classrooms. American Educa-
tional Research Journal, 11, 219–229.
Learning to Read. (1959). Newsweek, p. 110.
Maisel, A. Q. (1964). Hope for brain-injured children. The
Reader’s Digest, 11, 219–229.
Moore, J., & Fine, M. J. (1978). Regular and special class
teachers’ perceptions of normal and exceptional children
and their attitudes toward mainstreaming. Psychology in
the Schools, 15, 253–259.
Orton, S. T. (1937). Reading, writing, and speech problems
in children. New York: W. W. Norton.
Persell, C. A. (1977). Education and inequality. New York:
The Free Press.
Rabinovitch, R. D. (1962). Dyslexia: Psychiatric consider-
ations. In J. Money (Ed.), Reading disability: Progress and
research needs in dyslexia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.
Resnick, D. P., & Resnick, L. B. (1977). The nature of liter-
acy: An historical exploration. Harvard Educational
Review, 47, 370–385.
Riessman, F. (1962). The culturally deprived child. New
York: Harper and Row.
Rist, R. C. (1970). Student social class and teacher expecta-
tions in ghetto education. Harvard Educational Review,
40, 411–451.
Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the
classroom. NYC: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.
Salvia, J., Clark, G., & Ysseldyke, J. (1973). Teacher reten-
tion of stereotypes of exceptionality. Exceptional Chil-
dren, 39, 651–652.
Shaw, C. R., & Mckay, H. D. (1942). Juvenile delinquency
and urban areas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Shotel, J. R., Iano, R. P. & McGettigan, J. F. (1972). Teacher
attitudes associated with the integration of handicapped
children. Exceptional Children, 38, 677–683.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What is the current effect of a learning-disability
diagnosis on a student’s secondary education?
2. In examining the history of the learning dis-
abilities category, is Sleeter implying that
learning disabilities are not “real”?
REFERENCES
Anyon, J. (1981). Elementary schooling and distinctions of
social class. Interchange, 12, 118–132.
Apple, M. W. (Ed.). (1981). Cultural and economic repro-
duction in education. Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Back to the 3 R’s? (1957, March 15). U.S. News and World
Report, pp. 38–44.
Bender, L. (1957). Specifi c reading disability as a matura-
tional lag. Bulletin of the Orton Society, 7, 9–18.
Bloom, B. S., Davis, A., & Hess, R. (1965). Compensatory
education for the culturally deprived. New York: Holt,
Rinehart, and Winston.
Boyer, E. L. (1983). High school. New York: Harper and
Row.
Brookover, W. B., Beady, C., Flood, P., Schweitzer, J., &
Wisenbaker, J. (1979). School social systems and student
achievement: Schools can make a difference. New York:
Praeger.
Chall, J. S. (1977). An analysis of textbooks in relation to
declining SAT scores. Princeton, NJ: College Entrance
Examination Board.
Chall, J. S. (1983). Stages of reading development. New
York: McGraw-Hill.
Cruickshank, W. M., Bentzen, F. A., Ratzeburg, F. H., &
Tannhauser, M. T. (1961). A teaching method for brain-
injured and hyperactive children. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse
University Press.
Delcato, C. H. (1959). The treatment and prevention of read-
ing problems. Springfi eld, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
Deutsch, M. (1963). The disadvantaged child and the learn-
ing process. In A. H. Passow (Ed.), Education in depressed
areas, (pp. 163–179). New York: Teachers College Press.
Doman, G., Delcato, C., & Doman, R. (1964). The Doman-
Delcato developmental profi le. Philadelphia: Institutes for
the Achievement of Human Potential.
Dunn, L. M. (1963). Exceptional children in the schools.
New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
Education and the disadvantaged American. (1962, May 19).
Saturday Review, p. 58.
Famous educator’s plan for a school that will advance students
according to ability. (1958, April 14). Life pp. 120–121.
Feingold, B. F. (1975). Why your child is hyperactive. New
York: Random House.
ros27020_rd37-54_359-480.indd 472ros27020_rd37-54_359-480.indd 472 01/09/15 1:26 PM01/09/15 1:26 PM

READING 54: (Re)Creating a World in Seven Days 473
R E A D I N G 5 4
(Re)Creating a World in Seven
Days: Place, Disability and
Salvation in Extreme Makeover:
Home Edition
Emily Askew
The world is sick. A readjustment has become neces-
sary. Readjustment? No, that is too tame. It is the pos-
sibility of a great adventure that lies before mankind:
the building of a whole new world . . . because there is
no time to be lost.—Le Corbusier 1967 1
We live within and among a series of overlapping
places: nation, city, neighborhood, home, and
body, whose meanings are formed and reformed at
the intersection of ideology, practices, and the built
environment. As an example of this complex inter-
play, libraries are interpreted to be quiet places,
thus we build the structure with sound absorbing
carpeting and acoustic emendations for sound, but
we build them as quiet places as well when we
“shush” a person in a neighboring carrel, we glare
at those breeching the quiet contract, or fi nally we
see that the unrepentant transgressor is ejected
from the place itself, and perhaps forbidden return.
Generation after generation, ideologies, practices,
and the built environment construct and recon-
struct libraries as quiet places.
2
In like manner are
bodies interpreted as “disabled.” Average bodies,
in need of reassurance as to their suffi ciency, con-
struct buildings to keep some people out or se-
verely inconvenienced; we construct bodies as
“disabled” when we patronize, infantilize, or sanc-
tify people with particular bodies, perpetuating
and ultimately sedimenting their “otherness” to
our “sameness.”
Special Report No. 7.(1971). Guidelines for standardization
sampling Metropolitan achievement tests special report.
New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Sroufe, L. A., & Stewart, M. A. (1973). Treating problem
children with stimulant drugs. New England Journal of
Medicine, 289, 407–413.
Strauss, A. A., & Kephart, N. C. (1955). Psychopathology
and education of the brain-injured child. New York:
Grune and Stratton.
Strauss, A. A., & Lehtinen, L. E. (1963). Psychology and
education of the brain-injured child. New York: Grune
and Stratton.
Trace, A. S., Jr. (1961, May 27). Can Ivan read better than
Johnny? Saturday Evening Post, pp. 30+.
Williams, R. J., & Algozzine, B. (1979). Teachers’ attitudes
toward mainstreaming. Elementary School Journal, 80,
63–67.
Woodring, P. (1957, Sept. 2). Reform plan for schools. Life,
pp. 123–136.
Ysseldyke, J. E., Algozzine, B., Shinn, M. R., & McGue, M.
(1982). Similarities and differences between low achiev-
ers and students classifi ed as learning disabled. Journal of
Special Education, 16, 73–85.
The following LD textbooks were reviewed in preparing
this article: Adelman, H. S. and Taylor, L. (1983) Learning
Disabilities in Perspective (Dallas, TX: Scott Foresman);
DeRuiter, J. A. and Wansart, W. L. (1982) Psychology of
Learning Disabilities (Rockville, MD: Aspen); Gearheart,
B. R. (1981) Learning Disabilities: Educational Strategies
(St. Louis, MO: Mosby); Hallahan, D. P. Kauffman, J. M.
and Lloyd, J. W. (1985) Introduction to Learning Disabili-
ties (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall); Johnson, S. W.
and Morasky, R. L. (1980) Learning Disabilities, 2nd ed.
(Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon); Kirk, S. A. and Chalfant,
J. C. (1984) Academic and Developmental Learning Dis-
abilities (Denver, CO: Love Pub. Co.); Lerner, J. (1981)
Learning Disabilities 3rd ed. (Boston, MA: Houghton
Miffl in); Mercer, C. D. (1983) Students with Learning
Disabilities, 2nd ed. (Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill);
Reid, D. K., and Hresko, W. P. (1981) A Cognitive
Approach to Learning Disabilities (New York: McGraw-
Hill); Sabatino, D. A., Miller, T. L., and Schmidt, C.
(1981) Learning Disabilities (Rockville, MD: Aspen);
Siegel. E. and Gold, R. (1982) Educating the Learning
Disabled (New York: Macmillian); Sloan, H. A. (1982)
The Treatment and Management of Children with Learn-
ing Disabilities (Springfi eld, IL: Charles C. Thomas);
Smith, C. R. (1983) Learning Disabilities (Boston, MA:
Little, Brown, and Co.); Smith, D. D. (1981) Teaching the
Learning Disabled (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall);
Woodward, D. M. and Peters, D. J. (1983) The Learning
Disabled Adolescents (Rockville, MD: Aspen).
Emily Askew is a professor of systematic theology at the
Lexington Theological Seminary in Lexington, Kentucky.
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474 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
these examples: James is the youngest of four chil-
dren of a single mother. Having spent time in a
homeless shelter with his mother and siblings, James
now lives with his family of fi ve in a tenement. Un-
able to walk, talk, or care for himself, James is car-
ried from place to place by his mother and siblings,
including upstairs to the bathroom and in and out of
the bathtub. The house is a shambles, James is grow-
ing larger and harder to carry, and his mother is get-
ting less and less able to care for him alone.
6
Shelby
Pope is a 12-year-old girl who is deathly allergic to
the sun, a rare condition called Polymorphous Light
Eruption (PMLE). She cannot be near the windows
in her present home; she cannot play in her yard or
ride in a car during the day without stringent precau-
tions. She does not go to school because of PLME
but is home schooled. Her house, it is determined, is
keeping her imprisoned. If her home is “fi xed” her
life will be more “normal.”
7
. . .
You Get What You Deserve
Thank you for your interest in applying for “Extreme
Makeover: Home Edition.” When casting our show we
look for families that are inspirational and deserving.—
from the online application
8

Not everyone with needs is eligible for architec-
tural salvation; only those who are both “inspira-
tional and deserving” are desirable. To be
inspirational and deserving seems to mean that not
only do the families/individuals suffer bravely, but
they also minimize their own needs by caring for
the “less fortunate” in the community. To be inspi-
rational and deserving of a house in which one can
move freely and accomplish the tasks of life means
surrendering the normal human emotions that ac-
company the limits imposed by architecture and
society: no anger or frustration here, no active de-
pression, no withdrawing from the world. Rather,
the “deserving family” must exhibit only “grit” and
gratitude. Nancy Eiseland and many others have
documented the cultural trope of the brave sufferer.
The brave sufferer is the woman or man who does
not complain but rather accepts her/his “fate” with
gratitude and equanimity. Clearly, EMHE rein-
forces the illusion that the virtuous sufferer is more
Generation after generation, the almost seamless
interplay between ideology, practices, and the built
environment constructs and reconstructs the identi-
ties we inhabit, from nation to body. We reinforce
these dominant interpretations of places until the
interpretations themselves recede to make room for
“the way things are.” The insight from place
theorists—geographers, philosophers, postcolonial
theorists, and cultural theorists, among others—
that places are never “naturally” endowed with
meaning parallels the insight from contemporary
disability theorists that there are no “natural” bod-
ies: “The body can be explained as the object of the
actions and interests of others.”
3
Thus the “natural”
body is a euphemism for agreed upon notions of,
for example, male/female, straight/gay, young/old,
white/black, healthy/ill, and able/unable/disabled.
4

Place theorists recognize that defi nitions of place
are dialectically related to persons in (or out of) that
place. Popular visual media contributes a great deal
to the illusion of “the way things are.”
It is within this semiotic matrix, defi ned by place
theorists and postmodern theories of disability, that
the ABC TV “reality” program Extreme Makeover:
Home Edition (EMHE) functions to interpret the
image of people with disabilities. The architectural
salvation epic that is EMHE exemplifi es the insight
that the relationships between persons and place are
mutually reinforcing until a dominant interpreta-
tion is secured. For EMHE, this refl exive reinter-
pretation is exemplifi ed in the heart of the show
when the condition of one’s home describes the
condition of one’s body and the quality of one’s
life. In what follows, I consider the ways that
EMHE constructs the human body as disabled
through the medium of architecture, borne along by
the narrative movements most often associated
with classical theories of sacrifi cial atonement.
GEOGRAPHY IS IDENTITY 5
States of Disrepair
At its most superfi cial rhetorical level, EMHE
equates the condition of the family home with the
condition of the bodies inside the home. Consider
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READING 54: (Re)Creating a World in Seven Days 475
WE CAN SAVE YOU
As the plastic surgery version did before it, the ar-
chitectural extreme makeover functions according
to a time-honored formula embodied in most West-
ern stories of salvation, from Sleeping Beauty to
Jesus Christ. Because EMHE relies so heavily on
religious language and imagery, I trace this for-
mula through the language of Christian sacrifi cial
atonement. The theological story of God’s sacrifi ce
for humans’ redemption goes something like this:
“God made a perfect world, but Adam and Eve
sinned. Their crime was passed down to all of us in
the form of ‘original sin,’ and now all human beings
are sinners, and deserve God’s condemnation. . . .
We had no way to escape that punishment, or ever
to make ourselves acceptable to God—until Jesus
came. Jesus died for us. . . . If we believe that . . . then
we are saved. By saved that means we are now
acceptable to God . . . and will go to heaven.”
15
The
movements in this story consist of the following
sequence: (a) fall from a perfect world, resulting
in  (b) radical, perpetual human brokenness, and
(c)  the inability to save ourselves from this state,
requiring (d) the sacrifi ce of a supernatural savior
for our sakes, resulting in (e) the end of our
brokenness and estrangement from the perfect
world.
“God Made a Perfect World . . .”
In the traditional Christian interpretation of the
story of Adam, Eve, and the serpent, in Genesis 3,
the Garden of Eden is described as the perfect
world: no strife, no lust, no pain, no suffering, no
evil. Through the actions of Eve, this perfection
was destroyed for human beings for all time, with
the result that we must live lives of pain, suffering,
and labor. Historically, human beings have at-
tempted to determine the signs of our “fall”; we
have labeled aspects of human embodiment as
markers of our sinful, fallen state. At one time or
another, being black, being female, being gay,
and/or being disabled have functioned as markers
of sin. (And if one is all four. . .?) As DeVries
points out, the theological interpretation of an
originally perfect creation to which we should
“inspirational and deserving” than someone mad-
der than hell that American culture has made life so
diffi cult. Expressions of anger are described in the
past tense, during a period before grit and gratitude
overcame them:
9
“Martha Walswick has nine
children but she lost her husband to cancer. The
family has struggled to cope with their loss but are
[sic] determined to face the future with a positive
disposition.”
10

Over the seven seasons of its existence, EMHE
has apparently ratcheted up the criteria for “inspira-
tional and deserving.” Whereas in the fi rst season
(2004) a single illness, disability, natural disaster,
or heroic deed qualifi ed a family for a makeover,
11

now a “deserving” family needs multiple catastro-
phes to qualify. For instance, the Vardon family is
considered deserving in the 2005 season. Here, a
15-year-old boy cares for two parents who are deaf,
along with his blind/deaf, autistic little brother who
frequently escapes the house.
12
Also deserving is
the Hassall family from the 2006 season. In this
family, Brian, a police offi cer shot in the head while
on duty, now suffers incapacitating migraine head-
aches when exposed to natural light. Thus, he lives
in the unfi nished basement of the home, protected
from the sun. His wife Michelle, who has cancer,
lives on the main fl oor with their two adopted chil-
dren, one African American and one Chinese with a
cleft palate.
13

Without a doubt, the selected families have ex-
traordinary needs, but what kind of message does
showcasing families with Jobian level suffering
send about the challenges of living in the world
with “only” a single issue? Equating “deserving”
only with confl uences of multiple social and physi-
cal problems suggests that unless the challenges are
Herculean and the emotional responses to the chal-
lenges equally heroic, one is not deserving of an
accessible home and/or relief from poverty, or even
homelessness. “Deserving” also means those indi-
viduals with a primary, “visible” disability and
those whose family structures are heterosexual
(even for single parents). Invisible disabilities and
gay families make for less acceptable television be-
cause invisible disabilities can be faked and being a
gay family cannot be. 14
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476 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
“. . . But Adam and Eve Sinned”
The prerequisite for theological, and now architec-
tural, supernatural assistance is human brokenness.
In the classical theory of atonement, brokenness
is the fault of humans, more specifi cally the
fault of Eve, the fi rst woman, who blew it for all
humanity with the apple (Gen. 2:4b–3). Archetypal
brokenness, the result of Eve’s act, is named “origi-
nal sin.” Traditionally, original sin has been con-
sidered a constitutional state from which no one
escapes and which, if left un-atoned for, dooms one
to an eternal life in hell. Theologically, original sin
is the human-caused condition that results in our
estrangement from God. Repairing the rift requires
a sacrifi ce greater than that which mere mortals
can accomplish, thus God, in God’s love, sacrifi ces
Godself for us through the God-man Jesus. Human
brokenness and estrangement, which would result
in eternal damnation, are thus foundational condi-
tions for the larger EMHE narrative of redemption.
In EMHE, human brokenness and the hell that
results are laid out fi rst in the application video,
then reinforced by a tour of the dilapidated home,
and fi nally summed up in interviews with family
members. Known as the “before” setting, in make-
over parlance, the images and comments from the
application videos and the tour of the “before”
house serve to describe just how dire the conditions
are for the deserving families. Emotional break-
down is critical to the inscription of brokenness. In
the section of the online application for EMHE en-
titled “How to Make a Family Casting Video,” the
family is encouraged to “Sit down and talk to cam-
era like an interview and tell us your story. Explain
your situation, why you think you deserve a make-
over? During this portion you want to be emotional,
open up and ask for help” 19 [Italics mine]. The “be-
fore” discourse describes dreams dashed, intimate
relationships fractured, parental responsibilities
abdicated to children, fi nancial resources run dry,
and hope teetering on the edge of some abyss. The
visual representation of these social and existential
conditions is the family home—burned or fl ooded,
mold-infested or leaking, toxic and dangerous to
return is perilous for people with disabilities. Such
an interpretation results in constructing people
with disabilities as damaged by virtue of sin—
either their own or someone else’s.
16
Pairing dis-
eased bodies with a diseased spiritual state
functions as a theological rationale for the random
dispersal of pain and suffering. Thus the disabled,
black, female person bears these “limitations” as
punishment from God for her own sins or the sins
of her ancestors. Diversity of embodiment be-
comes a function of the imperfect realm outside of
Eden, whereas conformity in appearance reiter-
ates the perfection of Eden.
In the EMHE discourse, the perfect world- theory
is at work in statements like these from Carlton
Marshall, a Dallas police offi cer paralyzed by a
gunshot in the neck who subsequently suffered a
stroke and was made deaf from meningitis. He
grieves that he cannot do what a husband/father/
breadwinner should do.
17
Parents cannot tuck chil-
dren in at night, children cannot play outside, het-
erosexual, married, parents cannot sleep in the
same bed (and we assume be intimate), children
must be parents and parents feel like children.
Clearly these are inversions of the perfect order in
which men, women and children all function ac-
cording to dominant, American gender- and age-
appropriate roles.
18

EMHE attempts to minimize the implication of
personal failure as the root cause of the pain for
“deserving” families. However, two elements in the
narrative arc of the show mitigate against com-
pletely dismissing the connection between fallen-
ness and human (in)action: (1) the very construction
of “deserving” simultaneously defi nes its opposite.
Something about the actions, attitudes, scope of
disability, or other aspects of their human natures,
keeps most families who apply from being consid-
ered “deserving” of a home that functions for them.
They have or have not done or said or embodied
something that would garner the favor of the pro-
ducers. (2) To underscore the heroic sacrifi ces
borne by the team, the “brokenness” of the family
has to be emphasized, complete with their admis-
sion that they cannot save themselves.
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READING 54: (Re)Creating a World in Seven Days 477
broken (sinful) humanity to a wholeness we cannot
accomplish for ourselves. This extreme gesture of
God, sacrifi cing Godself to death on our behalf, is
the mark of God’s extreme love for humankind.
God loves us so much (even in our brokenness) that
God is willing to die for us. Further, the extra-
ordinary nature of this sacrifi ce is marked by its
obliteration of the limits of space/time. After three
days in the tomb, Jesus’ body is gone—resurrected—
defying the bounds of physical death. We remem-
ber, as well, that the God of self-sacrifi ce and the
empty tomb is also the God of cosmic creation. In
the fi rst Genesis story, Gen. 1–2:4, God forms the
entirety of the earth in six days, with the seventh off
for rest. In humble contrast, Ty and crew require the
entire seven days of work to (re)create human lives.
The manipulation of time is a central hook of
EMHE and, in fact, all “extreme” reality shows:
“It’s a race against time on a project that would
normally span several months, involving a team of
designers, contractors and hundreds of workers
who all have just seven days to totally rebuild an
entire house!”
23
Sacrifi cing sleep, defying the ele-
ments, keeping up construction through illness, ac-
cidents, and irritations, Ty Pennington seems to
have given himself completely for the benefi t of the
“deserving” family.
24
Recipient families describe
the crew as angels, sing hallelujah, and fall to their
knees to thank God that their prayers have been
answered when the crew pulls up into their yard—
many “deserving” families believe that Ty has been
sent by God to help relieve them of the pain they
could not ease themselves.
“. . . Then We Are Saved . . . and
Will Go to Heaven.”
At the end of seven days’ building, tense to the very
end, the deserving family returns from their vaca-
tion to their new life in a new world, the ideal,
American, architectural world: “You’ll see dingy
kitchens get completely tricked out, spa-inspired
bathrooms built where icky ones once were, and
olympic-sized [sic] swimming pools installed in
what were once shabby overgrown yards. . . . And
the family in all manner of ways: a physical hell.
They have run out of their own fi nancial and physi-
cal but never spiritual resources.
“We Had No Way to Escape That
Punishment, or Ever to Make
Ourselves Acceptable to God.”
The EMHE narrative formula must include the con-
fession that the family can no longer help them-
selves (though they have tried repeatedly). By
abandoning agency, the EMHE family is rewarded
with a week’s vacation and a new house. The fam-
ily’s abjection is the necessary relief against which
the supernatural efforts of the EMHE crew will be
cast.
20
The EMHE families must fi t themselves into
what Garland-Thomson, citing Susan Bordo, calls
“a life-enhancing fi ction” to deserve a made-over
life.
21
By positioning themselves within the domi-
nant discursive construction of disability, the
EMHE families become eligible for the benefi ts of
the show and more widely become acceptable to a
larger audience, who insists on reliable tropes of
disability over/against which to assess their own
adequacy. But what are the liabilities of adopting
this or any essentialism? Moreover, what are effects
on persons called “disabled” when agency is in
question in this way?
22
. . .
“. . . Until Jesus Came.”
The interpretation of the adjective “extreme” in
ABC’s makeover genre applies to three elements of
Home Edition. First, the transformation of the
house is so extensive (and expensive) that it quali-
fi es as “extreme.” Second, the condition of the fam-
ily is so dire, due to the interplay of illness,
impairment, and natural and societal disaster, that
the family is narratively marked as an “extreme”
example of human suffering. Finally, “extreme” ap-
plies to the sacrifi ces of the cast and crew in accom-
plishing the transformation of the home/family in
seven days.
In the penultimate movement in the Christian,
theological, salvation narrative, a supernatural
savior, who is yet human, is sacrifi ced to restore
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478 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
illnesses, function by “enfreaking” individuals, and if
so, what are the possible long term social conse-
quences of this for persons with disabilities?
As used by David Hevey in The Creatures That
Time Forgot: Photography and Disability Imagery,
enfreakment reinforces limiting stereotypes under
the rubric of compassion and enlightenment.
29

Garland-Thomson suggests that “freaks are created
when certain bodies serve as the raw material for
the ideological and practical ends of both the me-
diators and the audiences . . . the sideshow freak
was made to exceed wildly the common, familiar
expectations set by the spectator’s own ordinary
body.”
30
Consider the O’Connoll family. They re-
ceived a home makeover because fi ve of their six
children have some form of autism spectrum disor-
der ranging from moderate to severe. In addition,
the home is hours away from being foreclosed on.
This family is identifi ed as the family with the
greatest number of biological children with ASD in
the United States. The EMHE rhetoric showcases
the family to increase compassion for ASD and to
inspire courage in its viewership. But it does so by
inscribing the normalcy of the viewer, because at
base, enfreakment is really about reassurance that,
for now, we are not them. We are reassured of our
suffi ciency corporally, architecturally, and theolog-
ically (i.e., our normalcy is a blessing from God).
31

In the most optimistic interpretation of EMHE,
we might apply this insight from Tanya Titchkosky:
“The hope of such encounter is that, upon interroga-
tion, it can lead to understanding, where under-
standing means neither acquiescing nor accepting,
but rather discerning how our culture already lives
through us and how we might better live through it.
I am suggesting that various and even confl icting
textual renderings of disability as hope, burden,
charity, promise, etc. are occasions to question how
we make bodies mean and to evaluate the sorts of
relations people can and do establish with the mean-
ing of disability.”
32
Cynically, we can argue that the
show enshrines the “normal” by enfreaking families
and individuals as a means of educating the masses.
Moreover, EMHE re-inscribes the Christian salva-
tion narrative, in which confessing debasement is
Ty and his crew do it from the ground up, adding
fi ve-star luxuries and the occasional theme park
attraction . . . a house pimped out to the extreme”
25

Not only does this new house meet the physical
needs of the family, it also meets the criteria for
“pimped out.” The new life can begin.
The interpersonal results of the external glory
are articulated as the ability of parents and children
to fulfi ll their proper roles in the family and in so-
ciety. Accessible bathrooms and hallways let dis-
abled adults function independently, no longer
requiring child-like care. Fathers can return to
“bread-winning” when car repair shops, wood-
working sheds, and the like are built on their new
properties.
26
The myth of American individualism,
with its tyrannical insistence on radical indepen-
dence, heteronormativity, and capitalist “produc-
tivity,” has its fl ag planted on the front lawns of
these McMansions.
27

ENFREAKMENT AS
ENLIGHTENMENT
AS ENFREAKMENT
In a memo purportedly from the casting director of
EMHE during its fourth season, “The Smoking
Gun” reports that instead of selecting families for
EMHE from application videos sent in voluntarily,
EMHE may solicit specifi c “disabilities” for its
show. The producer seeks children with “[c]ongeni-
tal insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis, referred to as
CIPA by the few people who know about it. (There
are 17 known cases in the US—let me know if one is
in your town!) This is where kids cannot feel any
physical pain.” Also desirable is a “family who has
multiple children w/Down Syndrome (either ad-
opted or biological),” and a family that suffered a
home invasion—one that has had a lasting, damag-
ing effect: “kids fear safety in their home now.”
28
If
there weren’t enough markers prior to this solicita-
tion, we can now ask about the ambiguous relation-
ship between enlightenment and enfreakment in
EMHE. Does this architectural spiritual epic, which
appears to educate its viewership about “ orphan”
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READING 54: (Re)Creating a World in Seven Days 479
Eds. Philip Auslander and Carrie Sandhal. Ann Arbor:
Univ. of Michigan Press, 2005.
Titchkosky, Tanya. Disability, Self, and Society. Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 2003.
Tischkosky, Tanya. Reading and Writing Disability Differ-
ently: The Textured Life of Embodiment. Toronto: Univer-
sity of Toronto Press, 2007.
Weber, Brenda, “Beauty, Desire and Anxiety: The Economy
of Sameness in ABC’s Extreme Makeover,” Genders,
Issue 41, Spring 2005. http://www.genders.org/.
Electronic Resources
Extreme Makeover Home Edition, Application, http://a.abc
.com/media/primetime/xtremehome/apply/EMHE
ApplicationS7 .
Extreme Makeover Home Edition, Episode Guide, http://abc
. g o . c o m / s h ow s / ex t r e m e – m a k e ove r- h o m e – e d i t i o n
/episodes-list.
The Smoking Gun, www.thesmokinggun.com/archive
/0327062extreme1.html.
Ted Kazynski’s Cabin, www.umt.edu/journalism/student
_work/unabomber/cabin.htm.
The X-Files, “Arcadia Falls.” http://x-fi les.wikia.com/wiki
/Arcadia.
NOTES
1. Rob Imrie, Disability and the City: International Per-
spectives (St. Martin’s Press: New York, 1996), 35.
2. Tim Cresswell, In Place/Out of Place: Geography, Ide-
ology, and Transgression (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1996), 16.
3. Tanya Titchkosky, “Acting Blind: A Revelation of Cul-
ture’s Eye.” In Bodies in Commotion: Disability and
Performance, Ed. Philip Auslander and Carrie Sandhal
(Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 2005), 204.
4. Mary Douglas, Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cos-
mology (London: Routledge, 1996), Introduction xxxvi.
5. Cresswell, In Place/Out of Place, 8–9
6. The Latif Family, Season 5, Episode 22. http://abc
.go.com/shows/extreme-makeover-home-edition
/episodes-list. Accessed January 2010.
7. The Pope Family, Season 2, Episode 3. “A young girl
with a sun poisoning condition gets a new lease on life,”
October 10, 2004. http://abc.go.com/shows/extreme
-makeover-home-edition/episodes-list.
8. http://a.abc.com/media/primetime/xtremehome/apply
/EMHEApplicationS7 . Accessed July 27, 2009.
9. Titchkosky, 2005, 211, citing Robillard (1999): “The
most powerful and common ideology that surrounds dis-
ability is ‘strength of the human spirit.’ ” If one should
suffer virtuously in order to gain spiritual merit, virtuous
suffering in the EMHE narrative gains one physical
the precondition for new, restored life, a life made
possible by the “extreme” sacrifi ces of the god-man
who, not accidentally, is a carpenter who embodies
the “American ideal self”: young, male, white, edu-
cated, wealthy, heterosexual and able-bodied.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What is the experience of watching Extreme
Makeover: Home Edition? What would an able-
bodied audience fi nd appealing in the shows?
2. Askew notes that, over the years, EMHE has
“ratcheted up its criteria for ‘inspiration and
deserving’.” Why would that have happened?
3. What stereotypes are reinforced by shows such
as EMHE?
REFERENCES
Cresswell, Tim. In Place/Out of Place: Geography, Ideology
and Transgression. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1996.
Cullinan, Colleen Carpenter. Redeeming the Story: Women,
Suffering and Redemption. New York: Continuum, 2004.
DeVries, Dawn. “Creation, Handicappism and the Commu-
nity of Difference.” In Christian Theology: An Introduc-
tion to Its Traditions and Tasks. Eds. Peter Hodgson and
Robert King. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985.
Dick, Kirby, Director. Sick: The Life and Death of Bob
Flanagan, Supermasochist (DVD). (1997).
Douglas, Mary. Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmol-
ogy. London: Routledge, 1996.
Eiseland, Nancy. The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory
Theology of Disability. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994.
Garland-Thomson, Rosemary. Extraordinary Bodies: Figur-
ing Physical Disability in American Culture and Litera-
ture. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.
Hevey, David. The Creatures Time Forgot: Photography and
Disability Imagery, 1840–1940. London: Routledge, 1992.
Imrie, Rob. Disability and the City: International Perspec-
tives. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.
Jones, Serene. Feminist Theory and Christian Theology:
Cartographies of Grace. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress,
2000.
Koosed, Jennifer and Darla Schumm, “Out of the Darkness:
Examining the Rhetoric of Blindness in the Gospel of
John.” Disability Studies Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 1. http://
www.dsq-sds.org/article/view/528/705
Titchkosky, Tanya. “Acting Blind: A Revelation of Culture’s
Eye.” In Bodies in Commotion: Disability and Performance.
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480 SECTION III: The Meaning of Difference
generic individual capable of creating his own perfected
self.” Anything less than this kind of agency is consid-
ered unfortunately limited and deserving of pity. This
cultural interpretation of agency is possible only for a
small minority of Americans: male, white, young,
upper-middle class, educated, heterosexual, and able-
bodied. Yet, this ideal of agency has been inscribed in
the American psyche as a transcendent good, yea a right,
of everyone, though the system is set for only a few to
achieve this end, and then only temporarily.
19. EMHE application, http://a.abc.com/media/primetime
/xtremehome/apply/EMHEApplicationS7 . Accessed
July 27, 2009.
20. “. . . . the Cowans are against the wall and are pleading
for help.” Cowan family, Season 7, Episode 14. http://
abc.go.com/shows/extreme-makeover-home-edition
/episode-guide/cowan-family/364606. Accessed January
2010.
21. Garland-Thomson, Extraordinary Bodies, 23.
22. Titchkosky, Disability, Self, and Society, 166. The issue
is agency—disabled people are considered lacking in
agency because they cannot control their bodies.
23. http://abc.go.com/shows/extreme-makeover-home
-edition/about-the-show. Accessed November 2009. For
an analysis of the manipulation of time in aesthetic
plastic surgery “reality” television, see Brenda Weber,
“Beauty, Desire and Anxiety: The Economy of Sameness
in ABC’s Extreme Makeover,” Genders, Issue 41,
Spring 2005. http://www.genders.org/.
24. In his book analyzing photographic images of people
with impairments in charity advertising, David Hevey
writes, “Disabled people appear in advertising to
demonstrate the successes of their administrators.”
The  Creatures Time Forgot: Photography and
Disability Imagery, 1840–1940 (London: Routledge,
1992), 54.
25. Ibid.
26. The Nutsch Family, Season 3, Episode 12. http://abc
.go.com/shows/extreme-makeover-home-edition
/episode-guide/nutsch-family/55255. Accessed January
2010.
27. Eiseland, The Disabled God.
28. “The Smoking Gun.” http://www.thesmokinggun.com
/archive/0327062extreme1.html. Accessed Jan 2010.
29. For the genesis of this fi ne concept see Hevey, The Crea-
tures Time Forgot.
30. Garland-Thomson, Extraordinary Bodies, 60.
31. Never mind the implication here that others remain
“ unblessed” (cursed, perhaps?) by God because they do
not share our “normal” lives.
32. Titchkosky, Reading and Writing Disability Differently, 16.
merit. On virtuous suffering see Nancy Eiseland, The
Disabled God: Toward a Theology of Disability
( Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), 70–75.
10. http://www.ultimatedisney.com/extrememakeover
homeedition-season1.html. Accessed Jan 2010.
11. For instance, in the fi rst season of EMHE, the Powers fam-
ily has one child with leukemia, the Cox family is poor
and the father was a youth pastor, the Mendoza family
is comprised of a single mother with foster sons. Gradu-
ally the stakes get raised: the hugely memorable “Sweet
Alice” Harris feeds the homeless, contributes to the lives
of poor children in the community, and has  lost every-
thing in a fl ood. Season 1, Episodes 1, 3, and 5. http://
abc.go.com/shows/extreme-makeover-home-edition
/episodes-list. Accessed November 2009.
12. The Vardon Family; Season 2 Episode 7. http://abc
.go.com/shows/extreme-makeover-home-edition
/episodes-list. Accessed November 2009.
13. The Hassell Family, Season 3, Episode 28. http://abc
.go.com/shows/extreme-makeover-home-edition
/episodes-list. Accessed November 2009.
14. “Invisible” disabilities include problems like chronic
pain, as with fi bromyalgia, dyslexia, and other learning
disabilities, mental illnesses, birth defects, and other chal-
lenges that do not manifest in the need for a wheelchair or
appear otherwise “visible” to the general public. Accord-
ing to Garland-Thomson ( EB, 14), “An invisible disabil-
ity, much like a homosexual identity, always presents the
dilemma of whether or when to come out or pass.”
Tanya Titchkosky notes the ‘problem of “invisible
disabilities”—they are often seen as made up when
a  student needs accommodation in the classroom.
Disability, Self, and Society (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 2003), 166.
15. Colleen Carpenter Cullinan, Redeeming the Story:
Women, Suffering and Redemption (New York:
Continuum, 2004), 10–11. This interpretation draws pri-
marily on the work of the Anselm, Church Father, from his
work Cur Deus Homo, and John Calvin in the Institutes.
16. Dawn DeVries, “Creation, Handicappism and the Com-
munity of Difference,” in Peter Hodgson and Robert
King, eds. Christian Theology: An Introduction to its
Traditions and Tasks (Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
1985).
17. The Marshall Family, Season 7, Episode 6. http://abc
.go.com/shows/extreme-makeover-home-edition
/episodes-list. Accessed Dec 2009.
18. Garland-Thomson, Extraordinary Bodies, 64. Garland-
Thomson describes the American ideal self as “an au-
tonomous producer—self-governing and self-made—a
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481
S E C T I O N I V
BRIDGING DIFFERENCES
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482 SECTION IV: Bridging Differences
FRAMEWORK ESSAY
A book such as The Meaning of Difference runs the risk of leaving students with
the feeling that there is little they can do to challenge the constructions of difference.
Having recognized the power of master statuses and the signifi cance of our concep-
tions of difference in everything from personal identity to world events, it is easy
to feel powerless in the face of what appear to be overwhelming social forces.
But we did not write this book because we felt powerless or wanted you to
feel that way. For us, the idea of looking at race, sex, social class, sexuality, and
disability all together opened up new possibilities for understanding and creating
alliances. When we fi rst started to talk about this book, comparing our teaching
experiences in a highly diverse university and our personal experiences of stigma
and privilege, we were amazed by the connections we saw. That impression grew
as we talked with students and friends who were members of other groups. Over
time, we learned that understanding the similarities across groups opened up new
ways of thinking: experiences could be accumulated toward a big picture, rather
than being suffered in relative isolation; people could be different but still have
had the same experience; people who never had the experience might still have
ways to understand it. We believe the world is more interesting and hopeful with
the realization that the experience of being in “the closet” is generally the same
irrespective of which status brought you there, or that a variety of race and ethnic
groups are subject to racial profi ling, or that white women often experience the
double consciousness that W. E. B. Du Bois described for blacks. When we real-
ized how readily people could generalize from their own experience of stigma
and privilege to what others might experience, we were energized.
That energy led to this book. But what should you do with your energy and
insight? Or if you are feeling beaten down and depressed, rather than energized,
what can you do about that?
Let us start with the worst-case scenario—that is, the possibility that you feel
powerless to bring about social change and hopelessly insignifi cant in the face of
overwhelming social forces. Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon outcome in
higher education, nor is it distinctive to this subject matter. The emphasis in higher
education is more on “understanding” than “doing.” Most university coursework
stresses detached, value-neutral reasoning, not passionate advocacy for social
change.
In the natural sciences, it is taken for granted that the aim is to explain an external order
of nature. In literature, the text is an object to be interpreted. In politics, government is a
phenomenon to be analyzed. Everywhere, it is intimated that the stance of the educated
person should be that of the spectator. . . . In the contemporary university, one quickly learns
that certain questions are out of order. One does not ask persistently about what ought to
be done, for normative questions entail what are called value judgments, and these are said
to be beyond the scope of scientifi c analysis.
1

Paradoxically, however, education is also the source of much social change.
We all know this almost instinctively. Educational institutions teach us our rights
and our history, sharpen our thinking and decision-making, and open us to others’
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Framework Essay 483
lived experience. Learning changes us, and higher education is explicit in its
intention to produce that effect. The university is, after all, “an educational insti-
tution. As such, it is expected to have an impact on the society of which it is a
part. . . . [T]he task of the university is not only to explore, systematically, the
nature of the world, but also to scrutinize the practices of everyday life to see if
they can be improved.”
2

Recognizing the paradoxical nature of higher education, that it can both empower
and disempower, means, in truth, that an element of choice—your choice—is
involved in whether you are discouraged or inspired at the end of a course.
There is, however, another reason you might leave this material feeling power-
less. This has more to do with the nature of society than with the nature of edu-
cation, but it again involves paradox and personal choice. Eminent sociologist
Peter Berger called this the “Janus-faced” nature of human society. The Roman
god Janus, for whom January was named, symbolized beginnings and endings,
past and future, change and transition, and was depicted as having two faces
looking in opposite directions. Berger used that image to convey that just as
individuals are rarely wholly powerful, neither are they wholly powerless. In this
analogy, Berger found a visual image for the truth that we are both the authors
and victims—architects and prisoners—of social life. We both make society and
are made by it. (And in our own spirit of powerfulness, we have edited out the
sexism in Berger’s prose below.)
No social structure, however massive it may appear in the present, existed in this massivity
from the dawn of time. Somewhere along the line each one of its salient features was
concocted by human beings, whether they were charismatic visionaries, clever crooks,
conquering heroes or just individuals in positions of power who hit on what seemed to them
a better way of running the show. Since all social systems were created by [humans], it
follows that [humans] can also change them.
Every [person] who says “I have no choice” in referring to what his [or her] social role
demands of him [or her] is engaged in “bad faith.” . . . [People] are responsible for their
actions. They are in “bad faith” when they attribute to iron necessity what they themselves
are choosing to do.
3

While you do not have the power to change everything, you certainly have the
power to change some things. Gandhi’s paradox, discussed by Allan Johnson in
Reading 56, captures this point: “Gandhi once said that nothing we do as indi-
viduals matters, but that it’s vitally important to do it anyway.”
So we urge you to move beyond your sense of being powerless and get on
with the work of social change. We offer some suggestions here for that process,
much of it drawn from work we have found both inspirational and practical.
We Make the Road by Walking
“We make the road by walking” was Spanish poet Antonio Machado’s (1875–1939)
adaptation of a proverb: “ se hace camino al andar ,” or “you make the way as you
go.” It is also the title of a published dialogue between two famous educator-
activists, Myles Horton and Paulo Freire.
4

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484 SECTION IV: Bridging Differences
Myles Horton founded the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee in 1932, when
American racial segregation was still fi rmly in place. A unique school, Highlander
offered racially integrated adult education—especially in history, government, and
leadership—to the rural poor and working-class residents of the Cumberland
Mountain communities. Horton’s aim was to “use education as one of the instru-
ments for bringing about a new social order.”
5
While many southern labor union
leaders studied at Highlander, the school is probably best known for its contribu-
tion to the civil rights movement. Highlander taught the methods of nonviolence
and started “Citizenship Schools,” which taught southern blacks to read and write,
so that they could pass the tests required to vote. (Literacy tests have been used
in many countries to keep poor people from voting. In the United States, they
were used in southern states to keep African Americans from voting, until passage
of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.) Probably the most famous Highlander student was
Rosa Parks, whose refusal to move to the back of the bus sparked the Montgomery,
Alabama, bus boycott and the civil rights movement.
The second member of the dialogue, Paulo Freire, was author of the classic
book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed . Freire was in charge of a Brazilian national
literacy program in the 1960s, before the government was overthrown by a mili-
tary coup. Like American blacks before 1965, Brazil’s poor were also denied the
right to vote with the excuse that they were illiterate. After the military coup,
Freire was forced to fl ee from Brazil, but he went on to write and develop literacy
programs elsewhere. His work was distinguished by its emphasis on teaching
literacy through real community issues. His belief that education must operate as
a dialogue, rooted in values and committed to transforming the world, made him
one of the most infl uential thinkers of the last century.
Apart from the example that Myles Horton’s and Paulo Freire’s lives provide for
the power of education to produce social change, we turn to them here for some
basic lessons about transforming learning into action. First, we hope the phrase “we
make the road by walking” helps you remember that you are the best person to
know which “social interventions” will work for you. There is probably nothing
more fundamental to social change than learning who you are; fi nding and honoring
that authentic self; recognizing that it is multifaceted, complex, and evolving —and
then making sure that the social change methods you use are consistent with that
self. If you are going to pursue something as important as social change, it might
as well be you who is doing it, not your impersonation of someone else.
“We make the road by walking” also conveys that the road has not already
been built. Although there are many helpful resources, you will not fi nd a recipe
book designed for all the situations you will face, nor would that necessarily be
a good idea. One of Myles Horton’s experiences with a union strike committee
illustrates this point:
[Members of the committee] were getting desperate. They said: “Well, now you’ve had more
experience than we have. You’ve got to tell us what to do. You’re the expert.” I said: “No,
let’s talk about it a little bit more. In the fi rst place I don’t know what to do, and if I did
know what to do I wouldn’t tell you, because if I had to tell you today then I’d have to tell
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Framework Essay 485
you tomorrow, and when I’m gone you’d have to get somebody else to tell you.” One guy
reached in his pocket and pulled out a pistol and says, “Goddamn you, if you don’t tell us
I’m going to kill you.” I was tempted then to become an instant expert, right on the spot!
But I knew that if I did that, all would be lost and then all the rest of them would start
asking me what to do. So I said: “No. Go ahead and shoot if you want to, but I’m not going
to tell you.” And the others calmed him down.
6

So it is important to recognize that, to some extent, you will need to be your
own resource, and you will never have all the answers you need. Horton described
two approaches to this inevitable incompleteness. First, “What I fi nally decided,
after three or four years of reading and studying and trying to fi gure this thing
out, was that the way to do something was to start doing it and learn from it.” 7
And second, “ People learn from each other. You don’t need to know the answer.” 8
President Barack Obama’s route to becoming a community organizer in Chicago
has some parallels. Without knowing what the job entailed or anyone who made
a living that way, he decided that was what he wanted to do when he fi nished
college. Obama goes on to say, “And so, in the months leading up to graduation,
I wrote to every civil rights organization I could think of, to any black elected
offi cial in the country with a progressive agenda, to neighborhood councils and
tenant rights groups.”
9
No one wrote back. Several months, jobs, and periods of
unemployment later, a Jewish community organizer funded by local churches,
who was trying to create a coalition of urban blacks and suburban whites to save
manufacturing jobs in Chicago, hired him as a trainee. “He needed someone to
work with him, he said. Somebody black.”
10
Things did not go especially well:
community members, who had already been at this for several years, were dis-
couraged and ready to quit; the black Chicago political establishment was not
supportive; it was diffi cult to fi nd the issues that could bind and motivate people;
and people were skeptical about the involvement of a college student with no
apparent religious motivation. Only after many long months did a clear and com-
pelling community issue emerge—the fact that there were no Mayor’s Employ-
ment and Training (MET) programs in the parts of Chicago where the neediest
African Americans lived.
Two weeks of preparation and yet, the night of the meeting, my stomach was tied up in
knots. At six forty-fi ve only three people had shown up: a young woman with a baby who
was drooling onto her tiny jumper, an older woman who carefully folded a stack of cookies
into a napkin that she then stuffed into her purse, and a drunken man who immediately
slouched into a light slumber in a back-row seat. As the minutes ticked away, I imagined
once again the empty chairs, the offi cial’s change of mind at the last minute, the look of
disappointment on the leadership’s faces—the deathly smell of failure.
Then, at two minutes before seven, people began to trickle in. Will and Mary brought a
group from West Pullman; then Shirley’s children and grandchildren walked in, fi lling up an
entire row of seats; then other Altgeld residents who owed Angela or Shirley or Mona a favor.
There were close to a hundred people in the room by the time Ms. Alvarez [representing
MET] showed up—a large imperious, Mexican American woman with two young white men
in suits trailing behind her. . . .
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486 SECTION IV: Bridging Differences
The leadership acquitted themselves well that night. Angela laid out the issue for the crowd
and explained to Ms. Alvarez what we expected from her. When Ms. Alvarez avoided giving
a defi nite response, Mona jumped in and pushed for a yes-or-no answer. And when
Ms.  Alvarez fi nally promised to have a MET intake center in the area within six months,
the crowd broke into hearty applause. . . .
11

Thus, Obama’s experience demonstrates that “we make the road by walking.”
Work on Yourself First
Challenging social constructions of difference by working on yourself fi rst may
not seem earth shattering, but it is the unavoidable fi rst step on the road. We think
there are four main lessons on which to concentrate:
1. Increase your tolerance for making mistakes. In his dialogue with Miles
Horton, Paulo Freire remarked, “I am always in the beginning, as you”—and at
that point Freire was 66 years old and Horton 82. Realizing how little you know
about other people’s life experience is a way to prepare for the absolute inevitabil-
ity that, in trying to build connections across difference, you will make mistakes.
You must increase your tolerance of your mistakes or risk giving up altogether,
and you must try to focus on learning from all these attempts—good, bad, or ugly.
As one of our colleagues often tells her students, when you are worried that you’ll
say the wrong thing, you wind up holding back, not extending yourself—and
missing an opportunity for connection. Our advice is to just get used to making
mistakes. There is no way around them.
2. Appreciate the statuses you occupy. “Appreciating” your statuses—
stigmatized and privileged —may sound odd, but it is the foundation that allows
you to respond with more clarity to others’ experiences of their statuses. By
appreciating your own statuses, we mean honoring, valuing, and having some
reasonable level of comfort about being white, black, Asian, or Latino; male or
female; wealthy, middle class, or poor; disabled or nondisabled; straight, bisexual,
or gay. Appreciating your status means not being ashamed of who you are.
Is there a part of your identity of which you are not proud? Is there a part of who you are
that you tend to hide from people? One of the most profound blows to oppression is claiming
legitimate delight in who we are . . . . Notice where you struggle in claiming pride in who
you are. This is the preliminary work that must be done to work against all forms of
oppression.
Reclaiming pride in our identities entails knowing our histories, becoming familiar not
only with the side of history that causes us shame but also with the side that offers us hope.
Ever mindful not to distort historical realities, it is nonetheless possible, even in the midst
of the worst acts of oppression, to claim as our ancestors the few people who resisted the
oppression. For example, in the present, it is useful for many people of German heritage to
remember that there were heroic Germans who resisted Nazi anti-Semitism. . . . [A]long
with the unfathomable devastation of the Holocaust, this minority tradition of resistance is
also part of the history of the German people.
12

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Framework Essay 487
Ironically, at this juncture in American society, some level of shame seems
to adhere to both stigmatized and privileged statuses. We don’t want to mislead
you into thinking that getting over that shame is an easy task, but recognizing
the existence of shame and its dysfunction is an important fi rst step. As Brown
and Mazza suggest in the previous quote, learning the full history of “your
people”—good deeds and bad—will help you fi nd heroes, as well as avoid
false  pride.
3. Learn to “sit in the fi re.” For those in privileged statuses, guilt seems to
be the most common reaction to discussions of prejudice and discrimination. For
those in stigmatized statuses, anger probably ranks at the top. Those who occupy
both privileged and stigmatized statuses are “privileged” to experience both ends
of this emotional continuum! Insofar as race, sex, social class, disability, and
sexuality are all on the table, everyone will probably have the opportunity for an
intense emotional experience. That’s a lot of emotion, not to mention that people
have varying abilities to talk about—or even experience—those feelings. Either
way, bridging differences sometimes means we must be willing to “sit in the
fi re”
13
of confl ict and intense emotion.
Regarding guilt, our advice is not to succumb to it. It is both immobilizing and
distracting. Focusing on how badly you feel means that you are the subject of
attention, not the people whose experience you are trying to understand.
About anger, our advice is more complicated. When it’s someone else’s anger,
listen carefully so that you can understand it. Don’t stop listening because you
don’t like the message or the way it is packaged. Don’t take an expression of
anger personally unless you are told it actually is about you. Try not to let some-
one else’s anger trigger your own, because that will distract you from listening.
Recognize that you can withstand someone’s anger.
When you are the one who is angry, try not to let it overwhelm you. Try to
distinguish between a setting in which you are under attack and one populated
by friends, or potential friends, who are trying to learn about your experience.
Try to distinguish people who are malevolent from those who are misguided, or
simply awkward in their efforts to help. Try to avoid self-righteousness. Your
having been injured doesn’t mean that you have not also infl icted injury. Remem-
ber that “every person is important, even those who belong to majority groups
that have historically oppressed other groups.”
14

As you experience sitting in the fi re, remember that the benefi ts of diversity
derive from engagement, not passive observation. Interaction about difference will
inevitably entail periods of disagreement and confl ict. Parker Palmer is a sociolo-
gist and nationally renowned expert on higher education. We quote him at length
below, because he offers such a clear picture of what both frightens and draws us
to engagement across difference.
We collaborate with the structures of separation because they promise to protect us against
one of the deepest fears at the heart of being human—the fear of having a live encounter with
alien “otherness,” whether the other is a student, a colleague, a subject, or a self-dissenting
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488 SECTION IV: Bridging Differences
voice within. We fear encounters in which the other is free to be itself, to speak its own truth,
to tell us what we may not wish to hear. We want those encounters on our own terms, so that
we can control their outcomes, so that they will not threaten our view of world and self . . . .
This fear of the live encounter is actually a sequence of fears that begins in the fear of
diversity. As long as we inhabit a university made homogeneous by our refusal to admit
otherness, we can maintain the illusion that we possess the truth about ourselves and the
world—after all, there is no “other” to challenge us! But as soon as we admit pluralism, we
are forced to admit that ours is not the only standpoint, the only experience, the only way,
and the truths we have built our lives on begin to feel fragile. . . .
Otherness, taken seriously, always invites transformation, calling us not only to new facts
and theories and values but also to new ways of living our lives—and that is the most
daunting threat of all.
15

But what if there appears to be no diversity in the setting in which you fi nd
yourself? The odds are that is just how things look. No matter how homogeneous
a group may seem, there will be layers of signifi cant difference beneath the
appearances. “Taking the time to examine [those less visible differences] can be
invaluable, not only for creating a climate that welcomes the differences already
present in the group, but also for laying the groundwork for becoming more
inclusive of other differences.”
16

4. Be an ally. Appreciate your allies. We conclude this list with what we
think is the most important of the lessons. Be an ally; fi nd allies; appreciate your
allies. There is nothing complicated about the concept of an ally: an ally is sim-
ply someone committed to eliminating stigma and the ill-treatment of those in
stigmatized statuses. If you remember a time when you were treated unfairly
because of a status you occupy and think about what you wish someone had done
or said on your behalf, you will then understand the critical role an ally can play,
and you will have a good sense of what the role calls for. Beyond that, you can
learn about being an ally by asking people what would be helpful and by educat-
ing yourself about the history and experience of those in stigmatized groups.
Many of the personal accounts in this book are about having or wishing for an
ally. John Larew’s article on legacy admissions (Reading 32) is an example of
being an ally. The article—written while he was editor of Harvard’s Crimson
Tide —sparked an extended national discussion on legacy admissions. Larew can
take considerable credit for the attention now being paid to the underrepresenta-
tion of low-income students in colleges and universities.
While Larew’s article grew out of his daily experience and the media access
he had as editor of the Crimson Tide, other ways of being an ally are available
to virtually anyone, anytime—even, for example, at lunch. We single out this
meal, because it is generally a public one, in which members of stigmatized cat-
egories are likely to fi nd themselves with limited options: eat with other members
of the category, eat alone, or hide. So an ally (or potential ally) might extend an
invitation to share a sandwich.
Being an ally, however, is not only about what you can do on your own. It is
also about joining with others in collective action. The social movements that have
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Framework Essay 489
historically transformed the status of stigmatized groups in America, such as the
women’s movement or the civil rights movement, included some people from
privileged statuses, just as privileged allies have joined with members of stigma-
tized groups in innumerable more localized ways: university chapters of Men
against Sexism, community groups like Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays,
elected offi cials who sponsor antidiscrimination legislation, the 1960s college stu-
dents who risked their lives to register black voters in the South, the Muslims in
Rwanda who helped Tutsis escape from the 1994 genocide. You might consider
how you could become an ally who makes a difference.
Still, getting allies sometimes requires asking for help and even telling people
what you specifi cally want or don’t want them to do. People who are disabled do
this in a powerful video on YouTube called “A Credo for Support,” telling their
potential allies:
Do not see my disability as the problem. Recognize that my disability is an attribute.
Do not try to fi x me, because I am not broken. Support me. I can make my contribution to
the community in my way.
Do not see me as your client. I am your fellow citizen. See me as your neighbor. Remember,
none of us can be self-suffi cient.
Do not try to change me. You have no right. Help me learn what I want to know.
Do not try to be my friend. I deserve more than that. Get to know me. We may become friends.
Do not help me, even if it does make you feel good. Ask me if I need your help.
Do not admire me. A desire to live a full life does not warrant adoration. Respect me, for
respect presumes equality.
Do not tell, correct, and lead. Listen, support, and follow.
Do not work on me. Work with me.
17

While you might wish for allies who could read your mind and step in and out
at exactly the right moment, it is unlikely you will fi nd people like that. The
people you do fi nd, however, will probably be more easily recruited to become
allies with appreciation than with guilt.
We rarely increase our effectiveness by dwelling on all of the things we still need to get
right. This principle is especially important for those of us who are seeking allies. Pointing
out only how the people around us have failed usually only increases their discouragement.
Remembering the successes can lead to increased confi dence and a greater ability to be an
effective ally.
18

White men who are straight and nondisabled can often be powerful allies.
When such a person speaks on behalf of those in stigmatized statuses, he stands
a good chance of being heard, if only because he appears not to be acting out of
vested interest. His intervention can change the dynamic, provide a role model
for others, and give those in stigmatized statuses a break from always being the
ones to raise the contentious points. Once, on a panel about gender, we saw one
of the men fl ag issues of sexism that the women panelists would otherwise have
had to note. It seemed to us that they appreciated his intervention.
Being an ally is also sometimes called for among one’s friends and loved ones,
in those more private settings where people feel freer to air and cultivate their
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490 SECTION IV: Bridging Differences
prejudices. Like Paul Kivel, who suggests in Reading 58, some ways to respond
in these situations, we would also urge you to be an “ally with a heart” in these
settings.
Condemning people, shaming them, and making them feel guilty are all unproductive strat-
egies: They all increase defensiveness rather than creating an opening for change. . . .
Condemning people rarely helps them to change their behavior. Instead, think about what
you honestly appreciate about the person. Also consider the ways that person has made any
progress, even if it’s only slight, on the issue that is of concern to you. Practice telling that
person the things she is doing right. Appreciation leads to action; condemnation leads to
paralysis.
People are often afraid to appreciate someone whose behavior they disapprove of, for
fear that the appreciation will keep the oppressive behavior unchallenged. However, only
by seeing what is human in the person who acts oppressively can we hope to bring about
change. All of us are more receptive to suggestions to change when we know we are
liked.
19

A Concluding Note
We opened this essay worried that our readers felt powerless and insignifi cant.
We close with the hope that you now understand that challenging the constructions
of difference is well within all of our capabilities.
KEY CONCEPTS
ally Someone from a privileged status committed to
eliminating stigma and the ill-treatment of those in
stigmatized statuses. (page 488)
Gandhi’s paradox Although nothing we do as indi-
viduals matters, it is important to take action any-
way. (page 483)
Janus-faced nature of society That people are
neither wholly powerful nor wholly powerless; they
are both the architects and prisoners of social life.
(page 483)
ENDNOTES
1. Anderson, 1993:34–35, 36.
2. Ibid., 59.
3. Berger, 1963:128, 143–44.
4. Bell, Gaventa, and Peters, 1990.
5. Ibid., 1990: xxiii.
6. Ibid., 1990:126.
7. Ibid., 1990:40; emphasis added.
8. Ibid., 1990:55; emphasis added.
9. Obama, 2004:135.
10. Ibid., 141.
11. Ibid., 184-85.
12. Brown and Mazza, 1997:5–6; emphasis added.
13. Mindell, 1995.
14. Brown and Mazza, 1997:5.
15. Palmer, 1998: 36–38; emphasis added.
16. Brown and Mazza, 1997:13.
17. Kunc and Van der Klift, 2007.
18. Brown and Mazza, 1997:49.
19. Ibid., 3.
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Framework Essay 491
REFERENCES
Anderson, Charles W. 1993. Prescribing the Life of
the Mind: An Essay on the Purpose of the Univer-
sity, the Aims of Liberal Education, the Competence
of Citizens, and the Cultivation of Practical Reason.
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Bell, Brenda, John Gaventa, and John Peters. 1990.
We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on
Education and Social Change. Philadelphia: Temple
University Press.
Berger, Peter L. 1963. Invitation to Sociology:
A  Humanistic Perspective. New York: Anchor Books.
Brown, Cherie R., and George J. Mazza. 1997. Heal-
ing into Action: A Leadership Guide for Creating
Diverse Communities. Washington, DC: National
Coalition Building Institute.
Kunc, Norman, and Emma Van der Klift. 2007.
A  Credo for Support (People First Version).
People  First of San Luis Obispo. www.youtube.com
/watch?v=wunHDfZFxXw (accessed May 2007).
Mindell, Arnold. 1995. Sitting in the Fire: Large
Group Transformation Using Confl ict and Diversity.
Portland, OR: Lao Tse Press.
Obama, Barack. 2004. Dreams from My Father:
A  Story of Race and Inheritance. New York:
Three  Rivers Press.
Palmer, Parker J. 1998. The Courage to Teach:
Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’ s Life.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
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492 SECTION IV: Bridging Differences
R E A D I N G 5 5
ADOLESCENT MASCULINITY
IN AN AGE OF DECREASED
HOMOHYSTERIA
Eric Anderson
September 17, 2012, my (same-sex) husband and
I touched-down in London Heathrow Airport with
our two new baby boys: created through an egg
donor and a surrogate in Southern California. We
returned to our middle-class neighborhood outside
of Southampton, and were immediately barraged
with social support: offers of babysitting, Facebook
messages of congratulations, and requests to meet
the babies. One of these invitations came from “the
group” who wished to meet on “the hill” to hold a
celebratory reception.
The group is comprised of 20 heterosexual, ado-
lescent boys and fi ve girls, one of whom is bisexual.
I met them while walking my dog in a local park.
I sat and talked with them, and was henceforth in-
vited to join them, on a semi-regular basis, to their
social events. The gesture of love and acceptance of
someone who was not only gay, but three times their
age, was overwhelming for me; but normal for
them. In fact, this type of gay-inclusivity is the norm
for adolescent boys in today’s culture.
Exemplifying this, the night before my family left
Southern California, I was emotionally impacted
by  another group of adolescents: 45 fi fteen- to
seventeen-year-old males (of which two were openly
gay) who ran for a local high school that I spent the
summer coaching. The team (comprised of White,
Hispanic and Asian youth) was as supportive and
inclusive as “the group” back in England. In fact, at
a going away party they organized for me, one of the
seventeen-year-old boys presented me with baby
clothes featuring a rainbow-colored heart and the in-
scription, “Two dads is better than one.”
This social inclusion is heart-warming, yes; but
it should not be surprising. I have spent the last
eight years conducting dozens of ethnographic
studies into adolescent and undergraduate hetero-
sexual masculinities: on athletic teams (Adams,
Anderson & McCormack, 2010; Anderson, 2005,
2008a, 2008b, 2009, 2011a, 2011b; Anderson,
McCormack & Lee, 2012; Anderson & McGuire,
2010), within P.E. classes (Anderson 2012a), high
schools (McCormack & Anderson, 2010a), frater-
nities (Anderson, 2008c), and multiple other groups
of youths across the United States and the United
Kingdom (Anderson, 2011c; Anderson, Adams &
Rivers, 2012). Collectively, this research fi nds that
young men today have redefi ned what it means to
be masculine.
I support my ethnographic fi ndings with survey
data across the United States, the United Kingdom,
and Australia (Bush, Anderson & Carr, 2012;
Southall et al., 2011). Collectively, colleagues and
I  show a strong relationship between decreasing
cultural homophobia and a softening of heterosex-
ual masculinities in Western cultures.
Almost all of the youth that I study distance
themselves from the type of conservative forms of
muscularity, hyper-heterosexuality, aggression, and
stoicism that Connell (1987), Messner (1992),
Pollack (1999), and others (Plummer, 1999) have
described males of the previous generation exhibit-
ing as adolescents. Data from my studies of hetero-
sexual men, in both feminized and masculinized
spaces, highlights that the literature drawn on
heterosexual men in the 1980s and 1990s—and
even some of which was impactful in the early
2000s (Pascoe, 2005)—is no longer accurate. This
is something affi rmed by a growing body of schol-
ars examining the impact of declining homophobia
on  young men’s masculinities (Cavalier, 2011;
Cashmore & Cleland, 2011, 2012; Dashper, 2012;
Flood, 2008, 2009; Gottzén & Kremer-Sadlik,
2012; Lyng, 2009; McCormack, 2011a, 2011b,
2012; Peterson, 2011; Roberts, 2012; Swain, 2006;
Thorpe, 2010; Way, 2011).
My fi ndings, unable to be accounted for through
hegemonic masculinity theory (Connell, 1987) led
Eric Anderson is a professor of sociology, masculinities, and
sexuality at the University of Winchester in England.
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READING 55: Adolescent Masculinity in an Age of Decreased Homohysteria 493
much love for Tom as he does his girlfriend. In fact,
he speaks of him in similar terms; freely identifying
his friendship to me as “love.” This intimacy, often-
times described as a bromance, simulates ancient
notions of Greek and Roman brotherhood; a time in
which men’s homosocial bonds were culturally
prized (Spencer, 1995).
Illustrating this, Jake told me that he was prepar-
ing to go on a thirteen-day holiday to Spain with
Tom. When I inquired as to whether he feared that
he might fi ght with Tom, being in close company for
such duration, he answered, “No mate. We’re too
close for that.” I responded, “Fair enough.” Before
asking what his girlfriend thought of the fact that he
was taking Tom and not her, Jake answered, “She
knows how close we are. She’s gotta share me.”
Although Jake still lives in a heterosexist culture
(Ripley et al., 2012), it is one that permits him
to  have the same level of emotional and physical
intimacy with his best male friend as it does his
female partner. For example, Jake tells me that he
has a busy weekend coming up. He’s spending
Friday night with his girlfriend, including sex and
cuddling. He will then be spending Saturday night
with Tom, doing the same activities with the excep-
tion of sex. He informs me that he and Tom sleep in
the same bed and cuddle two or three nights a week.
This is not unusual; bed sharing is a common prac-
tice for adolescent males in England (Anderson,
2009). In fact, Jake spends as many nights in bed
with Tom as he does with his girlfriend.
While fi shing on an unusually warm spring day,
Jake tells me to “Look at this message Tom sent me
yesterday.” He hands me his mobile phone and
I  read the message aloud, “Jake I love you, this
week has made me realise how weak I can be with-
out you. And I don’t like not being with you :/x.”
“Oh, your girlfriend is sweet,” I tell him. “No, that’s
from Tom,” he states matter-of-factly.
What is interesting about Jake’s story is that he is
not alone in expressing this type of homosocial
intimacy among adolescents in the UK. Jake is
therefore not selected here because he is an exception,
but because his behaviors are normal in the UK;
something McCormack (2012) also documents.
me to a new way of theorizing modern masculinities
(Anderson, 2009) and of understanding how the re-
lationship between homophobia and the awareness
of homosexuality operates in society (Anderson,
2011c). Principally speaking, my theory—inclusive
masculinity theory—with its embedded concept of
homohysteria, explains how there is no longer a
hierarchical stratifi cation of masculinities. Instead,
decreasing cultural homophobia and the diminish-
ment of homohysteria permits various forms of ado-
lescent masculinities to exist without hegemonic
dominance of any one type. The reduction of ho-
mophobia has permitted youth to be accepting and
inclusive (Savin- Williams, 2005)—including advo-
cating for homosexuality. Additionally, the reduc-
tion of homohysteria has made more feminized
appearances and homosocial tactility normal—
something exemplifi ed by the homosocial contact
between members of the popular boy band One
Direction.
In this article, I fi rst provide a snap-shot of what
it is like to be a heterosexual 16-year-old in
contemporary British culture. I then summarize my
body of work among youth, showing what they do
to be different, important, and positive in compari-
son to how young men constructed masculinity two
decades earlier. I provide a conceptual explanation
for these events with my notion of homohysteria,
placing it within inclusive masculinity theory more
broadly.
ON BEING 16 TODAY
Jake is a sixteen-year-old, heterosexual male. He is
just one of many I studied among a group of lower-
class, non-educationally aspiring youths in Bristol,
England. Jake lives in something of an impover-
ished neighborhood with his mother and sister on a
street which is renowned for the wide availability of
drugs. Jake, however, feels safe here. He has a rich
network of various types of friends: both male and
female, gay and straight, criminally hardened and
higher educated. Most of all, Jake expresses his love
for his best mate, Tom. He does so both in person
and on his Facebook page. Here, Jake expresses as
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494 SECTION IV: Bridging Differences
exists as a static sexual orientation within a given
culture; 2) cultural disapproval towards homosexu-
ality (i.e., homonegativity); and 3) disapproval of
men’s femininity due to association with homosex-
uality. Importantly, all three conditions must be
maintained for homohysteria to persist.
Illustrating how a homohysteric culture is dif-
ferentiated from a country that is simply homopho-
bic, I highlight that men in many Arabic cultures
are socially permitted to hold hands with another
male in public without fear of being labeled as gay.
This is because, although there is an extant degree
of homophobia in most of the Arabic world (Frank,
Camp & Boutcher, 2010), there also exists a belief
that gay men do not exist as a sizeable portion of
the population (Zuhur, 2005). Thus, in comparison
to American and Western European nations, most
Arabic cultures are homophobic but not homohys-
teric (Anderson, 2011). Men are capable of engag-
ing in physical tactility without the specter of being
thought gay.
Ibson (2002) poignantly highlights, through uti-
lizing photos of American men’s friendships before
the turn of the 20th century, that not only do levels
of homohysteria vary between cultures, but that
they are temporally variable within. His photos of
men lying in bed together, wearing feminine-coded
clothing and expressing all manner of homosocial
physical tactility, suggests that any given culture
can oscillate on homohysteria—dependent upon
varying levels of the awareness of homosexuality
and the dominant social attitude toward it. I suggest
that, in the Western world, homophobia preceded
homohysteria in that we had a notion of what ho-
mosexuality was, even if vague. This is to say there
is an era of pre-homohysteria.
The era of homohysteria in the West slowly
grew as the 20th century progressed. This was be-
cause there was an increasing cultural awareness
that homosexuality existed as a stable and sizeable
percent of the population (Kimmel, 1996), much of
which came through the works of Sigmund Freud
(1905) and Alfred Kinsey et al. (1948).
In the 1980s homohysteria reached full fruition.
This was a product of HIV/AIDS, which forced
The type of emotional and physical intimacy
I describe among British youth also extends to kiss-
ing. In other research on 16-year-old boys in the
UK (Anderson, Adams & Rivers, 2012), colleagues
and I show that 40% of the heterosexual youths
studied have kissed another male friend on the lips.
In survey research conducted at a British university,
we showed this number to be 89 per cent ( Anderson,
Adams & Rivers, 2012). Replicated (yet to be pub-
lished) studies conducted internationally show that
30 per cent of Australian undergraduate men have
kissed on the lips, and ten percent of American
undergraduates.
Regardless of how one theorizes these fi ndings,
the data is compelling: not only do boys bond over
talk of cars, girls, sports, and video games; but they
now also bond over disclosing secrets to one
another and supporting each other emotionally
(Anderson, 2011c); shopping together and dressing
in softer more metrosexual ways (Pompper, 2010);
accepting sexual minorities (Keleher & Smith,
2012); shunning violence (McCormack, 2012); and
being physically closer than boys have ever been
permitted to be without fear of being thought gay
(Anderson, 2011c). In this matter, adolescent boys
today bond over intimacy in the same way that men
once used to over a century ago (Ibson, 2002), be-
fore homosexuality was widely understood to exist
as an immutable, sizeable, and stigmatized portion
of men. And this should tell us something impor-
tant about masculinity theory.
HOMOHYSTERIA
. . . [I]t is not just homophobia that is important for
the distribution of masculinities in the 1980s . . . but
the awareness that homosexuality exists in real and
consistent numbers within the population (Kinsey,
Pomeroy, Martin & Gebhard, 1948). I suggested it
was this combination of elements that limited same-
sex physical and emotional intimacy among hetero-
sexual men. . . . This I explicate through my notion
of homohysteria (Anderson, 2009, 2011).
A homohysteric culture necessitates three fac-
tors: 1) widespread awareness that homosexuality
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markedly better than they were during the 1990s, or
even the early years of the new millennium
( Andersen & Fetner, 2008; Keleher & Smith, 2012;
Kozloski, 2011; McCormack, 2010). This is par-
ticularly true of youth, who are emerging into a new
zeitgeist.
The reasons for this are complex, but likely
reside along other changing mores of sexuality
(Anderson, 2012b). Over the last two decades there
have been wholesale changes to our sexual and
gendered society. Changes that add to the massive
overhaul of our attitudes toward sex and our sexual
practices since Kinsey et al. (1948) conducted their
study of male sexuality. These changes have come
from many social infl uences, including decreasing
religiosity of Western cultures, women’s liberation,
and gay liberation.
Additional infl uence has come from the
advancement of technologies of culture. Particu-
larly, the introduction of social media—which has
permitted widespread exposure to alternative
identities—and the increased accessibility to inter-
net pornography—which has ushered in a democ-
ratization of sexual desire (Attwood, 2010; McNair,
2002). For example, whereas teenage boys once
traded baseball cards, today they trade digital por-
nography clips obtained freely from websites. The
internet provides anyone the ability to instantly
access a display of sexual variety. Here a whole
range of bodies fuck in all combinations, styles,
mixtures, manners, and video quality. And, relating
to decreased homophobia, today’s Porntube.com
generation see, early and often, video clips of gays,
lesbians, and other identities once stigmatized
through a Victorian demand for heterosexual mis-
sionary sex. Often a heterosexual cannot fi nd his
preferred images of heterosexual intercourse with-
out fi ltering through the images of the acts once
highly socially tabooed. Curiosity of the other, or
perhaps a desire to simply see what others enjoy,
tempts today’s heterosexual adolescents into click-
ing on the link and watching what their heterosexual
fathers despised so much. In viewing gay sex, they
grow desensitized to it. Thus, the internet, I propose,
has been instrumental in exposing the forbidden
homosexuals into the public’s view (Peterson &
Anderson, 2012). As Loftus (2001, p. 765) wrote,
“From the 1970s through the mid-1980s, Americans
held increasingly traditional religious beliefs, with
more people supporting prayer in school, and be-
lieving the Bible was the literal word of God.” In
this homohysteric culture, gay men were patholo-
gized as feminine, perverted, and dangerous; they
were therefore politically vilifi ed (Peterson &
Anderson, 2012a). Taking into consideration that
homosexuality is not as readily socially visible as
other categories of stigmatized people, heterosex-
ual men pushed their hyper-masculine and hetero-
sexualizing behaviors to the extreme in order to
disassociate themselves from anything related to
homosexuality. It was here, in replicating Rambo
or Terminator, that heterosexual men desired to be
stoic, aggressive, and vehemently homophobic. For
it was only in this predisposition that one could
hope to escape the specter of the fag.
DECREASING HOMOHYSTERIA
I argue that homohysteria peaked in the mid-1980s
(Anderson, 2009) along with the apex of AIDS.
However, AIDS also brought a more unifi ed and
fervent campaign for the legal and social equality
of sexual minorities. By the time the mid-1990s got
underway, we began to see a more balanced cultural
dialogue about homosexuality (Frank, Camp  &
Boutcher, 2010; Loftus, 2001). Furthermore as evi-
dence of HIV/AIDS in the heterosexual community
grew, the stigma it had previously brought exclu-
sively to gay men waned. This is not to say that the
disease was not (and is still not) associated pre-
dominately with homosexuality, but that lay people
came to understand that HIV/AIDS is not caused
by homosexuality. A generation of youth grew up
knowing AIDS not as a gay disease, but simply a
sexually transmitted disease. As this knowledge
took hold, social attitudes toward homosexuality
began to change.
Changing laws and social norms have begun to
erode cultural homonegativity at an accelerated
rate. Today, attitudes about homosexuality are
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496 SECTION IV: Bridging Differences
( Anderson, 2011b); and 4) the social inclusion of
gay male peers (Anderson & Adams, 2011; Bush,
Anderson & Carr, 2012; McCormack, 2012b).
I argue that these improving cultural conditions
have been the result of decreasing homophobia
among adolescent males, which results in further
softening of masculinity—something McCormack
(2012, p. 63) calls a “virtuous circle of decreas-
ing  homophobia and expanded gendered behav-
iours.” Collectively, I call the various forms of
masculinities embodied by these boys, “inclusive
masculinities.”
Increased Emotional Intimacy
The above section, explicating the life of Jake, cap-
tures the type of emotionality common among
young men in my various studies. Whether it be
running with high school boys in California, fi shing
with sixteen-year-olds in Bristol, or hanging out
with “the group” in Southampton, one characteris-
tic remains constant: support. In each of these
ethnographies emotionally supporting one another
is fundamental to their friendships. Uniquely, this
support does not permit a “suck it up” mentality.
Boys are generally interested in hearing the feel-
ings of their friends, even when those feelings are
an admission of fear or weakness.
For example, when Tim announced on Facebook
status that his parents decided to divorce, his wall
was loaded with messages of support. His friends
wrote that they cared about him and were worried
for him. And when Ben entered a singing competi-
tion, he received dozens of messages of support on
his FB wall. McCormack’s (2011a) study of a
British sixth form, where boys are esteemed for
providing emotional support, provides detailed
analysis of this.
Increased Physical Tactility
The emotional support that young men show for
each other extends into acts of physical tactility,
too. In addition to fi nding a great deal of hugging,
caressing, and cuddling (McCormack, 2012;
McCormack & Anderson, 2010a), my colleagues
fruit of homosexual sex, commoditizing and nor-
malizing it in the process.
The internet has also provided sexual and gen-
dered minorities a forum to organize for political
action; forums to share life narratives; and forums
for heterosexuals to ask sexual minorities “any-
thing” about their sexual lives. Clearly, the internet
has been benefi cial in making visible the lives of
sexual and gender minorities to the “normal” het-
erosexual world. It has taken away our social taboo
against asking one’s sexual orientation, too. For ex-
ample, MySpace was the fi rst popular social media
site to ask for one’s sexual orientation; Facebook,
asks whether one is interested in men, women, or
both. This has severely reduced the notion that ho-
mosexuality (particularly) is a “private” affair. Thus
it has helped reduce heterosexism and explicit ho-
monegativity among adolescent males (Keleher &
Smith, 2012; Kozloski, 2011). This may allow them
to establish homosocial peer relationships charac-
terized by emotional intimacy and physical tactility
(McCormack, 2012) the way the members of One
Direction do.
The reduction of homophobia has meant that to-
day’s youth all know that gay men exist, and they
likely believe that they exist in higher percentages
than they actually do. But signifi cantly, they in-
creasingly do not care. Importantly, as heterosexu-
als cease to care about whether one is gay or not, it
frees them up to associate with things that used to
be coded as feminine, and therefore gay. Accord-
ingly, as a cultural level of homohysteria changes,
the range of acceptable behaviors for adolescent
boys also changes. . . .
INCLUSIVE MASCULINITIES
In studying young men in both the United States and
the United Kingdom, I show that adolescents are
eschewing the homophobic orthodox masculinity of
the 1980s. Instead, men are establishing homosocial
relationships based on a number of traits includ-
ing: 1) increased emotional intimacy (Adams, 2011,
McCormack, 2011a); 2) increased physical tactility
(McCormack, 2011b); 3) eschewing violence
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Kingdom, at a high school he investigated for a
one-year period, there was not a single fi ght. An
examination of school records indicate that there
had not been a fi ght at the school in the previous
three years.
The Inclusion of Gay Male Peers
In ethnographic work at “Standard High,”
McCormack and I (2010) found that teenage boys
stood fi rmly against homophobia. When we raised
the issue of homophobia in interviews, all informants
positioned themselves against it. Although this is not
in-and-of-itself proof of a homophobia-free culture, it
is nonetheless noteworthy that no male student ex-
pressed homophobia in an interview. Instead,
homophobia was regarded as a sign of immaturity.
Matt said that if someone was homophobic he would
be policed by his peers. “He wouldn’t keep at it for
long,” he said, “It’s just childish.” Justin added,
“When I was in middle school, some kids would say
‘that’s gay’ around the playground, but they wouldn’t
get away with it anymore. We’d tell them it’s not on.”
The youths studied agreed that homophobia, in any
form, was not acceptable. Sam said, “You might fi nd
that [homophobia] before [sixth form], but not here.
It’s just not acceptable anymore.”
Supporting these statements, participant obser-
vation highlighted that the word gay is not used to
describe dissatisfaction by these young men. In
fact, neither researcher heard any homophobic
epithet in any social setting we investigated. Terms
such as queer and poof were not used, while fag
was only used when referring to a cigarette. Gay
was only used in sensible discussions about gay
identity and sexuality.
McCormack (2012b) has provided further evi-
dence of the inclusion of sexual minority students
in an ethnography of a religious sixth form. He
showcases the stories of one lesbian, one gay, one
bisexual, and one transgendered student, drawing
out the differences in their experiences, but none-
theless showing positive changes in their school
experiences compared with research from previous
decades (see also Ripley et al., 2011).
and I (Anderson, Adams & Rivers, 2012) show that
eighty-nine per cent (of those randomly or strategi-
cally selected for interview) have, at least once,
kissed another heterosexual male friend on the lips.
The men understand these kisses as being free of
sexual connotation and instead understand them as
an expression of homosociality.
The fear of homosexualization that deterred my
high school teammates from sleeping in the same
bed, even if fully clothed, without a great deal of
homophobic posturing (Flowers & Buston, 2001)
does not exist for adolescents today. Not only do
boys sleep together, but they oftentimes do so in
their underwear. Nudity is also important to
adolescent male bonding, particularly in sport
( McCormack, 2012). It is common and easy to fi nd
shirtless photos of adolescent males embracing
their male friends. Some youths post photos of
themselves showering with their friends (usually
when on holiday).
Eschewing Violence
In ethnographic work with 22 heterosexual players
from a small, Catholic, university soccer team in
the American Midwest, I show (Anderson, 2011b)
that violence among these players was less than one
might expect for contact-sport athletes: only three
reported having fought in high school (all occurred
on the soccer fi eld), and only one player has been in
a fi ght since coming to university (again on the soc-
cer fi eld). Conversely, most of the men had never
been in a fi ght.
When we asked Tom about his fi ghting history,
he said, “No. I have never been in a fi ght. Why
would I?” John said, “Fighting is just stupid. It ac-
complishes nothing. It’s not like after two guys
fi ght one goes, ‘Oh, I see things your way now.’”
However, I was particularly struck by Clint’s atti-
tude toward fi ghting. While spitting tobacco into a
cup, and with his baseball cap twisted backward, he
told me “No. I’ve never been in a fi ght. There’s just
no reason to fi ght.”
Similarly, McCormack (2012) found among the
16–18-year-old boys he studied in the United
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498 SECTION IV: Bridging Differences
hegemonic mode of heteromasculine dominance
(Anderson, 2005a; Kimmel, 1994).
Connell theorized (1987) that the power of a
hegemonic form of masculinity was that those sub-
jugated by it nonetheless believed in the right of
those with power to rule. So instead of disputing
their marginalized position, they revered those at
the top. Hegemonic masculinity theory was pre-
cise in its ability to predict masculine confi gura-
tions in the 1980s, and it likely continued to be
useful throughout the 1990s. The high level of
homophobia and hypermasculinity of the mid-
1980s—something measured through General
Social Survey data in the States alongside the
British Survey of Social Attitudes in the United
Kingdom—has serious implications for not only
attitudes toward gay men, but also on how straight
men performed their gender (Peterson & Anderson,
2012). Thus, hegemonic masculinity theory is his-
torically contextualized within its own temporal
moment—specifi cally, and although Connell did
not understand it this way, it existed in a homohys-
teric culture (Anderson, 2009).
The collection of these fi ndings, and the devel-
opment of my heuristic concept of homohysteria,
led me to the development of a new gendered theory
of masculinity studies.
Inclusive masculinity theory captures the social
dynamics of men in non-homohysteric settings. The
theory is simple: it maintains that as homohysteria
decreases, men no longer need to position them-
selves as hypermasculine in order to be thought het-
erosexual. As homohysteria decreases the vertical
stratifi cation that Connell describes is no longer
accurate, as culture shifts to permit multiple types of
masculinity without hierarchy or hegemony. Should
cultural matters change, and homohysteria were to
again rise, the ordering of men would likely return
to the way Connell conceptualized.
Inclusive masculinity supersedes hegemonic
masculinity theory because it is a more dynamic
theory. It can be used to explain men’s masculinities
within multiple settings, and within a culture of any
level of homohysteria. When Connell devised hege-
monic masculinity theory in the mid-1980s, there
THEORIZING MASCULINITIES
FOR A NEW GENERATION
The type of masculinity exhibited by the youth that
my colleagues and I have studied is starkly differ-
ent than what the dominant paradigm suggests
about young men, which maintains that they are
homophobic, sexist, violent, emotionally repressed,
and afraid of physical contact with other males. The
most important theoretical tool for understanding
masculinities and the social stratifi cation of men
since sex role theory has come through Connell’s
(1987) concept of hegemonic masculinity, which
has also embedded in it this “man as jerk” arche-
type (Carrigan, Connell & Lee, 1985).
Developed from a social constructionist
perspective in the mid-1980s, hegemonic masculin-
ity theory has articulated two social processes. The
fi rst concerns how all men benefi t from patriarchy;
however, it is the second social process that has
been heavily adopted by the masculinities litera-
ture. Here, Connell’s theoretical contribution has
been particularly adopted for its conceptualization
of the mechanisms by which an intra-masculine
hierarchy is created and legitimized. It is solely this
aspect of her theory that I address here.
In conceptualizing intra-masculine domination,
Connell argues that one hegemonic archetype of
masculinity is esteemed above all other masculinity
types, so that boys and men who most closely em-
body this one standard are accorded the most social
capital, relative to other boys and men. Some of the
characteristics of hegemonic masculinity concern
variables which are earned, like attitudinal disposi-
tions (including the disposition of homophobia)
while other variables concern static traits (i.e.,
whiteness, heterosexuality, and youth). Connell ar-
gued, however, that regardless of body mass, age,
or even sporting accomplishments, gay men are at
the bottom of this hierarchy. Furthermore, Connell
maintained that straight men who behaved in ways
that confl ict with the dominant form of masculinity
are also marginalized. It was for these reasons that
I have argued homophobia has traditionally been an
effective weapon to stratify men in deference to a
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Here, heterosexual boys are permitted to engage in
an increasing range of behaviors that once led to
homosexual suspicion, all without threat to their
publicly perceived heterosexual identities. This is
why the boy band One Direction can be so tactile
with each other compared to all previous boy-bands.
This is not a marketing strategy but a refl ection of
the masculine culture they emerged in.
Supporting this, in my various ethnographies
I  have found that fraternity members (Anderson,
2008b), rugby players (Anderson & McGuire, 2010),
school boys (McCormack & Anderson, 2010a),
heterosexual cheerleaders (Anderson, 2008c), and
even the men of a Catholic college soccer team in the
Midwest (Anderson, 2011b) have all been shown to
maintain close physical and emotional relationships
with each other. Collectively, these studies (and
many more) highlight that as cultural homohysteria
diminishes it frees heterosexual men to act in more
feminine ways without threat to their heterosexual
identity. I suggest that in the United States, United
Kingdom, Canada, and Australia (and likely in other
Western cultures) we have dropped out of homohys-
teria. Whereas homophobia used to be the chief
policing mechanism of a hegemonic form of mascu-
linity (Kimmel, 1994, 1996), there no longer remains
a strident cultural force to regulate a singular type of
homophobic masculinity.
I do not, however, claim that inclusive masculini-
ties are completely free of oppression and subordi-
nation. A diminished state of homohysteria is not to
be mistaken as a gender Utopia. Men categorized as
belonging to one archetype of a set of inclusive mas-
culinities might still reproduce heteronormativity
(Ripley et al., 2012); they might still sexually objec-
tify women (Anderson, 2008a); they might still
value excessive risk taking (Adams, Anderson &
McCormack, 2010); they might even use homopho-
bic discourse without intent to wound (McCormack,
2011c). My data do however indicate that in the pro-
cess of proliferating inclusive masculinities, gender
itself, as a constructed binary of opposites, may be
somewhat eroding. I argue that the efforts of the
fi rst, second, and now third, waves of feminism—
combined with advancements in technology, the gay
was no such thing as a Western culture low in homo-
hysteria. But the signifi cant change that had
occurred since makes Connell’s theory unuseful in
today’s culture.
Multiple other scholars have recognized this,
and used my theory (Adams, 2011; Cavalier, 2011;
Daspher, 2012; Cleland & Cashmore, 2011, 2012;
McCormack, 2011a, 2011b, 2011c, 2012; Peterson,
2011; Roberts, 2012). While it is not yet possible
to  tell whether inclusive masculinity theory will
replace hegemonic masculinity theory, its adoption
by other scholars is evidence of the erosion of the
dominance of hegemonic masculinity theory.
Finally, I make inclusive masculinity theory very
simplistic, intentionally. It was my desire to avoid
inaccessible, and oftentimes vague, theorizing by
elitist and intellectually marginalizing academics.
To me a social theory should be simple, and have the
ability to make a prediction. I shun academic elit-
ism. Thus, I have made an open invitation to other
scholars to examine my theory and add to it (hoping
they do so in accessible and practical ways).
McCormack (2011a, 2011b, 2011c, 2012) is one
scholar who has met this challenge. He recently
contributed to inclusive masculinity theory by ex-
plicating how popularity is achieved in cultures
where bullying and marginalization are not present.
McCormack (2012) shows that what makes boys
popular is not regulating others, but instead being
inclusive, being emotionally open, having charisma,
and holding social fl uidity. Thus, hegemony, he
argues, is replaced by heterogeneity.
DISCUSSION
In this overview of the research I have been con-
ducting on gay and straight male youths over the
previous decade, I have argued that inclusive mas-
culinity theory (Anderson, 2009) supersedes hege-
monic masculinity theory (Connell, 1987) as it
explains the diminishment of a stratifi cation of men
during times of lower homohysteria. The theory
was constructed to explain settings in which young
heterosexual men are no longer afraid to act or oth-
erwise associate with symbols of homosexuality.
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500 SECTION IV: Bridging Differences
Anderson, E. (2011a). Updating the outcome: Gay athletes,
straight teams, and coming out at the end of the decade.
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Anderson, E. (2011b). Inclusive masculinities of university
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Education, 23 (6), 729–744.
Anderson, E. (2011c). The rise and fall of western homohys-
teria. Journal of Feminist Scholarship, 1 (1), 80–94.
Anderson, E. (2012a). Inclusive masculinity in a physical edu-
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Anderson, E. (2012b). The monogamy gap: Men, love and
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Anderson, E., & Adams, A. (2011). “Aren’t we all a little
bisexual?”: The recognition of bisexuality in an unlikely
place. Journal of Bisexuality, 11 (1), 3–22.
Anderson, E., & Kian, T. (2012). Contesting violence, mas-
culinity, and head trauma in the National Football League.
Men and Masculinities, 15 (2), 152–173.
Anderson, E., & McGuire, R. (2010). Inclusive masculinity
and the gendered politics of men’s rugby. The Journal of
Gender Studies, 19 (3), 249–261.
Anderson, E., Adams, A., & Rivers, I. (2012). “I kiss them
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Anderson, E., McCormack, M., & Lee, H. (2012). Male team
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liberationists efforts of the past four decades, and
the erosion of other sexual mores, are slowly erasing
the gender binary (Anderson, 2009). Increasingly,
gender is a business of decreasing polarization be-
tween not only women and men, but between het-
erosexual and gay men as well.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Would you agree that for adolescent boys, the
era of “homohysteria” is coming to a close?
What evidence and experience would you look
to in making that assessment?
2. What is Eric Anderson’s explanation for the
historic variations of “homohysteria”?
3. For Anderson, how is “homohysteria” different
from homophobia?
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READING 55: Adolescent Masculinity in an Age of Decreased Homohysteria 501
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502 SECTION IV: Bridging Differences
consider that human beings have been on the earth
for hundreds of thousands of years.
1
So when it
comes to human social life, the smart money should
be on the idea that nothing has always been this
way or any other.
This idea should suggest that nothing will always
be this way or any other, contrary to the notion that
privilege and oppression are here to stay. If the only
thing we can count on is change, then it’s hard to see
why we should believe for a minute that any kind of
social system is permanent. Reality is always in mo-
tion. Things may appear to stand still, but that’s only
because humans have a short attention span, dic-
tated perhaps by the shortness of our lives. If we
take the long view—the really long view—we can
see that everything is in process all the time.
Some would argue that everything is process,
the space between one point and another, the
movement from one thing toward another. What
we may see as permanent end points—world capi-
talism, Western civilization, advanced technology,
and so on—are actually temporary states on the
way to other temporary states. Even ecologists,
who used to talk about ecological balance, now
speak of ecosystems as inherently unstable. In-
stead of always returning to some steady state after
a period of disruption, ecosystems are, by nature, a
continuing process of change from one arrange-
ment to another. They never go back to just where
they were.
Social systems are also fl uid. A society isn’t
some hulking thing that sits there forever as it is.
Because a system happens only as people partici-
pate in it, it can’t help being a dynamic process of
creation and re-creation from one moment to the
next. In something as simple as a man following the
path of least resistance toward controlling conver-
sations (and a woman letting him do it), the reality
of male privilege in that moment comes into being.
This is how we do male privilege, bit by bit, mo-
ment by moment. This is also how individuals can
contribute to change: by choosing paths of greater
resistance, as when men don’t take control and
women refuse their own subordination.
R E A D I N G 5 6
What Can We Do? Becoming
Part of the Solution
Allan G. Johnson
The challenge we face is to change patterns of ex-
clusion, rejection, privilege, harassment, discrimi-
nation, and violence that are everywhere in this
society and have existed for hundreds (or, in the
case of gender, thousands) of years. We have to
begin by thinking about the trouble and the chal-
lenge in new and more productive ways. . . .
Large numbers of people have sat on the side-
lines and seen themselves as neither part of the
problem nor the solution. Beyond this shared trait,
however, they are far from homogeneous. Everyone
is aware of the whites, heterosexuals, and men who
intentionally act out in oppressive ways. But there
is less attention to the millions of people who know
inequities exist and want to be part of the solution.
Their silence and invisibility allow the trouble to
continue. Removing what silences them and stands
in their way can tap an enormous potential of en-
ergy for change. . . .
MYTH 1: “IT’S ALWAYS BEEN
THIS WAY, AND IT ALWAYS
WILL”
If you don’t make a point of studying history, it’s
easy to slide into the belief that things have always
been the way we’ve known them to be. But if you
look back a bit further, you fi nd racial oppression
has been a feature of human life for only a matter of
centuries, and there is abundant evidence that male
dominance has been around for only seven thou-
sand years or so, which isn’t very long when you
Allan G. Johnson is a sociologist, writer, and public speaker
who  has worked on issues of privilege, oppression, and social
unequality.
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READING 56: What Can We Do? 503
MYTH 2: GANDHI’S PARADOX
AND THE MYTH OF NO EFFECT
Whether we help change oppressive systems de-
pends on how we handle the belief that nothing we
do can make a difference, that the system is too big
and powerful for us to affect it. The complaint is
valid if we look at society as a whole: it’s true that
we aren’t going to change it in our lifetime. But if
changing the entire system through our own efforts
is the standard against which we measure the ability
to do something, then we’ve set ourselves up to feel
powerless. It’s not unreasonable to want to make a
difference, but if we have to see the fi nal result of
what we do, then we can’t be part of change that’s
too gradual and long term to allow that. We also
can’t be part of change that’s so complex that we
can’t sort out our contribution from countless others
that combine in ways we can never grasp. The prob-
lem of privilege and oppression requires complex
and long-term change coupled with short-term work
to soften some of its worst consequences. This
means that if we’re going to be part of the solution,
we have to let go of the idea that change doesn’t
happen unless we’re around to see it happen.
To shake off the paralyzing myth that we cannot,
individually, be effective, we have to alter how we
see ourselves in relation to a long-term, complex
process of change. This begins by altering how we
relate to time. Many changes can come about
quickly enough for us to see them happen. When
I  was in college, for example, there was little talk
about gender inequality as a social problem, whereas
now there are more than fi ve hundred women’s
studies programs in the United States. But a goal
like ending oppression takes more than this and far
more time than our short lives can encompass. If
we’re going to see ourselves as part of that kind of
change, we can’t use the human life span as a sig-
nifi cant standard against which to measure progress.
To see our choices in relation to long-term change,
we have to develop what might be called “time con-
stancy,” analogous to what psychologists call “object
constancy.” If you hold a cookie in front of very
Since people can always choose paths of greater
resistance or create new ones entirely, systems can
only be as stable as the fl ow of human choice and
creativity, which certainly isn’t a recipe for perma-
nence. In the short run, systems of privilege may
look unchangeable. But the relentless process of so-
cial life never produces the exact same result twice in
a row, because it’s impossible for everyone to par-
ticipate in any system in an unvarying and uniform
way. Added to this are the dynamic interactions that
go on among systems—between capitalism and
the  state, for example, or between families and the
economy—that also produce powerful and unavoid-
able tensions, contradictions, and other currents of
change. Ultimately, systems can’t help changing.
Oppressive systems often seem stable because
they limit people’s lives and imaginations so much
that they can’t see beyond them. But this masks a
fundamental long-term instability caused by the dy-
namics of oppression itself. Any system organized
around one group’s efforts to control and exploit
another is a losing proposition, because it contra-
dicts the essentially uncontrollable nature of reality
and does violence to basic human needs and values.
For example, as the last two centuries of feminist
thought and action have begun to challenge the vio-
lence and break down the denial, patriarchy has be-
come increasingly vulnerable. This is one reason
male resistance, backlash, and defensiveness are
now so intense. Many men complain about their lot,
especially their inability to realize ideals of control
in relation to their own lives,
2
women, and other
men. Fear of and resentment toward women are per-
vasive, from worrying about being accused of sex-
ual harassment to railing against affi rmative action.
No social system lasts forever, but this is espe-
cially true of oppressive systems of privilege. We
can’t know what will replace them, but we can be
confi dent that they will go, that they are going at
every moment. It’s only a matter of how quickly, by
what means, and toward what alternatives, and
whether each of us will do our part to make it hap-
pen sooner rather than later and with less rather
than more human suffering in the process.
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504 SECTION IV: Bridging Differences
from the beginning, they would never go anywhere
or discover anything.
In similar ways, to seek out alternatives to sys-
tems of privilege it has to be enough to move away
from social life organized around privilege and op-
pression and to move toward the certainty that alter-
natives are possible, even though we may not have a
clear idea of what those are or ever experience them
ourselves. It has to be enough to question how we
see ourselves as people of a certain race, gender,
class, and sexual orientation, for example, or exam-
ine how we see capitalism and the scarcity and com-
petition it produces in relation to our personal
striving to better our own lives, or how oppression
works and how we participate in it. Then we can
open ourselves to experience what happens next.
When we dare ask core questions about who we
are and how the world works, things happen that we
can’t foresee; they don’t happen unless we move, if
only in our minds. As pioneers, we discover what’s
possible only by fi rst putting ourselves in motion,
because we have to move in order to change our
position—and hence put perspective—on where we
are, where we’ve been, and where we might go.
This is how alternatives begin to appear.
The myth of no effect obscures the role we can
play in the long-term transformation of society. But
the myth also blinds us to our own power in relation
to other people. We may cling to the belief that
there is nothing we can do precisely because we
subconsciously know how much power we do have
and are afraid to use it because people may not like
it. If we deny our power to affect people, then we
don’t have to worry about taking responsibility for
how we use it or, more signifi cant, how we don’t.
This reluctance to acknowledge and use power
comes up in the simplest everyday situations, as
when a group of friends starts laughing at a racist,
sexist, or homophobic joke and we have to decide
whether to go along. It’s just a moment among
countless such moments that constitute the fabric of
all kinds of oppressive systems. But it’s a crucial
moment, because the group’s seamless response to
the joke affi rms the normalcy and unproblematic na-
ture of it in a system of privilege. It takes only one
young children and then put it behind your back
while they watch, they can’t fi nd the cookie because
they apparently can’t hold on to the image of it and
where it went. They lack object constancy. In other
words, if they can’t see it, it might as well not even
exist. After a while, children develop the mental abil-
ity to know that objects or people exist even when
they’re out of sight. In thinking about change and our
relation to it, we need to develop a similar ability in
relation to time that enables us to carry within us the
knowledge, the faith, that signifi cant change happens
even though we aren’t around to see it.
Along with time constancy, we need to clarify for
ourselves how our choices matter and how they
don’t. Gandhi once said nothing we do as individu-
als matters, but that it’s vitally important to do it
anyway. This touches on a powerful paradox in the
relationship between society and individuals. Imag-
ine, for example, that social systems are trees and
we are the leaves. No individual leaf on the tree mat-
ters; whether it lives or dies has no effect on much of
anything. But collectively, the leaves are essential to
the whole tree because they photosynthesize the
sugar that feeds it. Without leaves, the tree dies.
So leaves matter and they don’t, just as we mat-
ter and we don’t. What each of us does may not
seem like much, because in important ways, it isn ’ t
much. But when many people do this work to-
gether, they can form a critical mass that is any-
thing but insignifi cant, especially in the long run. If
we’re going to be part of a larger change process,
we have to learn to live with this sometimes uncom-
fortable paradox.
A related paradox is that we have to be willing to
travel without knowing where we’re going. We
need faith to do what seems right without necessar-
ily being sure of the effect that will have. We have
to think like pioneers who may know the direction
they want to move in or what they would like to
fi nd, without knowing where they will wind up. Be-
cause they are going where they’ve never been be-
fore, they can’t know whether they will ever arrive
at anything they might consider a destination, much
less the kind of place they had in mind when they
fi rst set out. If pioneers had to know their destination
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READING 56: What Can We Do? 505
This suggests that the simplest way to help oth-
ers make different choices is to make them myself,
and to do it openly. As I shift the patterns of my
own participation in systems of privilege, I make it
easier for others to do so as well, and harder for
them not to. Simply by setting an example—rather
than trying to change them—I create the possibility
of their participating in change in their own time
and in their own way. In this way I can widen the
circle of change without provoking the kind of de-
fensiveness that perpetuates paths of least resis-
tance and the oppressive systems they serve.
It’s important to see that in doing this kind of
work, we don’t have to go after people to change
their minds. In fact, changing people’s minds may
play a relatively small part in changing societies.
We won’t succeed in turning diehard misogynists
into practicing feminists, for example, or racists
into civil rights activists. At most, we can shift the
odds in favor of new paths that contradict the core
values that systems of privilege depend on. We can
introduce so many exceptions to the paths that sup-
port privilege that the children or grandchildren of
diehard racists and misogynists will start to change
their perception of which paths offer the least resis-
tance. Research on men’s changing attitudes toward
the male provider role, for example, shows that
most of the shift occurs between generations, not
within them.
3
This suggests that rather than trying
to change people, the most important thing we can
do is contribute to the slow evolution of entire cul-
tures so that forms and values which support privi-
lege begin to lose their “obvious” legitimacy and
normalcy and new forms emerge to challenge their
privileged place in social life.
In science, this is how one paradigm replaces
another.
4
For hundreds of years, for example,
Europeans believed that the stars, planets, and sun
revolved around Earth. But scientists such as
Copernicus and Galileo found that too many of
their astronomical observations were anomalies
that didn’t fi t the prevailing paradigm: if the sun
and planets revolved around the Earth, then they
wouldn’t move as they did. As such observations
accumulated, they made it increasingly diffi cult to
person to tear the fabric of collusion and apparent
consensus. On some level, we each know we have
this potential, and this knowledge can empower us
or scare us into silence. We can change the course of
the moment with something as simple as visibly not
joining in the laughter, or saying “I don’t think that’s
funny.” We know how uncomfortable this can make
the group feel and how they may ward off their dis-
comfort by dismissing, excluding, or even attacking
us as bearers of bad news. Our silence, then, isn’t
because nothing we do will matter, our silence is our
not daring to matter.
Our power to affect other people isn’t simply the
power to make them feel uncomfortable. Systems
shape the choices people make primarily by provid-
ing paths of least resistance. Whenever we openly
choose a different path, however, we make it pos-
sible for others to see both the path of least resis-
tance they’re following and the possibility of
choosing something else.
If we choose different paths, we usually won’t
know if we’re affecting other people, but it’s safe to
assume that we are. When people know that alterna-
tives exist and witness other people choosing them,
things become possible that weren’t before. When
we openly pass up a path of least resistance, we in-
crease resistance for other people around that path,
because now they must reconcile their choice with
what they’ve seen us do, something they didn’t have
to deal with before. There’s no way to predict how
this will play out in the long run, but there’s certainly
no good reason to think it won’t make a difference.
The simple fact is that we affect one another all
the time without knowing it. When my family
moved to our house in the woods of northwestern
Connecticut, one of my fi rst pleasures was blazing
walking trails through the woods. Some time later
I noticed deer scat and hoofprints along the trails,
and it pleased me to think they had adopted the trail
I’d laid down. But then I wondered if perhaps I had
followed a trail laid down by others when I cleared
“my” trail. I realized that there is no way to know
that anything begins or ends with me and the
choices I make. It’s more likely that the paths oth-
ers have chosen infl uence the paths I choose.
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506 SECTION IV: Bridging Differences
tip the scales toward new paradigms that don’t re-
volve around privilege and oppression. We can’t tip
the scales overnight or by ourselves, and in that
sense we don’t amount to much. But on the other
side of Gandhi’s paradox, it is crucial where we
choose to place what poet Bonaro Overstreet called
“the stubborn ounces of my weight”:
STUBBORN OUNCES
(To One Who Doubts the Worth of Doing
Anything If You Can ’ t Do Everything)
You say the little efforts that I make
will do no good; they will never prevail to tip
the hovering scale
where Justice hangs in balance.
I don’t think
I ever thought they would.
But I am prejudiced beyond debate
In favor of my right to choose which side
shall feel the stubborn ounces of my weight.
5

hang on to an Earth-centered paradigm. Eventually
the anomalies became so numerous that Copernicus
offered a new paradigm, which he declined to pub-
lish for fear of persecution as a heretic, a fate that
eventually befell Galileo when he took up the cause
a century later. Eventually, however, the evidence
was so overwhelming that a new paradigm replaced
the old one.
In similar ways, we can see how systems of priv-
ilege are based on paradigms that shape how we
think about difference and how we organize social
life in relation to it. We can openly challenge those
paradigms with evidence that they don’t work and
produce unacceptable consequences for everyone.
We can help weaken them by openly choosing al-
ternative paths in our everyday lives and thereby
provide living anomalies that don’t fi t the prevail-
ing paradigm. By our example, we can contradict
basic assumptions and their legitimacy over and
over again. We can add our choices and our lives to
P E R S O N A L A C C O U N T
Parents’ Underestimated Love
“Coming out of the closet” to my parents has been the
most liberating thing that I have done in my life because
having my homosexuality discovered by my parents was
my biggest fear. Although I didn’t grow up in a particularly
homophobic environment, innately I knew that homosex-
uality was different and wasn’t accepted because of rigid
social norms and religious doctrines. I lived in anguish
of being exposed and of the consequences that would
come with being the queer one.
Keeping the secret from my traditional Salvadoran
parents created a wedge that made it difficult for me to
bond with my parents and have them participate fully in
my life. I became a recluse and avoided much parental
interaction to avoid questions about girlfriends. During
my teenage years, girlfriends were expected from a
“good and healthy” boy such as myself. I felt that my lack
of interest in girls would have led to probes from my par-
ents, and plus, I wasn’t the typical macho boy who was
into sports, cars, etc. . . . I was the “sensitive type.”
To avoid any suspicion, I limited my interaction with my
parents. I felt that if I opened up to them, my sexuality
would be questioned and questions like “Are you gay?”
would follow. Being an academic overachiever in high
school made things easier for me. Whenever the ques-
tion was asked of why I didn’t have a girlfriend, I had the
perfect excuse, “I’m too busy with school to focus on girls
. . . do you want a playboy or an honor student?”
During my sophomore year in college I took a bold
step and moved out of my parents’ house. My move
facilitated my “coming out” to my parents because the
possibility of being kicked out of the house when I told
them I was gay wouldn’t loom over me. I didn’t know if my
parents would kick me out, but I couldn’t run the risk of
finding out. One year after moving out, I “came out.” Iron-
ically it didn’t come as a surprise to my parents, and
frankly it wasn’t a big deal! After years of living in fear of
rejection and shame, my parents accepted and reaf-
firmed their love and support. I underestimated the power
of my parents’ love.
Octavio N. Espinal
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READING 57: In Defense of Rich Kids 507
It is in such small and humble choices that oppres-
sion and the movement toward something better
actually happen.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. In a sense, Allan Johnson’s discussion high-
lights the paradoxes inherent in the efforts to
create social change. What are those paradoxes,
and how does Johnson resolve them?
2. What would Johnson’s advice be to someone
who wants to make a difference in society? Can
it be summarized in a sentence or two?
NOTES
1. See Elizabeth Fisher, Woman ’ s Creation: Sexual Evolu-
tion and the Shaping of Society (New York: McGraw-
Hill, 1979); Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).
2. This is what Warren Farrell means when he describes
male power as mythical. In this case, he’s right. See
The Myth of Male Power (New York: Berkley Books,
1993).
3. J. R. Wilkie, “Changes in U.S. Men’s Attitudes towards
the Family Provider Role, 1972–1989,” Gender and
Society 7, no. 2 (1993): 261–79.
4. The classic statement of how this happens is by Thomas
S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientifi c Revolutions
( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970).
5. Bonaro W. Overstreet, Hands Laid Upon the Wind
(New York: Norton, 1955), p. 15.
R E A D I N G 5 7
In Defense of Rich Kids
William Upski Wimsatt
My family never talked much about money, except to
say that we were “middle-class . . . well maybe up-
per-middle-class.” A few years ago, it became clear
that both my parents and my grandmother had a lot
more money than I realized. As an only child, I stood
William Upski Wimsatt is a social entrepreneur, political activ-
ist, and author of Bomb the Suburbs and No More Prisons. He
has also written for the Chicago Tribune and Vibe.
to inherit a nice chunk of it. I didn’t know how much
and I didn’t know when. They did not want me to
become spoiled or think I didn’t have to work.
A lot of people will use this information to write
me off. Oh, he’s a rich kid. No wonder he could
publish a book, probably with his parents’ money.
And why’s he going around bragging about it?
What is he, stupid? Some of us have to work for a
living, etc.
You can hate me if you want to. I am the benefi –
ciary of a very unfair system. The system gives me
tons of free money for doing nothing, yet it forces
you to work two and three jobs just to get out of debt.
On top of that, I have the nerve to sit up here and
talk about it and—for some it will seem—to rub it
in. Most rich people are considerate enough to shut
their mouths and pretend they’re struggling too. To
get on TV talking about, “I got this on sale.”
I didn’t really have anyone to talk about it with.
I knew a lot of the kids I had gone to school with
were in a similar situation but we never discussed
our family money, except in really strange ways
like how broke we were and how those other rich
people were so spoiled/lucky. Our judgments of
them betrayed our own underlying shame.
And let’s talk right now about motives. As soon
as you bring up philanthropy, people want to talk
about motives. “Is he doing this for the right rea-
sons or is he just doing this to make himself feel
good?” Well, let me tell you, I am defi nitely doing
this to make myself feel good and—call me crazy—
I believe doing what you feel good about is one of
the right reasons.
Yes, I have the luxury to give my money away
because I know I’m going to inherit more later in
life. But don’t come to me with this bullshit, “Oh,
it’s easy for you to give away your money because
you’re gonna inherit more later.” If it’s so easy, how
come more rich people aren’t doing it? How come
Americans only give 2% to charity across the
board, whether they are rich, poor, or middle-class?
I usually give away 20–30% of my income every
year. But I just got my fi rst steady job, so this year,
if you throw in the book, I’ll probably be giving
away more like 50%.
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508 SECTION IV: Bridging Differences
supporting the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, and
my college is already so big, their fundraising op-
erations so effective, that giving my money to them
is a drop in the bucket.
For the organizing efforts I want to support,
every dollar is like a seed, helping not only to create
a new kind of organization, but an organization that
will be copied and that decades from now will es-
tablish new fi elds of work. It is the most strategic
way possible to change the course of history, and
the most unpopular because it’s so high-risk. . . .
THE MOST EFFECTIVE THING
YOU EVER DO
. . . What if we could double the number of cool rich
people who are funding social change from say fi ve
hundred to a thousand? Then we could double the
number of organizers on the street, lawyers in the
court rooms, lobbyists in Congress. Double the num-
ber of investigative reporters. There are so many
people who want to do progressive work who can’t
because there aren’t enough activist jobs. People
come out of law school to become environmental
lawyers and they end up having to defend corpora-
tions because they have to pay off their student loans.
Environmental groups can’t afford to hire them. The
same goes for radical artists and journalists, forced
to get jobs in advertising and public relations.
Five hundred more cool rich people could
change all that.
Five hundred cool rich people could change the
political landscape of this country.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying philan-
thropy will solve all our problems, especially not
the way 99% of it is done now. I’m not saying cool
rich people are any more important or worthy than
any other people. Poor people are made to feel like
they aren’t worth anything and that’s wrong. I don’t
want to feed into that by focusing on rich people for
a while. We need billions of people from billions of
backgrounds trying billions of strategies to save
this planet. It’s just that every serious effort to
change things takes people with money who under-
stand how to support a movement. All these naive
Hell no, I’m not some kind of saint who has
taken a vow of poverty and is now sitting in judg-
ment of you or anyone else’s money decisions. But
be aware, it’s easy to criticize my actions when you
don’t have much money. If you were in my situa-
tion, who’s to say you’d be any different from 99%
of other rich people who keep it all for themselves.
Or if they do give it away, it’s to big colleges, big
arts, big religion, or big service, supporting bureau-
cratic institutions that maintain systemic problems
by treating symptoms and obscuring root causes.
Which brings me to the next very selfi sh reason
for my philanthropy. I have a political agenda and my
philanthropic “generosity” plus my sense of strategy
gives me more philanthropic power to change the
world than people with 50 times my income.
The deeper reason why I give away my money
is because I love the world. Because I’m grateful to
be alive at all. Because I’m scared about where
we’re headed. Because we owe it to our great-
grandchildren. Because we owe it to the millions
of years of evolution it took to get us here. And to
everyone before us who fought to change history
and make things as good as they are now. Because
I know how to change history and I know it takes
money. Because I get more joy out of making
things better for everyone than I get out of making
things materially better for myself. Because I know
how to make and spend money on myself. It’s bor-
ing. There’s no challenge in it. And no love in it.
I love helping good things happen, and supporting
people I believe in. Especially people and organi-
zations that have NO money put into them by tra-
ditional foundations and charities. I’m not talking
about your everyday charities like diabetes or your
college(s) that already have multi-million dollar
budgets set up to fi ght for them.
They’re new.
They don’t exist yet.
They’re like diabetes in 1921, the year before
they extracted insulin.
They’re like your college the year before it was
founded.
Don’t get me wrong. My father has juvenile dia-
betes. And I love my college too. But the money
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READING 57: In Defense of Rich Kids 509
actions. We are asking our parents to teach us about
money. We are helping our families make responsi-
ble decisions about investments. Some of us are get-
ting on the boards of family foundations or helping
our families to start them. We introduce each other to
amazing grassroots people to break the isolation of
wealth. We are just in the process of getting orga-
nized. We had our fi rst conference last spring, spon-
sored by the Third Wave Foundation in New York.
More are planned.
My goal is to get more young people with wealth
in on the conversation. With fi ve million millionaires
in the U.S., even if we only spoke to the coolest 1%
of all millionaire kids, that’s still 50,000 people!
One half of the money I give away every year
goes directly to grassroots youth activist organiza-
tions that I have a relationship with. (No, I don’t
make them kiss up to me. I just give it to them,
thank them for their hard work and if they feel
funny about it, I remind them that the only reason
I have the money in the fi rst place is because I’ve
been so privileged and so many people have helped
me. So it wasn’t really “my” money to begin with.
Oftentimes I have to insist that people take my
money. We’ve all had so many bad experiences.)
The other half of my money I donate to organiz-
ing people with wealth.
That may seem strange at fi rst.
Why give money to people who already have
wealth?
From all my experience with grassroots organi-
zations, I believe that organizing people with wealth
is the most powerful work I do. And paradoxically,
it is some of the hardest work to fundraise for be-
cause everybody including rich people thinks,
“Why give rich people more money?” And that’s
why only a few dozen people in America have the
job of helping rich people fi gure out how to come to
terms with and do cool things with their money.
I think we need more of those people in the
world.
So recently, I’ve changed my focus in a big way.
I joined the board of More Than Money. I am
helping to start the Active Element Foundation,
which is the fi rst foundation that will specifi cally
college or punk or hip-hop revolutionaries talking
about, “Fuck that. I don’t know any rich people and
if I do they’re assholes and anyway, I don’t need
their money.” I only have one thing to say. Wait
until your community center gets shut down. Wait
until your broke grassroots genius friends start
burning out because they have to do menial shit all
day because they don’t have the time or capital to
make their dreams come true.
Consider these statistics. There are about fi ve
million millionaire households in the U.S. That’s
approximately one out of every 50 people. So, if
you are a social person (not a hermit) and you are
not currently serving a life sentence in prison, then
chances are you will have the opportunity at some
point in your life to get to know a number of people
who are, at the very least, millionaires. Most of the
time you will not know they are millionaires. Half
of the time, millionaires don’t even realize they are
millionaires. My parents didn’t realize they were.
People usually have their assets tied up in many
different forms such as houses, trusts, mutual funds,
stocks, bonds and retirement accounts.
Less than 1% of all charitable giving ends up in
the hands of people who are working to change the
system. As Teresa Odendahl has pointed out in her
ironically titled book Charity Begins at Home, con-
trary to popular belief, most charity money does not
go to help poor children help themselves. The vast
majority of money goes to big churches, big col-
leges, big hospitals, big arts and social service orga-
nizations which either directly cater to privileged
people, or which treat the symptoms of social ills
without ever addressing the root causes. . . .
Over the next 50 years, the upper-classes of my
generation stand to inherit or earn the greatest per-
sonal fortune in history, while the lower classes
both here and internationally will continue slipping
deeper into poverty and debt.
That’s where the Cool Rich Kids Movement
comes in. Actually there isn’t much of a “Cool Rich
Kids Movement.” That’s just what I call the loose-
knit network of maybe 100 of us young people with
wealth who are in conversation with each other, and
who support each other in taking small but signifi cant
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510 SECTION IV: Bridging Differences
choose to be born poor. The sickness of our society
damages us each in different and complicated ways,
and we sometimes forget that rich people get dam-
aged too. Not just in a mocking way, like, “Oh,
they’re so spoiled.” But in a real way. One of the
most common ways privileged people get damaged
is that we are taught not to talk about money. We
put a wall around ourselves, and then it is hard for
us to be honest with people who aren’t rich. This
makes us cold and creates a vicious cycle of not
trusting and not sharing ourselves or our money.
There are only a few of us out here doing this
work, which is why I have been thrust into the spot-
light. It’s a little ridiculous actually that I am speak-
ing for rich kids when I haven’t even inherited my
money yet. But there was a deafening silence and
someone needed to come out here and give us a
bold public voice. Do you have any cool rich friends
who may be looking for people in similar situations
to talk to?
Hint: You do.
Please please please pass this along to them.
It just might be the most effective thing you
ever do.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Would you rather have money or a large num-
ber of supporters if you were seeking to create
social change?
2. How much money would you want to have be-
fore you considered giving away some of it to
create social change?
work with young donors on funding grassroots
youth activism. And I’m also helping to start the
Self-Education Foundation, which will tap success-
ful people who either didn’t like school or who
dropped out to fund self-education resource centers
which will support poor kids to take learning into
their own hands. I am helping to organize a series
of conferences around the country for young people
with wealth, put on by The Third Wave Foundation
and the Comfort Zone. . . .
I believe the most effective thing I do for the
world every year is to buy gift subscriptions of
More Than Money Journal for my privileged
friends and to keep a ready supply of Money Talks .
So Can We. for every cool young person I meet who
has money. This is the most effective action I do.
Any other possible action I could do, one cool rich
person could hire ten more people to take my place.
But there’s very little room in our culture to talk
about having money and funding renegade work.
Most rich people be like, “See you later.” And most
grassroots people be like, “It’s easy for you because
you’re rich.” There’s resentment either way. People
who aren’t rich can play a huge role supporting us.
So many of my friends who aren’t wealthy act like,
“Ha ha ha, going to your rich kids conference.”
That’s not going to make me want to talk to you. If
you are truly down to change the world, don’t try to
score points by alienating your rich friends with
snide remarks. If you take the time to truly under-
stand us and support us as people, more than likely,
we will do the same for you. Rich people don’t
choose to be born rich any more than poor people
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READING 58: Uprooting Racism 511
feelings are discounted and ridiculed. We are told
by parents just to obey “because I said so.” We are
told by bosses, religious leaders and professional
authorities not to challenge what they say, “or else”
(or else you’ll be fi red, go to hell, be treated as
“crazy”). When we do get angry we learn to stuff it,
mutter under our breath and go away. We are taught
to turn our anger inward in self-destructive behav-
iors. If we are men we are taught to take out our
frustrations on someone weaker and smaller than
we are.
When we have seen someone expressing anger,
it has often been a person with power who was
abusing us or someone else physically, verbally or
emotionally. We were hurt, scared or possibly con-
fused. Most of us can remember a time from our
youth when a parent, teacher, coach, boss or other
adult was yelling at us abusively. It made us afraid
when those around us became angry. It made us
afraid of our own anger.
A similar response is triggered when a person of
color gets angry at us about racism. We become
scared, guilty, embarrassed, confused and we fear
everything is falling apart and we might get hurt. If
the angry person would just calm down, or go away,
we could get back to the big, happy family feeling.
R E A D I N G 5 8
Uprooting Racism: How
White People Can Work for
Racial Justice
Paul Kivel
A person of color who is angry about discrimina-
tion or harassment is doing us a service. That per-
son is pointing out something wrong, something
that contradicts the ideals of equality set forth in
our Declaration of Independence and Bill of
Rights. That person is bringing our attention to a
problem that needs solving, a wrong that needs
righting. We could convey our appreciation by say-
ing, “Thank you, your anger has helped me see
what’s not right here.” What keeps us from re-
sponding in this way?
Anger is a scary emotion in our society. In main-
stream white culture we are taught to be polite,
never to raise our voices, to be reasonable and to
keep calm. People who are demonstrative of their
P E R S O N A L A C C O U N T
Where Are You From?
As a freshman at a predominantly white private college,
I  was confronted with a number of unusual situations.
I was extremely young for a college freshman (I was six-
teen), I was African American, and I was placed in upper-
division courses, because of my academic background.
So being accepted and fitting in were crucial to me.
I was enrolled in a course, political thought, with ap-
proximately thirty other students, mostly juniors and se-
niors who had taken courses with this professor before.
I was the only African American in the class. During intro-
ductions for the first class, he never got around to letting
me speak, even though he went alphabetically on the list
(my last name begins with a “C”). Later, I began to be
aware of his exclusion of me from class discussion. By
the third class, I guess he felt there was no longer any
way he could avoid speaking to me. He asked me a few
questions about myself—where I was from, what high
school had I attended, and what was my major. His ques-
tions began to seem like a personal attack, and then fi-
nally he asked, “Why are you here?” “Where are you
from?” I was quite taken aback by his line of questioning,
when one of the upperclassmen (a white man) re-
sponded for me. “She’s a freshman, Dr. B. Any more
questions?” That guy became one of my closest friends.
We have maintained contact ever since college. His re-
sponse to Dr. B. totally changed the professor’s way of
treating me.
C.C.
Paul Kivel is a social justice educator, activist, writer, trainer,
and speaker on men’s issues.
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512 SECTION IV: Bridging Differences
society, and most of us individually, rarely notice
racism.
It is the anger and actions of people of color that
call our attention to the injustice of racism. Some-
times that anger is from an individual person of
color who is talking to us. At other times it is the
rage of an entire community protesting, bringing
legal action or burning down buildings. Such anger
and action is almost always a last resort, a desperate
attempt to get our attention when all else fails.
It is tremendously draining, costly and person-
ally devastating for people of color to have to rage
about racism. They often end up losing their friends,
their livelihoods, even their lives. Rather than
attacking them for their anger, we need to ask our-
selves how many layers of complacency, ignorance,
collusion, privilege and misinformation have we
put into place for it to take so much outrage to get
our attention?
The 1965 riots in Watts, as never before, brought
our attention to the ravages of racism on the
African-American population living there. In 1968 a
national report by the Kerner Commission warned us
of the dangers of not addressing racial problems. Yet
in 1992, when there were new uprisings in Los
Angeles, we focused again on the anger of African
Americans, on containing that anger, protecting
property and controlling the community, rather than
on solving the problems that cause poverty, unem-
ployment, crime and high drop-out rates. As soon as
the anger was contained, we turned our attention
elsewhere and left the underlying problems unad-
dressed. The only way to break this cycle of rage is
for us to seriously address the sources of the anger,
the causes of the problems. And in order to do that,
we need to talk about racism directly with each other.
BEING A STRONG WHITE ALLY
What kind of active support does a strong white
ally provide? People of color that I have talked with
over the years have been remarkably consistent in
describing the kinds of support they need from
white allies. The following list is compiled from
their statements at workshops I have facilitated.
Relationships between people of color and
whites often begin as friendly and polite. We may
be pleased that we know and like a person from
another cultural group. We may be pleased that they
like us. We are encouraged because despite our
fears, it seems that it may be possible for people
from different cultures to get along together. The
friendships may confi rm our feelings that we are
different from other white people.
But then the person of color gets angry. Per-
haps they are angry about something we do or say.
Perhaps they are angry about a comment or action
by someone else, or about racism in general. We
may back off in response, fearing that the relation-
ship is falling apart. We aren’t liked anymore.
We’ve been found out to be racist. For a person of
color, this may be a time of hope that the relation-
ship can become more intimate and honest. The
anger may be an attempt to test the depths and
possibilities of the friendship. They may be open
about their feelings, to see how safe we are, hoping
that we will not desert them. Or the anger may be
a more assertive attempt to break through our
complacency to address some core assumptions,
beliefs or actions.
Many white people have been taught to see
anger and confl ict as a sign of failure. They may
instead be signs that we’re becoming more honest,
dealing with the real differences and problems in
our lives. If it is not safe enough to argue, disagree,
express anger and struggle with each other what
kind of relationship can it be?
We could say, “Thank you for pointing out the
racism because I want to know whenever it is oc-
curring.” Or, “I appreciate your honesty. Let’s see
what we can do about this situation.” More likely
we get scared and disappear, or become defensive
and counterattack. In any case, we don’t focus
on  the root of the problem, and the racism goes
unattended.
When people of color are angry about racism it
is legitimate anger. It is not their oversensitivity,
but our lack of sensitivity, that causes this commu-
nication gap. They are vulnerable to the abuse of
racism every day. They are experts on it. White
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READING 58: Uprooting Racism 513
with racism all the time. We have to learn to see
the effect that racism has. Notice who speaks,
what is said, how things are done and described.
Notice who isn’t present. Notice code words
for race, and the implications of the policies,
patterns and comments that are being expressed.
You already notice the skin color of everyone
you meet and interact with—now notice what
difference it makes.
2. Notice who is the center of attention and who
is the center of power. Racism works by direct-
ing violence and blame toward people of color
and consolidating power and privilege for
white people.
3. Notice how racism is denied, minimized and
justifi ed.
4. Understand and learn from the history of
whiteness and racism. Notice how racism has
changed over time and how it has subverted or
resisted challenges. Study the tactics that have
worked effectively against it.
5. Understand the connections between racism,
economic issues, sexism and other forms of
injustice.
6. Take a stand against injustice. Take risks. It is
scary, diffi cult, risky and may bring up many
feelings, but ultimately it is the only healthy
and moral human thing to do. Intervene in situ-
ations where racism is being passed on.
7. Be strategic. Decide what is important to
challenge and what’s not. Think about strategy in
particular situations. Attack the source of power.
8. Don’t confuse a battle with the war. Behind
particular incidents and interactions are larger
patterns. Racism is fl exible and adaptable.
There will be gains and losses in the struggle
for justice and equality.
9. Don’t call names or be personally abusive.
Since power is often defi ned as power over
others—the ability to abuse or control people—
it is easy to become abusive ourselves. How-
ever, we usually end up abusing people who
have less power than we do because it is less
dangerous. Attacking people doesn’t address
the systemic nature of racism and inequality.
The focus here is on personal qualities and interper-
sonal relationships. More active interventions are
discussed in the next part of [this discussion].
What people of color want from white allies:
“Respect”
“Find out about us”
“Don’t take over”
“Provide information”
“Resources”
“Money”
“Take risks”
“Don’t take it personally”
“Understanding”
“Teach your children about racism”
“Speak up”
“Don’t be scared by my anger”
“Support”
“Listen”
“Don’t make assumptions”
“Stand by my side”
“Don’t assume you know what’s best for me”
“Your body on the line”
“Make mistakes”
“Honesty”
“Talk to other white people”
“Interrupt jokes and comments”
“Don’t ask me to speak for my people”
BASIC TACTICS
Every situation is different and calls for critical
thinking about how to make a difference. Taking
the statements above into account, I have compiled
some general guidelines.
1. Assume racism is everywhere, every day. Just
as economics infl uences everything we do, just
as our gender and gender politics infl uence
everything we do, assume that racism is affect-
ing whatever is going on. We assume this
because it’s true, and because one of the privi-
leges of being white is not having to see or deal
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514 SECTION IV: Bridging Differences
being attacked, even by a joke or teasing, there are
no innocent bystanders.
As a white person you can play a powerful role
in such a situation. When a person of color protests
against being put down in an atmosphere where
they are already disrespected, they are often dis-
counted as well. You, as a white person interrupting
verbal abuse, may be listened to and heeded be-
cause it breaks the collusion from other white peo-
ple that was expected by the abuser. If a person of
color speaks up fi rst then you can support them by
stating why you think it is right to challenge the
comments. In either case, your intervention as a
white person challenging racist comments is im-
portant and often effective.
What can you actually say in the presence of de-
rogatory comments? There are no right or wrong
answers. The more you do it the better you get. Even
if it doesn’t come off as you intended, you will infl u-
ence others to be more sensitive and you will model
the courage and integrity to interrupt verbal abuse.
Following are suggestions for where to start.
If you can tell at the beginning that a joke is
likely to be offensive or involves stereotypes and
putdowns, you can say something like, “I don’t want
to hear a joke or story that reinforces stereotypes or
puts down a group of people.” Or, “Please stop right
there. It sounds like your story is going to make fun
of a group of people and I don’t want to hear about
it.” Or, “I don’t like humor that makes it unsafe for
people here.” Or, “I don’t want to hear a joke that
asks us to laugh at someone else’s expense.” There
are many ways to say something appropriate with-
out attacking or being offensive yourself.
Using “I” statements should be an important
part of your strategy. Rather than attacking some-
one, it is stronger to state how you feel, what you
want. Other people may still become defensive, but
there is more opportunity for them to hear what you
have to say if you word it as an “I” statement.
Often you don’t know the story is offensive until
the punchline. Or you just are not sure what you’re
hearing, but it makes you uncomfortable. It is ap-
propriate to say afterwards that the joke was inap-
propriate because . . . , or the story was offensive
10. Support the leadership of people of color.
Do this consistently, but not uncritically.
11. Don’t do it alone. You will not end racism by
yourself. We can do it if we work together.
Build support, establish networks, work with
already established groups.
12. Talk with your children and other young
people about racism.
IT’S NOT JUST A JOKE
“Let me tell you about the Chinaman who . . .”
What do you do when someone starts to tell a joke
which you think is likely to be a racial putdown?
What do you do if the racial nature of the joke
is  only apparent at the punchline? How do you
respond to a comment which contains a racial
stereotype?
Interrupting racist comments can be scary because
we risk turning the attack or anger toward us. We are
sometimes accused of dampening the mood, being
too serious or too sensitive. We may be ridiculed for
being friends of the _______. People may think we’re
arrogant or trying to be politically correct. They may
try to get back at us for embarrassing them. If you’re
in an environment where any of this could happen,
then you know that it is not only not safe for you, it’s
even more unsafe for people of color.
People tell jokes and make comments sometimes
out of ignorance, but usually knowing at some level
that the comment puts down someone else and cre-
ates a collusion between the speaker and the listener.
The joketeller is claiming that we’re normal, intelli-
gent and sane, and others are not. The effect is to
exclude someone or some group of people from the
group, to make it a little (or a lot) more unsafe for
them to be there. Furthermore, by objectifying some-
one, it makes it that much easier for the next person
to tell a joke, make a comment or take stronger ac-
tion against any member of the objectifi ed group.
The reverse is also true. Interrupting such behav-
ior makes it less safe to harass or discriminate, and
more safe for the intended targets of the abuse.
Doing nothing is tacit approval and collusion with
the abuse. There is no neutral stance. If someone is
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READING 58: Uprooting Racism 515
else laughed at the joke. At that point you might
want to turn to the others and ask them if they like
hearing jokes that are derogatory, do they like sto-
ries that attack people?
Sometimes the joke or derogatory comment will
be made by a member of the racial group the com-
ment is about. They may believe negative stereo-
types about their racial group, they may want to
separate themselves from others like themselves, or
they may have accepted the racial norms of white
peers in order to be accepted. In this situation it is
more appropriate, and probably more effective, to
talk to that person separately and express your con-
cerns about how comments reinforce stereotypes
and make the environment unsafe.
Speaking out makes a difference. Even a defen-
sive speaker will think about what you said and prob-
ably speak more carefully in the future. I have found
that when I respond to jokes or comments, other
people come up to me afterwards and say they are
glad I said something because the comments both-
ered them too but they didn’t know what to say. Many
of us stand around, uneasy but hesitant to intervene.
By speaking out we model effective intervention and
encourage other people to do the same. We set a tone
for being active rather than passive, challenging rac-
ism rather than colluding with it.
The response to your intervention also lets you
know whether the abusive comments are intentional
or unintentional, malicious or not. It will give you
information about whether the speaker is willing to
take responsibility for the effects words have on oth-
ers. We all have a lot to learn about how racism hurts
people. We need to move on from our mistakes,
wiser from the process. No one should be trashed.
If the speaker persists in making racially abusive
jokes or comments, then further challenge will only
result in arguments and fi ghts. People around them
need to take the steps necessary to protect them-
selves from abuse. You may need to think of other
tactics to create a safe and respectful environment,
including talking with peers to develop a plan for
dealing with this person, or talking with a supervisor.
If you are in a climate where people are being put
down, teased or made the butt of jokes based on
because . . . , or it made you feel uncomfortable
because . . . Trust your feelings about it!
In any of these interactions you may need to ex-
plain further why stories based on stereotypes rein-
force abuse, and why jokes and comments that put
people down are offensive. Rather than calling
someone racist, or writing someone off, interrupt-
ing abuse is a way to do public education. It is a
way to put what you know about racial stereotypes
and abuse into action to stop them.
Often a person telling a racial joke is defensive
about being called on the racism and may argue or
defend themselves. You don’t have to prove any-
thing, although a good discussion of the issues is a
great way to do more education. It’s now up to the
other person to think about your comments and to
decide what to do. Everyone nearby will have heard
you make a clear, direct statement challenging
verbal abuse. Calling people’s attention to some-
thing they assumed was innocent makes them more
sensitive in the future and encourages them to stop
and think about what they say about others.
Some of the other kinds of reactions you can
expect are:
“It ’ s only a joke.” “ It may ‘only’ be a joke but it is at
someone’s expense. It creates an environment that is
less safe for the person or group being joked about.
Abuse is not a joke.”
“I didn ’ t mean any harm.” “ I’m sure you didn’t. But
you should understand the harm that results even if
you didn’t mean it, and change what you say.”
“Is this some kind of thought patrol?” “ No, people
can think whatever they want to. But we are respon-
sible for what we say in public. A verbal attack is like
any other kind of attack, it hurts the person attacked.
Unless you intentionally want to hurt someone, you
should not tell jokes or stories like this.”
“This joke was told to me by a member of that group.”
“ It really makes no difference who tells it. If it is of-
fensive then it shouldn’t be told. It is sad but true that
some of us put down our own racial or ethnic group.
That doesn’t make it okay or less hurtful.”
Sometimes the speaker will try to isolate you by
saying that everyone else likes the story, everyone
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516 SECTION IV: Bridging Differences
color can work together to challenge more funda-
mental forms of racism, we need to be able to talk to
each other about the ways that we talk to each other.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. When is anger about racism appropriate?
2. What are some of the contradictions between
the American ideals of equality and reality?
their race, gender, sexual orientation, age or any
other factor, you should investigate whether other
forms of abuse such as sexual harassment or racial
discrimination are occurring as well. Jokes and ver-
bal abuse are obviously not the most important
forms that racism takes. However, we all have the
right to live, work and socialize in environments
free from verbal and emotional harassment. In order
to create contexts where white people and people of
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C-1
CREDITS
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Atlantic Monthly (July 2, 2013). Copyright © 2013 by
Alice Dreger. Reprinted with the permission of the author.
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Stalled and Uneven” from Gender & Society 24, no. 2
(April 2010). Copyright © 2010 by Sociologists for
Women in Society. Reprinted by permission of Sage
Publications, Inc.
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Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism
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Category” from White Women, Race Matters . Copyright
© 1993 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota.
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by The Regents of the University of California. Reprinted
with the permission of the University of California Press.
Malcolm Gladwell, excerpt from Chapter Three: “The
Warren Harding Error: Why We Fall for Tall, Dark, and
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All rights reserved.
Tanya Golash-Boza and William Darity Jr., excerpt from
“Latino Racial Choices: The Effects of Skin Colour
and Discrimination on Latinos’ and Latinas’ Racial
Self-identifications” from Ethnic and Racial Studies
31.5 (July 2008): 899–934. Copyright © 2008 by
Taylor & Francis. Reprinted with the permission of
Taylor & Francis, Inc.
Paul Gorski, “The Myth of the ‘Culture of Poverty’” from
Educational Leadership 65, no. 7 (April 2008): 32–36.
Copyright © 2008 by the Association for Supervision &
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David Haines, “Safe Haven in America?” from Global
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Jelita McLeod, “Everybody’s Ethnic Enigma” from The
Washington Post (July 7, 2003). Copyright © 2003 by
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author.
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from “The Silver Spoon: Inheritance and the Staggered
Start” from The Meritocracy Myth, Second Edition .
Copyright © 2009. Reprinted with the permission of
Rowman & Littlefi eld Publishing Group. This piece con-
tains excerpts from Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein,
and Sylvia Allegretto, The State of Working America:
2006/2007 . Copyright © 2007 by Cornell University.
Used by permission of the publisher, Cornell University
Press. This piece contains a table, “Intergenerational
Wealth Transmission from Parents to Children” from
Kerwin Kofi Charles and Erik Hurst, “The Correlation of
Wealth Across Generations” from Journal of Political
Economy 111.6 (2003): 1155–1182. Copyright © 2003.
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Chicago Press.
Tanya McNeill, excerpt from “Sex Education and the Pro-
motion of Heteronormativity” from Sexualities 16.7
(2013): 826–846. Copyright © 2013 by Sage Publications,
Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Sage Publications,
Inc.
Michael A. Messner, excerpt from “The Privilege of
Teaching About Privilege” from Sociological Perspectives
54.1 (Spring 2011): 3–14. Copyright © 2011 by the
Pacifi c Sociological Association. Reprinted by permission
of Sage Publications, Inc.
Ann Mullen, “The Not So Pink Ivory Tower” from Contexts
11:4 (Fall 2012). Copyright © 2012 by the American
Sociological Association. Reprinted with the permission
of Sage Publications, Inc.
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ity” from Sociological Perspectives 56.4 (2013): 569–595.
Copyright © 2013 by the Pacifi c Sociological Association.
Reprinted permission of Sage Publications, Inc.
Timothy Noah, excerpt from The Great Divergence:
America’s Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can
Do About . Copyright © 2012 by Timothy Noah. Reprinted
with the permission of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
Michael Oliver, excerpts from “Disability Defi nitions: The
Politics of Meaning” and “The Cultural Production of
Impairment and Disability” from The Politics of
Disablement: A Sociological Approach . Copyright ©
1990 by Michael Oliver. Reprinted with the permission
of the author and Palgrave Publishers Ltd.
Beth Fay Omansky, “Not Blind Enough: Living in the
Borderland Called Legal Blindness.” Reprinted with
permission.
C-2 Credits
J. Jack Halberstam, “Gaga Relations: The End of Marriage”
from Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of
Normal . Copyright © 2012 by J. Jack Halberstam.
Reprinted by permission of Beacon Press, Boston.
Laura Hamilton and Elizabeth A. Armstrong, excerpts
from  “Gendered Sexuality in Young Adulthood: Double
Binds and Flawed Options” from Gender & Society 23,
no. 5 (2009). Copyright © 2009 by Sociologists for
Women in Society. Reprinted with permission of Sage
Publications, Inc.
John Hockenberry, excerpts from “Public Transit” from
Moving Violations . Copyright © 1995 by John
Hockenberry. Reprinted by permission of Hyperion. All
Rights Reserved.
Amber Hollibaugh, “Queers Without Money: They Are
Everywhere. But We Refuse to See Them” from The
Village Voice (June 20, 2001). Reprinted with the permis-
sion of the author.
Allan G. Johnson, “What Can We Do?: Becoming Part of
the Solution” from Privilege, Power, and Difference .
Copyright © 2001. Reprinted with the permission of The
McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Paul Kivel, excerpt from Uprooting Racism: How White
People Can Work for Racial Justice . Copyright © 1996
by Paul Kivel. Reprinted with the permission of New
Society Publishers.
Roger N. Lancaster, excerpts from “The Biology of the
Homosexual” from The Trouble with Nature: Sex in
Science and Popular Culture . Copyright © 2003 by the
Regents of the University of California. Reprinted by
permission of the University of California Press.
Harlan Lane, excerpts from “Ethnicity, Ethics, and the
Deaf-World” from Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf
Education 10.3 (Summer 2005). Copyright © 2005.
Reprinted with the permission of Oxford University
Press, Ltd.
John Larew, “Why Are Droves of Unqualifi ed, Unprepared
Kids Getting into Our Colleges? Because their dads are
alumni” from The Washington Monthly (June 1991).
Copyright © 1991 The Washington Monthly Company.
Reprinted with the permission of The Washington
Monthly, 1611 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Washington,
DC 20009.
Jennifer Lee and Frank D. Bean, excerpt from “Plus ça
Change . . .? Multiraciality and the Dynamics of Race
Relations in the United States” from Journal of Social
Issues 65.1 (2009): 205–219. Copyright © 2009 by The
Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.
Reprinted with the permission of Wiley-Blackwell
Publishers, Ltd.
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Credits C-3
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Construction of a Special Education Category” from
Exceptional Children 53, no. 1 (Sept 1986): 46.
Copyright © 1986 by The Council for Exceptional
Children. Reprinted by permission of Sage
Publications,  Inc.
Audrey Smedley, “‘Race’ and the Construction of Human
Identity” from American Anthropologist 100(3)
( September  1998): 690–702. Reprinted by permission of
the American Anthropological Association. Not for sale
or further reproduction.
Tracy Poon Tambascia, Jonathan Wang, Breanne Tcheng,
Viet T. Bui, “Balancing Identities: Undocumented
Immigrant Asian American Students and the Model
Minority Myth” from 2014 NASPA Knowledge
Communities Conference Publication. Copyright © 2014
by the National Association of Student Personnel Admin-
istrators, Inc. Reproduced with permission.
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Enemy Race” from Whitewashed: America’s Invisible
Middle Eastern Minority . Copyright © 2009 by John
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University Press.
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The Washington Post (August 13, 2001): A13.
Copyright © 2001 by The Washington Post Writers
Group. All rights reserved. Used by permission and
protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States.
The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission
of the Material without express written permission is
prohibited.
Penny A. Weiss, excerpts from “I’m Not a Feminist, But . . .
Popular Myths about Feminism” from Conversations with
Feminism: Political Theory and Practice . Copyright ©
1998 Rowman and Littlefi eld Publishers, Inc. Reprinted
by permission.
Riki Wilchins, “All Together Now: Intersex Infants and
IGM” from Queer Theory, Gender Theory: An Instant
Primer (Los Angeles: Alyson Publications, 2004).
Copyright © 2004 by Riki Wilchins. Reprinted with the
permission of the author.
William Upski Wimsatt, “In Defense of Rich Kids” from
No More Prisons (Brooklyn: Subway and Elevated
Books/Soft Skull Press, 1999). Copyright © 1999 by
William Upski Wimsatt. Reprinted with the permission of
the author.
Michael Zweig, excerpt from What’s Class Got to Do With
It?: American Society in the Twenty-fi rst Century , edited
by Michael Zweig. Copyright © 2004 by Cornell
University. Used by permission of the publisher, Cornell
University Press.
Carola Suarez Orozco, “Formulating Identity in a Global-
ized World” from Marcelo N. Suárez-Orozco, M. and
Desirée B. Qin-Hilliard, Globalization: Culture and Edu-
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permission.
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Masculinity and Sexuality in High School . Copyright ©
2007 by The Regents of the University of California.
Reprinted with the permission of the University of
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The Society for Disability Studies. Reprinted with the
permission of the author.
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Contexts 10 (2011): 16. Copyright © 2011 by the
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permission of Sage Publications, Inc.
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Sherri H. Pereira, “I Thought My Race Was Invisible”
Heather L. Shaw, “Invisibly Disabled”
Hoorie I. Siddique, “I Am a Pakistani Woman”
Hoai Huong Tran, “The Americanization of a Reluctant
Vietnamese-American: Third of a Series”
Photo Credits
Section 1
Page 1: © John A. Rizzo/Getty Images RF
Section 2
Page 193: © Realistic Refl ections RF
Section 3
Page 339: © Hisham F. Ibrahim/Getty Images RF; p. 392
(centre left): © Tomas Rodriguez/Fancy Collection/Super-
Stock RF; p. 392 (centre Left): © Purestock/Superstock
RF; p. 392 (centre Right): © Tomas Rodriguez/Fancy Col-
lection/SuperStock RF; p. 392 (centre Right): © Purestock/
Superstock RF
Section 4
Page 481: © Evan Cantwell/Creative Services/George
Mason University
The following Personal Accounts have been reprinted
with the permission of the authors:
Sumaya M. Al-Hajebi, “Master Status: Pride and Danger”
Andrea M. Busch, “Basketball”
C.C., “Where Are You From?”
Heather Callender, “A Time I Didn’t Feel Normal”
Mireille M. Cecil, “Learning My Own Privilege”
Tara S. Ellison, “Living Invisibly”
Octavio N. Espinal, “Parents’ Underestimated Love”
Sarah Faragalla, “Hair”
Ruth C. Feldsberg, “What’s in a Name?”
Niah Grimes, “A Loaded Vacation”
Francisco Hernandez, “Just Something You Did as a Man”
Eric Jackson, “My Strategies”
Anthony McNeill, “Just Like My Mama Said”
Julia Morgenstern, “The Price of Nonconformity”
Isabelle Nguyen, “Let Me Work for It!”
Tim Norton, “He Hit Her”
Rose B. Pascarell, “That Moment of Visibility”
C-4 Credits
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I-1
ableism, 6, 43
abstinence education, 426–427
Adolescent Family Life Act
of 1981, 426
“Adolescent Masculinity in an
Age of Decreased Homohysteria,” 492–501
adolescent boys
heterosexual masculinities
and, 492–501
homohysteria and, 492–501
homophobia and, 277–287
immigrant identity development among girls
and, 226–237
new intimacies for, 49
race and ethnic taunts among, 210
adversarial identities, 233
affi rmative action
college admissions and, 447
legacy admissions and, 307–312
Regents of the University of California and,
375–378
Schutte v. Coalition to Defend Affi rmative
Action, Integration, and Immigration Rights
and Fight for Equality by Any Means
Necessary (2013), 387–389
whites’ perceptions of black competence
and, 38
African American exceptionalism, 22–23,
111, 112
African Americans
aggregate category of, 18
changes in categorical names of, 9
arrest for drug offenses and, 199
athletic stereotypes about, 344–345
characteristics attributed to
women, 40 fn
construction of whiteness and, 111
Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857) and, 359–361
European immigrants
compared to, 346
gay marriage and, 435–436
health and, 27, 216, 305
multiracial identifi cation of, 21, 57
one drop rule and, 61–69
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and,
364–367
residential segregation of, 403–405
self-esteem of, 219
stereotype threat and, 232
whites’ perceptions of, 38, 196
African Diaspora, 59
Afrocentrism, 56–57
Afro-Latino, 246
Agassi, Andre, 255
age, master status of, 194
age-related impairments, 460–461
aggregate category, 15–20, 18, 43
AIDs-related deaths, 148
Aladdin (movie), 255
Alexander the Great, 52
Al-Fayed, Dodi, 255
Al-Hajebi, Sumaya, 258
Ali, Muhammad, 268
Alien Land Law of 1920, 17fn
INDEX
A page number followed by fi g indicates an illustrated fi gure; one followed by fn indicates a footnote; one
followed by t indicates a table.
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I-2 Index
Anwar, Gabrielle, 255
Arab/Middle Easterners
assimilability and, 253–254
Census category and, 14, 23
covering, 256–259
religion and, 253–254
selective racialization and, 254–256
Areheart, Bradley A., 456–467
Ashe, Arthur, 212
Asian American Movement, 83–84
Asian American panethnicity, 80, 83
Asian Americans
aggregate category of, 16–17
“almost white” as, 110–111
diversity of, 22 fn , 82
English language and, 85
model minority myth and, 42, 86,
345–347
national-origin categories of, 17 fn
“perpetual foreigners” and, 22
San Francisco Bay Area and, 80–89
undocumented immigrants and, 399–401
Asian Indians, 17 fn
Asian Pacifi c Americans, see Asian Americans
Askew, Emily, 473–480
assimilation, 90, 93, 94
Association of Children with Learning
Disabilities, 468
asylum seekers, 397–398
attractiveness, 38
audit studies, 213
auto-title lenders, 452
aversive racism, 347, 348, 356
Ayatolla Khomeini, 255
Bacon’s Rebellion, 55
Badget, M.V. Lee, 440–441
Bailey, Michael, 147, 149–150
Bakke, University of California
Board of Regents v. (1978), 309, 375–378
“Balancing Identities: Undocumented Immigrant
Asian American Students and the Model
Minority Myth,” 399–401
Baldwin, James, 67
“All Together Now: Intersex Infants And IGM,”
117–123
Allen, Theodore, 55, 59
ally
defi nition of, 490
how to get and be an, 488–489
white and, 512–516
alternative fi nancial services industry, 452
American Anthropological Association 1998
Statement on Race, 25
American as white, 22
American Breeders Association, 186
American Community Survey, 13, 16
American exceptionalism
construction of “defective black” and, 165
disability and, 165–166
income inequality and, 139
American Psychological Association, 11
American Sign Language, 176
American Sociological Association Statement on
Importance of Collecting Data, 25
American/non-American, 22
“The Americanization of a Reluctant Vietnamese
American,” 239–241
Americans with Disabilities Act, 18, 165
Amherst College T-shirt, 39
anatomist perspective, 115–116
ancient world
ethnicity in, 51
kinship in, 51
racialized world view in, 51–54
slavery in, 52
Anderson, Eric, 492–501
androcentrism, 19, 43
Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, 116
androgens, 116
anger, 511–512
Anglo, 9
Anglo-Saxonism, 55
Anka, Paul, 255
Anti-discrimination laws, 14–15
antifeminism, 274
anti-miscegenation statutes, 65
Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty
Act, 201
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Index I-3
Native American authenticity
and, 73
one drop rule vs., 75
Shania Twain and, 72–73
tribal citizenship and, 71–79
Boas, Franz, 354
boomerang children, 134
“brown paper bag test,” 75
Brown v. Board of Education (1954), 370–372
Buck v. Bell (1927), 352
Buckley, William F. Jr, 308
bullying, 429
Busch, Andrea M., 115
C.C., 511
California prison riots, 94
Callendar, Heather, 337
“‘Can You See the Rainbow?’: The Roots of
Denial,” 325–331
Cantril, Hadley, 3
capitalist class, 128–129
“card-carrying Indian,” 72
Carr, James H., 452–456
Cash Assistance Program, 42
categorical distinctions, 298
categorical inequalities, 20–21
categories of people, creating, 11–15
“Cause of death: Inequality,” 303–306
Cecil, Mireille M., 432
-centric and -centrism, 43
Charles, Suzette, 62
Chase, Cheryl, 118–120
Chasing Amy (movie), 142
Cher, 255
Chicago ex-gang members, 163–176
Chicano and Chicanismo, 9
child rearing, and devaluation of women, 416
childhood poverty, 444
The Children of Sanchez , 313
children’s clothing, 123–124
Chinese Exclusion Act, 349
Chinese immigrants in
Mississippi, 111
Cho, Margaret, 250
Bartkey, Sandra, 218
“Basketball,” 115
Basow, Susan, 35
Bean, Frank D., 22, 107–114
The Bell Curve , 58
bell hooks, 209
Bell, Alexander Graham, 186
Bell, Catherine, 255
Beneke, Timothy, 267–272
Beyond Gay and Straight Marriage , 436–437
“bi erasure,” 29
BiDil, 27
bilingual education, 372–373
bilingualism, 225
bin Laden, Osama, 255
Binet, Alfred, 351–352
“The Biology of the Homosexual,” 147–157
“biphobia,” 29
birdcage metaphor, 340
bisexuality, 29, 30, 142–147, 299
Black American ethnic groups, 23
Black Cubans, 246
Black Panamanians, 246
Black Power movement, 9, 246
“black”
history of changing terminology,
9, 63
Latin American defi nitions of, 66
black/non black divide, 110–111
black/non-black dichotomy, 22
blackface, 354–355
Blackmun, Harry A., 309
blindness
asking for help and, 334
borderline, 331–338
employment and, 329–330
expectations about, 325–326
legal blindness and, 331–338
passing as sighted and, 208, 335–337
pressures to deny, 325–331
stereotypes about, 332–333
“Blink in Black and White,” 390–394
blood quantum
“card-carrying Indian” and, 72
defi nitions of, 71, 72, 74
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I-4 Index
“A Credo for Support,” 489
Crenshaw, Kimberlé, 214
“crip,” 165
cultural capital, 133
culture of poverty
classism and, 314–315
history of idea of, 313
myths vs. reality of, 313–314
research on, 313
culture, 227
disability and, 456–467
Cypher, Julie, 142
Darity, William Jr., 16, 89–100
Darwin, Charles, 350
Dauphine, Nicholas, 398–399
Davis, F. James, 21, 61–69
Dawes Act, 74
Deaf World, 176–191
boundaries between hearing world and,
179–180
defi nition of, 176
ethnic group and, 176–191
eugenics and, 186–187
kinship and, 178–179
language and, 177–178, 181–182
sense of community and, 177
socialization into, 178
deafness
debate about disability of, 181
hereditary proportion of,
179, 186, 187
professional associations and, 182–183
rejection of disability status of, 183–188
sexuality/race/gender comparison with,
181–182
Declaration of Independence, 275
Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), 203, 385–387
defi cit perspective, 314–315
DeGeneres, Ellen, 142
“Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society,
and Neuroscience Create Difference,”
123–127
deportation, 201
Citizenship Schools, 483
Civil Rights Act of 1964, 12, 107
Civil Rights movement
Hispanics and, 398–399
U.S, immigration policy and, 346
Civil War Amendments, 361–361
Civil War, 21, 56
Clarke, Edward, 351
Clausen, Jan, 142
Clinton, Bill, 42
Clinton, Hillary, 215
closet, 207
Clueless (movie), 257
cochlear implants, 176, 184, 185
code-switching, 225
coethnic identities, 233–234
“collective Black,” 109
college, see higher education
Collins, Patricia Hill, 215
color blindness, 217
color line, 108
“colored,” 64
Commission on Civil Rights, 12
compulsive masculinity, 267–270
Boy Scout Manual of 1914 and, 268
defi nition of, 267
sexism and, 270
stress of, 267–272
Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, 116
Connell, R.J., 498–499
Constitution, U.S., 275
constructionist and essentialist perspectives,
3–7
defi nition of, 43
race and, 27
sexuality terminology and, 4
social movements and, 4
social sciences and, 4
tale of three umpires and, 3
Cool Rich Kids Movement, 509–510
covering
four axes of, 256
Middle Easterners and, 256–259
crack vs. cocaine powder, 199
Crash (movie), 23
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Index I-5
illness narratives of, 169
medical model of disability and, 169
story telling by, 169
war veterans and, 166–167
disablement vs. impairment,
456–457
disaggregate, 16, 44
discreditable stigma, 206–209, 220
discredited stigma, 209–212, 220
discrimination
prejudice vs., 217
role of unconscious and, 390–394
diseases of affl uence, 304–305
“diversity,” 2
Dominican immigrants, 92–93
Dorris, Michael, 77
double consciousness, 209, 220, 230, 341
Douglass, Frederick, 64, 355
Dovidio, John, 347
Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857), 359–361
Dreger, Alice, 31, 115–117
“driving while black,” 200
“driving while brown,” 200
D’Souza, Denish, 308
Dubois, W.E.B., 9, 108, 209, 341, 354
“Dude, You’re a Fag: Adolescent Male
Homophobia,” 277–287
Duggan, Lisa, 424
durability of inequality, 21
eating disorders, 459–460
Edelin, Ramona H., 9
education
negative presentation of homosexuality and,
425–427
perpetuation of inequality and, 447–452
racial segregation of, 370–372
San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez
(1973), 373–375
Sputnik satellite and, 468–469
effeminacy, 37
Elizabeth Armstrong, 287–297
Elk v. Wilkins (1884), 368–370
Ellis Island, 352
The Descent of Man (1871), 350
description vs. stereotype, 344
Diamond, Lisa M., 29, 142–147
“dichotomania,” 21 fn
dichotomization, 20–35
defi nition of, 44
disability and, 34
race and, 21–23
sex/gender and, 30–32
sexuality and, 28–30, 298–299
social class and 32–34
differential arrest rates, 199
differential undercount, 44
“Disability Defi nitions: The Politics of Meaning,”
159–162
“Disability Trouble,” 456–467
disability
aggregate category of, 17–18
ally for, 489
blindness as, 325–338
“brave sufferer” and, 474–475
built environment and, 473–480
Christianity and, 476–477
defi nition of, 5, 11, 34, 159–160, 456–457
denying, 325–331
“deserving” and 464–475
employment and, 159, 329–330
“enfreakment” and 478–479
gunshot wounds and, 164
home makeover and, 474–475
learning disabilities as, 6
panethnic groups and, 17–18
“personal failure” and, 475–476
race and, 164–165
sensory impairments and, 459
social and medical models of, 165–166
social class and, 164–165
social construction of, 5
stigma and, 38–41
story telling and, 169
Tennessee v. Lane (2004) and, 378–380
transportation and, 317–324
U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities, and, 6
disabled ex-gang members
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I-6 Index
execution rates, 42
ex-gang members, 163–176
experiencing social status, 194
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition , 473–480
Facebook, 31
“fag,”
discourse and, 281
trope and, 37
adolescents and, 277–283
Fair Deal, 33
Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, 399
Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, 199
family wage, 436
Faragalla, Sarah, 236
Fausto-Sterling, Anne, 118
federalism, 359
female hyperandrogenism, 116
feminism, 272–276
avoidance of term, 272–273
gender norms and, 275–276
patriarchy and, 276
power and, 273
sexuality and, 276
unacceptability of, 273–274
stereotypes about, 273
“feminization” of higher education, 411–414
Fifteenth Amendment (1870), 362
“fi nding blacks, losing Indians,” 75
Fine, Cordelia, 123–127
First Americans in the Arts, 73
Flag Wars (movie), 436
“fl aunting” sexuality, 203
Flutie, Doug, 255
Forbes, Jack, 75
forced sterilizations, 352–53
foreclosures, 452
“Formulating Identity in a Globalized World,”
225–238
Foucault, Michel, 118, 432, 433
Fourteenth Amendment (1868), 361–362
Frankenberg, Ruth, 101–106
Frazier, E. Franklin, 354
Frazier, Joe, 268
Ellison, Tara S., 297
employment discrimination,
legal/illegal forms of, 417
Ricci v. DeStefano (2009) and, 383–385
women and, 405–423
Engels, Friedrich, 340
England, Paula, 415–424
entitlement, 204–205, 220
Erikson, Erik, 226
Espinal, Octavio N., 506
Espiritu, Yen Le, 80–81
essential identity
defi nition of, 29–30, 44
sexuality and, 30
essentialism
and stereotypes, 345
defi nition of, 44
essentialist and constructionist perspectives, see
constructionist and essentialist perspectives
estate tax, 133
Etheridge, Melissa, 142
ethnic enclave, 228
ethnic fl ight, 234
ethnic identity
ancient world and, 51–60
ethnic activities and, 228–229
grandchildren of European immigrants
and, 219
ethnicity, 23, 44, 177 t
ethnie , 178
Statistical Directive No. 15, Offi ce of
Management and Budget and, 12
U.S. Census categories and, 11–15, 70
“Ethnicity, Ethics, and the Deaf World,”
176–191
ethos of reception, 229
eugenics, 186–187, 352–353
Eurocentric, 19, 43
Europe, 18 fn
European immigrants vs. African
Americans, 346
Europeans
“people in the boat” as, 19
aggregate category as, 18 fn
“Everybody’s Ethnic Enigma,” 248, 251
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Index I-7
career aspirations and, 412–413
changing conceptions of, 31, 415
characteristics attributed to, 39–40
children’s clothing and, 123–124
college and, 411–413
defi nition of, 31, 44
employment and, 413, 416–420
essentialism and, 415
essentialism vs. individualism and,
421–422
facility inequality and, 405–406
female-valued characteristics and, 39–40
feminism and, 275–276
immigrant youth adaptation and, 234
left/right handedness analogy to, 124–125
life expectancy and, 303–304
mortality inequality and, 405
mortality rates and, 407–408
natality inequality and, 405–406
occupational reference group and, 420
ownership inequality and, 406
pay gap and, 413–414, 417
professional inequality and, 406
relationship imperative and, 290–291
slut stigma and, 289–290
special opportunity inequality and, 406
transgender and, 30
“Gendered Sexuality in Young Adulthood: Double
Binds and Flawed Options,” 287–297
General Allotment (Dawes) Act of 1887, 74
George, Jeff, 255
The German Ideology (1846), 340
Gini Index, 138
Gini, Corrado, 138
girl/woman boy/man, word choice of, 10
Gladwell, Malcolm, 347, 390–394
Goddard, Robert H., 352,
Goffman, Erving, 40, 206, 256,
Golash-Boza, Tanya, 16, 89–100
Gorski, Paul, 40, 313–317
Gramsci, Antonio, 341
Grant, Madison, 67
Gratz v. Bollinger et al (2003), 380–381,
382–383
Great Chain of Being, 55
Freedom Riders, 399
Freire, Paolo, 483–485
French, Sally, 325–331
“From Friendly Foreigner to Enemy Race,”
251–261
Frye, Marilyn, 340
Gaertner, Samuel, 347
“Gaga Relations: The End of Marriage,” 432–439
Gallup Polls,
interracial marriage attitudes and, 344
sexuality attitudes and, 4–5
Gandhi’s paradox, 490, 503, 507
gangs, 163–176
family and, 170
internal Other and, 166
relations of debt/obligation and, 164
vengeance and, 171
Gans, Herbert, 111
Garroutte, Eva Marie, 71–79
“gay brain,” 147–149
“gay gene,” 150–156
gay marriage, 432–439
case against, 434–439
civil rights and, 436
race and, 435
reactive politics of, 435
social class and, 434
Supreme Court and, 385–387
Gay Pride marches, 42
gay twins studies, 149–150
“gay,” 9 fn
gay/lesbian
aggregate category of, 18–19
changing attitudes toward, 203
myth of affl uence of, 440–441
poverty and, 440–441
gender detectives, 125
Gender Identity Disorder, 120
“Gender Revolution: Uneven and Stalled,”
415–424
gender ( see also sex)
American cultural values and, 40, 415
asymmetric change in, 415–424
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I-8 Index
heterofl exibility, 142
heteronormativity
defi nition of, 19–20, 44, 425
depictions of superiority of, 427–428
examples of, 202–203
inclusive masculinity and, 499–500
state and federal educational policy and,
424–425
heterosexism, 20
“The Heterosexual Questionnaire,” 28, 158
hierarchy, 349–350
higher education
admissions to, 387–389
affi rmative action and, 387–389
class privileges and, 204
fi nancial aid and, 451–452
gender graduation rates and, 411–412
race/ethnicity graduation rates and, 345,
411–412
social change vs. powerlessness and, 203–204,
411–412, 482–483
social class vs. race and, 447–448
Highlander Folk School, 483–485
“Hispanics Are Forgotten in Civil Rights History,”
398–399
Hispanics, federal use of term, 7
Hispanics, see Latinos/Hispanics
HIV/AIDS, 495
Hockenberry, John, 6, 317–324
Holima, Mahmoud Abu, 321
Hollibaugh, Amber, 439–442
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 352
home foreclosures, 455
Home Improvement (TV show), 269
homohysteria
decrease in since 1980s, 495–496
era of, 494–495
inclusive masculinity theory and, 492
situations of low, 498–499
homophobia
adolescent males and, 277–285
adolescent opposition to, 497–498
gendered, 278–281
origin and meaning of term, 19–20
“homosexual,” 9
Great Depression, 139
“The Great Divergence: America’s Growing
Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do about
It,” 137–142
Great Migration of 1920s, 354
Grimes, Niah, 71,
gunshot wounds, 164
Haines, David W., 345, 393, 398
“Hair,” 236
Halberstam, J. Jack, 432–439
Hamer, Dean, 147, 150–156
Hamilton, Laura, 287–297
“handicapped,” 11
“happy slave” image, 355
Harlan, John Marshall, 365
Harlem Renaissance, 354
Hart-Celler Act, 107
“has-bian,” 142
hate crimes, 39
Hayek, Salma, 255
“He Hit Her,” 410
health/illness
access to health care and, 304
race/gender/social class and, 303–304
health-wealth connection and, 134–136
health-wealth gradient, 136
hearing impaired, vs. Deaf World, 176
Heche, Anne, 142
hegemonic ideology, 341, 356
hegemonic masculinity theory,
498–499
height, 393–394
Herek, Gregory, 20
heritability
homosexuality and, 155–156
scienifi c understanding of, 154–155
“herm,” 118
hermaphrodite, 118
Hermaphrodites with Attitude, 118
Hernandez v. Texas (1954), 399
Hernandez, Francisco, 271
Herodotus, 54
heterocentric, 43
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Index I-9
immigrants
fi rst vs. second generation experiences of, 226
racialization and, 245
refugees vs., 225, 345
stressors of, 225–226
whiteness and, 22
Immigration Act of 1917, 17 fn
Immigration and Nationality Act, 82
Immigration Restriction Act of 1924, 353
immigration
family-based admissions and, 397
IQ testing and, 353–354
U.S. policy since 1965, 346
impairment
continuum of, 462
cultural production of, 161–162
defi nition of, 5, 11, 44
disablement and, 456–457
medical diagnosis and, 457–458
social class and, 161–162
social construction of, 457–467
Implicit Association Test (IAT), 347, 390–394
“In Defense of Rich Kids,” 507–510
incarceration rates, 199–200
inclusive fi tness-maximizing theory of selection,
132
inclusive masculinities, 492–502
heteronormativity of, 499–500
increased emotional intimacy and, 496
physical touching and, 496–497
violence and, 497
theory of, 492–492, 498–499
income inequality
heritability of, 140 fi g
1948 compared to 2001, 446
global, 138
ill health and, 305
increase in, 33, 139
U.S. levels of, 137–139
inconvenient bodies, 118
index of dissimilarity, 420
Indian Removal Act of 1830, 349
Indians, see Native Americans
individualism vs. gender essentialism, 421–422
inherited advantages, 132–137
homosexuality
media on causes of, 154
public schools and pathologization of,
425–427
biological cause of, 150–156
social Darwinism and, 351
“honorary whites,” 109
“hook ups,” 293–294
Horne, Lena, 62–63
Horton, Myles, 483–485
Human Genome Project, 26
hyperandrogenism, 116
hypersegregation, 343
hypodescent, 63, 244, 225
hypothalamus, 147–149
“I Am a Pakistani Woman, 135
”I Grew Up Thinking I Was White,” 256–257
“I Thought My Race Was Invisible,” 89
identifi cation-assimilation hypothesis, 94
identity
ancient world and, 51–54
self-selected label and, 228,
ideology, 33, 340–341, 356
built environment and, 473–480
individual merit and, 341
popular culture and, 354–355
“If he gets a nosebleed, he’ll turn into a white,” 72
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant
Responsibility Act, 201
illness narratives, 169
“‘I’m Not a Feminist But . . .’:
Popular Myths about Feminism,” 272–277
immersion stage of identity development, 219
immigrant youth, 225–242
adversarial stance and, 233
assimilation of, 231–232
coethnic identity among, 233–224
ethnic fl ight and, 234,
ethos of reception and, 231
family and, 226, 228
gender and, 234
identity performance and, 228–229
transcultural identities and, 234–235
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I-10 Index
Jim Crow laws, 206, 206 fn , 364–365
Johnson, Allan G., 502–507
jokes, 514–516
judicial notice, 64
Judith Butler, 457
“Just Something You Did as a Man,” 271
Kanter, Rosabeth Moss, 210
Kasem, Casy, 255
Kennedy, Edward, 395
Kennedy, Florynce, 209
Kimmel, Michael, 10, 268
King, Martin Luther, 446–447
Kissing Jessica Stein (movie), 142
Kivel, Paul, 511–516
Kroeber, Alfred, 354
Kwan, Michelle, 22
Lady Gaga, 435
Lancaster, Roger, 5, 147–157
Lane, Harlan, 23, 176, 191
Lapinsky, Tara, 22
Larew, John, 307–312, 488
Latin Americanization thesis, 110
Latino National Political Survey, 93, 96–97
“Latino Racial Choices: The Effects of Skin
Colour and Discrimination on Latinos’
and Latinas’ Racial Self-Identifi cation,”
89–100
Latinos/Hispanics
2050 population estimates for, 89
aggregate category of, 16
assimilation and, 94
characteristics attributed to females, 40 fn
civil rights movement and, 398–399
health services for, 216
naming preferences of, 8, 16
police stops of, 201
racial and ethnic identifi cations of,
16, 89–100, 242–248
racialized ethnic label of, 90
racism and, 245
social class and, 243
Lau v. Nichols (1974), 372–373
intellectual impairments, 462–463
intelligence testing, 352–354
inter vivos transfers, 133–134
interaction effect, 214
intergenerational race to get ahead, 131 fi g
interlocking panethnicity, 81–82
“An Interlocking Panethnicity: The Negotiation of
Multiple Identitites among Asian American
Social Movement Leaders,” 80–88
interracial marriage
acceptance of, 343–344
rates of, 344
intersectionality, 214–216, 263–264
defi nition of, 4, 44, 81, 220
interaction effect and, 214
sexuality and, 291–293
Intersex Society of North America, 118
intersex
defi nition of, 118
estimates of the rates of, 118
genital mutilation (IGM) and, 119–123
hermaphrodism and, 118
intra-racial murder rates, 42
invention of the white race, 55
“invisible black ancestry,” 36
“Invisibly Disabled,” 163
IQ testing
immigrants and, 352
immigration restrictions and, 353–354
learning disability and, 468–471
Iranians
Jews as, 257
Arabs distinguished from, 23
Iranian-Americans, 256, 259
Irish immigrants and whiteness, 21–22, 110
Jackson, Eric, 249–250
Jane Doe v. State of Louisiana (1983), 65
Janus-faced nature of society, 483, 490,
Japanese Americans, 111
Jews
intelligence stereotypes about, 42
Ivy League universities exclusion of, 308–309
women, 40 fn
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Index I-11
marked and unmarked statuses, 38,
204–205, 220
marriage ( see also gay marriage)
alternative intimacies and, 436–437
exclusionary institution of, 433
oppressive ideology of, 438–439
Marmot, Michael, 304, 306
Marshall, Thurgood, 59
Martin, Trayvon, 197
Marx, Karl, 340
masculinity
behaviors that must be avoided and, 37
effeminacy and, 37
rejection of hypermasculinity and, 493–494
mass media
selective racialization in, 255–256
under-reporting of white criminality in,
198–199
master status
age as, 194
defi nition of, 2, 44
“Master Status: Pride and Danger,” 258
McIntosh, Peggy, 195–196, 262–263
McLeod, Jelita, 4, 248–251
McNamee, Stephen J., 131–137, 341
McNeill, Anthony, 395
McNeill, Tanya, 424–431
Mean Girls (movie), 210
medical diagnoses, 458–462
medical model of disability, 7, 169, 174 (see also
social and medical models of disability)
Men in Black (movie), 194
men
characteristics attributed to, 39–40
femininity and, 37
women’s fi elds and, 421
Mencia, Carlos, 8
Mendez, et al, v. Westminster School (1946), 399
mental illness, 458–461
merit scholarships, 451
meritocracy, 134, 139, 263–264, 307–312
Messner, Michael A., 261–267
mestizaje , 242
mestizo , 91
methamphetamine users, 198–199
lawful permanent resident
defi ned, 201
grounds for deportation, 201
learning disabilities, 468–473
1960s history of, 468–469
history of, 6
teacher attitudes and, 471
1970s diagnoses, 471
organic vs. environmental causes, 470–471
“Learning My Own Privilege,” 432
Lee, Jennifer, 22, 107–114
left/right handedness analogy to gender, 124–125
legacy admissions, 203–204, 307–312
legal blindness, 332
lesbians
sexual activity and, 301–302
sexual identity defi ned, 145
sexuality research about, 299–300
“Let Me Work for It,” 402
LeVay, Simon, 147–149
Lewis, Oscar, 313
LGBTQ, 10
Liddy, G. Gordon, 269
life chances, 210
life expectancy
global comparisons of, 304
inheritance and, 134–135
sex/gender and, 303–304
Lincoln, Robert, 62
lineal tribal citizenship, 71
literacy, 468, 483
“Living Invisibly,” 297
“A Loaded Vacation,” 71
looping and rereading, 205–206, 220
Louima, Abner, 348
Loving v.Virginia (1967), 343–344
Madonna, 142
Mailer, Norman, 268
Mainardi, Pat, 274
male-valued characteristics, 39–40
mammy image, 355
“man as jerk’ archetype, 498
“The Many Faces of Gender Inequality,” 405–410
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I-12 Index
Mullen, Ann, 411–414
multiracial
identifi cation, 107–114
families’ experience of, 202
Native Americans as, 73
problematic identity of, 57
U.S. Census designation of, 14
Muppets, 194
“My Strategies,” 249–250
myth of “no effect,” 503–504
“The Myth of the ‘Culture of Poverty’,” 313–317
mythopoetic men’s movement, 268
Nader, Ralph, 255
Najimi, Kathy, 255
Nakano, Dana Y., 80–88
names/naming, 7–11
natality inequality, 405–406
National Commission on Teaching and America’s
Future, 315
National Commission on the Causes and
Prevention of Violence, 268
national origins quotas, 67
National Security Entry-Exit Registration System
(NSEERS), 200–201, 254
National Survey of Latinos, 92
nationality churches, 219 fn
Native Americans,
aggregate category, 18
appearance and ceremonial roles of, 76–77
blood quantum measure of, 71, 72, 74, 71–79
“card-carrying Indians” and, 72
characteristics attributed to women, 40 fn
Constitutional defi nition of, 72
discrimination against, 75–76
expropriation of territories of, 349
forced relocation of, 349
full vs. mixed bloods and, 73–74
“person outside the boat” as, 18
tribal citizenship, rights and benefi ts, 71–73
Nativism, 56
natural law language, 341–344, 356
natural selection, 350
“natural,” 341–342
Mexican Americans
race and, 21
treatment prior to civil rights movement,
398–399
triracial hierarchy and, 110
Mexican-American War, 349
Michigan state constitution, 387–389
microaggression, 210, 220
middle class, 129–130
Middle East, regional identifi cation of, 17
Middle Eastern Americans, 251–261
aggregate category of, 17
avoidance of activism/politics, 257
covering and, 256–259
enemy aliens and, 254
Other as, 253–254
selective racialization of, 254–256
surveillance of, 201
use of term, 251–252
“white” and, 253, 257–258
Miller, Robert K. Jr., 131–137
Minor v. Happersett (1875), 362–363
minority group
analogy to blacks and, 109
benefi ts of status of, 107
disability and, 159
history of term, 12
minstrel shows, 252, 354–355
mirage of health, 34
mirror metaphor, 195
Miss America Pageant, 62
“missing women,” 408
Mitchell, George, 255
model minority myth, 86, 345–347
Asian American undocumented students and,
400–401
recent invention of, 345
transformation from “yellow horde” to, 111
African Americans and, 345–346
morbidity, 303
Morgan, Edmund, 56
Morgenstern, Julia, 114
Morrison, Toni, 22
mortality, 405, 407–408
mulatto, 70fi g, 55, 63, 64, 91
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Index I-13
anti-miscegenation and, 65, 67
applied to other American racial groups, 68
assimilation and, 68
blood quantum vs., 75
ethnicity and, 67
Native Americans and, 65
Passing of the Great Race and, 67
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and, 364–365
South Africa and, 21
one black ancestor rule, 63
opportunity costs, 416–417
oppositional racial consciousness, 18
oppression, 340
instability of, 503
interlocking systems of, 81
interview questions and, 160–161
resisting, 502–507
scientifi c method and, 160–161
Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development, 138
Origin of the Species (1859), 350
Oscar Wilde, 349
other sex, vs. opposite sex, 144
Other
constructing the, 35–37, 44
gang members as, 166
Middle Eastern Americans as, 253–254
risks of associating with, 36–37
sanctions against those who associate with the,
36–37
social control mechanism of, 37
other-sex sexuality, 144
overlapping normal curves, 35
ownership inequality, 406
owning a social problem, 182
panethnic/panethnicity, 80–89
defi nition of, 17, 44, 80
disability as, 17–18
interlocking, 81–82
nationality self-identifi cation vs., 228
protest chants as example of, 80
recognizing ethnic groups within, 84
social movements and, 17
Naturalization Act of 1906, 108–109
nature/nurture debate
Charles Darwin and, 350
human variation and, 349
implicit rankings and, 349
Near, Holly, 142
negative social mirror, 230–231
Negritude, 56
“Negro,” 9, 64
neoliberalism, 34
Never Say Never , 297
New Deal, 33, 404
New World, 56
Nguyen, Isabelle, 402
Nixon, Cynthia, 142
no promo hetero, 424
“no race” position, 25
Noah, Timothy, 33, 137–142
non-profi t organizations, 87
Norton, Tim, 410
“Not Blind Enough: Living in the Borderland
Called Legal Blindness,” 331–338
“The Not-So-Pink Ivory Tower,” 411–414
NSEERS, 200–201, 254
Obama, Barack, 21, 215, 485–486
objectifi cation, 38, 44
occupation, ancient world role of, 51
occupational health hazards, 136
occupations, sex segregation of 419 fi g
Occupy Wall Street movement, 33
octoroon, 64, 70 fi g
Offi ce of Management and Budget, 12
O’Leary, Hazel, 59
Oliver, Michael, 7, 11, 159–162
Olympic Committee
anatomists and identifi ers, 115–116
Stockholm Consensus and, 116
transsexual athletes and, 116
women athletes and, 115–116
“The Olympic Struggle over Sex,” 115–117
Omansky, Beth, 208, 331–338
On Our Backs , 142
one drop rule, 21, 63–67
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I-14 Index
pharmaceutical industries, 459
philanthropy, 507–510
Phipps, Susie Guillory, 65–66
physicalist, 19
Pillard, Richard, 147, 149–150
pink triangle, 207
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), 21, 64, 342,
364–365
Plus ça Change . . .? Multiraciality and the
Dynamics of Race Relations in the
United States,” 107–114
“plus-one” model, 437
Polikoff, Nancy D., 436–437
Poon Tambascia, Tracy, and Jonathan Wang,
Breanne Tcheng, and Viet T Bui, 399–401
poor whites, 55–56
pornography, 495–496
poverty
community college enrollments and, 448
community effects of, 443–444
economic recession of 2008 and, 445
moral problem for society and, 446
musical chairs analogy and, 445
rising life-course risk of, 444
social opportunities and, 444–445
structural failing and, 445–446
Powell, Adam Clayton, 62
power evasion, 217
power, 127–130, 216–217
powerlessness, 482–483
Pratt, Minnie Bruce, 145
preemptive violence, 196–197
prejudice
aversive racism and, 347–348
discrimination vs., 217
new forms of, 347–48
“The Price of Nonconformity,” 114
Primetime: What Would You Do? (TV show), 196
Princess Diana, 255
prison population, 199–200
“The Privilege of Teaching about Privilege,”
261–267
privilege
ability to exclude as, 216–217
daily experience of, 261–267
panethnic/panethnicity (Continued)
theories about, 80
utility and stability of, 17
paraplegic and quadriplegic, 168
parental desire to secure children’s future, 132
parental rescue, 134
“Parents’ Underestimated Love,” 506
Parks, Rosa, 483
Pascarell, Rose, 312
Pascoe, C.J., 37, 277–287
passing
as white, 36, 67–68, 206–207
as black, 67–68
being in the closet as, 207
blindness and, 208, 333–334
defi nition of, 220
discreditable stigma and,
206–209
immigration and, 227
Middle Eastern Americans and, 257
positive and negative aspects of, 208–209
sexuality and, 207
unwitting acceptance by others and, 208
The Passing of the Great Race (1916), 67
pastoralism, 104
paternalism, 41
Patino, Maria, 116
patriarchy, 276
payday loans, 452
pecan shellers’ strike of 1938, 399
“pedigree study,” 150
“people fi rst” language, 11
“people just want to be with their own kind,”
343–344
People Like Us (movie), 212 fn
“people of color,” 109
People v. Hall , (1854), 21
perceptions of discrimination, 41–42
perceptions of whiteness, 101–106
Pereira, Sherri, 89
performing identity, 228–229
“perpetual foreigner” syndrome, 227
“personal is political,” 418
Personal Responsibility Act, 426
Personal Responsibility Education Program, 427
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Index I-15
birth certifi cates and, 66
contemporary folk story of, 27–28
defi ning, 23–28, 44
Human Genome Project and, 26
Latino/Hispanic classifi cations of, 89–99,
242–248
multiraciality and, 107–114
“no race position” and, 25
one drop rule of, 61–69
social concept of, 27
stages of identity development and, 217–219
Statistical Directive No. 15, Offi ce of
Management and Budget and, 12
U.S. Census categories and, 11–15, 70
racial profi ling, 200–202
racialization, 252–259
racialized social structure, 24
racism
color blind, 217
high blood pressure among Blacks, 305
jokes/taunts and, 210, 504–505, 514–516
new forms of, 347–348
radical feminism, 274
Ralph, Laurence, 7, 163–176
Rank, Mark R., 443–447
Raza , 244
“Real Indians: Identity and the Survival of Native
America,” 71–79
recession of 2007–2009, 33, 138–139, 452, 445
“(Re)creating a World in Seven Days: Place,
Disability, and Salvation in Extreme
Makeover: Home Edition,” 473–480
redlining, 403
Reeves, Christopher, 169
refugees, 395–398
distinctiveness to, 396–397
education and, 396
English language competence of, 396
immigrants, comparison to, 396–397
numbers of, 397
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke
(1978), 375–378
relational double bind, 292–294
rereading, 205–206
residential segregation, 403–405
defi nition of, 220
experience of, 194–206
invisibility of, 195, 205
not being seen as criminal and, 197–200
preemptive violence and, 196–197
race/ethnicity and, 201, 102, 195–202
resisting, 502–507
sexuality and, 202–203, 292–293
social class and, 203–204
stigma compared to, 216–217
teaching about, 264–266
prostate cancer, 27
“Proving Manhood,” 267–272
“Public Transit,” 317–324
Puerto Rican racial identity, 93
quadroon, 64, 70 fi g
Queen Victoria, 405
Queer Eye (TV show), 10
Queer Nation, 9
“Queers Without Money,” 439–442
quotas, 346
race differences
college graduation rates and, 411–412
crime/arrest/incarceration rates and, 42,
199–200
health/illness and, 216, 303, 306
higher education and, 380–383
immigrant youth identity development
and, 227
Implicit Association Test and,
390–394
internet daters and, 344
learning problems diagnoses and, 469–471
mass media and, 198–199
perceptions of discrimination and, 41–42
preemptive violence and, 196–197
privilege and, 195–202
wealth loss and, 452–455
race
ancient world and, 51–61
Asian Indians and, 17 fn
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I-16 Index
all-or-none categorizing of, 35–36, 36 fi g
perception of discrimination and, 41–42
“Sex Education and the Promotion of
Heteronormativity,” 424–431
sex ratio, 407–408
sex
assignment of, 31
defi nition of, 30–31, 44
“Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love
and Desire,” 142–147
sexual fl uidity, 29, 142–147
sexual identity, 4 fn, 28 (see also sexuality)
defi nition of, 144
“Sexual Orientation and Sex in Women’s Lives:
Conceptual and Methodological Issues,”
297–303
sexual orientation, see sexuality
sexual preference, see sexuality
sexuality
assumptions about, 298–299
brain studies and, 147–149
college and, 287–297
constructionist/essentialist terminology
and, 4
defi nition of, 143–144
dichotomous defi nitions of, 297–299
education about, 424–431
false-negative judgments of, 37
feminism and, 276
gene research and, 150–156
hook ups and, 293–294
intersectionality and, 291–293
privileges of, 202–203
relational double bind and, 292–293
self-development imperative and, 292–293
sexual fl uidity and, 29, 142–147
women and, 297–303
Shakira, 255
Shalhoub, Tony, 255
shame, 212, 442
Shaw, Heather L., 163
Siddique, Hoorie I., 135
“The Silver Spoon: Inheritance and the Staggered
Start,” 131–137
“sitting in the fi re,” 487–488
“Rethinking American Poverty,” 443–447
Reuss, Alejandro, 303–306
reverse discrimination, 213
reverse inheritance, 132
Ricci v. DeStefano (2009), 213, 383–385
Ridgeway, Cecilia, 44
Right to Vote, 362
Rist, Darryl, 5
Roberts, Dorothy, 26
Rochlin, Martin, 28, 158
Rodriguez, Clara E., 242–248
Rothblum, Esther D., 28, 297–303
Rothstein, Richard, 343, 403–405
Royster, Diedre, 213
Russell, Bill, 345
Sacks, Peters, 447–452
“Safe Haven in America? Thirty Years after the
Refugee Act of 1980,” 395–398
Salazar, Ruben, 9
San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez (1973),
373–375
San Francisco Bay area, 80–89
Sapir, Edward, 354
SAT exam, 449–450
Saturday Night Live (TV show), 215
school segregation, 403–405
Schuette v. Coalition , 387–389
Schur, Edwin, 38–39
science
explanations of human variation and, 348–355
herm bodies and, 120
ideologies of racial difference and, 348–355
“Segregated Housing, Segregated Schools,”
403–405
selective racialization, 254–256
self-development imperative, 292–293
self-esteem, 21
self-fulfi lling prophecy, 38
self-objectifi cation, 39
Sen, Amartya, 405–410
Separate But Equal doctrine, 64, 364–365
sex determination of athletes, 115–117
sex differences
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Index I-17
social institution, 340, 348, 356
social mirror, 229–233
social whitening hypothesis, 94
socioeconomic convergence, 219
socioeconomic status, see social class
The Souls of Black Folk , 209
Sowell, Thomas, 308
Spanglish, 234
Spears, Britney, 142
spinal cord injuries, 168–169
Sputnik, 468–469
Stabile, Carol, 198
Stand Your Ground laws, 197
Standards for Federal Reporting of Race and
Ethnic Categories, 12
Stanford-Binet IQ test, 352
Statistical Directive No. 15, 12
status, 2, 44
statutory law, 359
Steele, Claude, 232
stereotypes
defi nition of, 344
natural law language and, 344–345
stigmatized people and, 41–43
threat of, 232
stigma, 38–44
ability to exclude and, 216–217
benefi ts from, 213
codes of conduct and, 212
discredited and discreditable and, 206–209
experience of, 206–213
privileged affected by, 214,
visible, 209–212
Stockholm Consensus, 116
Stonewall riot, 43
structural mobility, 134
“Stubborn Ounces,” 506
Suarez-Orozco, Carola, 225–238
sub-prime lending, 452
Sundahl, Deborah, 142
Sununu, John, 255
Superman, 169
Supreme Court decisions, 359–389
Survey of Disabled Adults, 161 t
“survival of the fi ttest,” 350
Skinner v. Oklahoma (1942), 353
Slav, 53–54
slave narratives, 355
slave rebellions, 56
slavery, 52–53, 55
Sleeter, Christine E., 468–473
slums, 404
slut stigma, 289–290
Smedley, Audrey, 24, 51–60
Smith College, 351
Snowden, Frank, 53
social and medical models of disability, 5–7,
164–166, 456–457
social capital, 133
social change
becoming an ally, 488–89
engagement and, 487–488
paradigm change and, 505–506
philanthropy and, 507–510
“sitting in the fi re,” 487–488
working on yourself and, 486–487
social class
childhood quality of life and, 132–133
“culture of poverty” and, 313–317
defi nition of, 127–131
dichotomization of, 32–34
education and, 313–317, 351, 411–412, 447–452
growing inequality of, 137–141
health/illness and, 134–136, 303–306
heritability of, 131–141
learning problems and, 469–471
low paying jobs and, 444–445
power and, 127–130
privileges of, 203–204
social mobility and, 33–34, 134, 139–141
stigmatization and, 40
tabooed topic of, 32
wealth accumulation, 446
wealth stripping and, 452–456
wealth-health gradient, 136
women’s incentive for employment and,
415–424
working class and, 128–129
social Darwinism, 350–351
social gradient of health, 305
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I-18 Index
U.S. Constitution, 359
U.S. v. Bhaghat Thind (1923), 17fn, 108–109
U.S. v. Takao Ozawa (1922), 108
U.S. v. Windsor (2013), 385–387
U.S., number of immigrants and refugees to, 225
undercount, 12, 14
undercover off-duty police, 198
“undeserving poor,” 315
undocumented Asian American students, 399–401
Union of Physically Impaired Against Segregation
(UPIAS), 6
unions
membership in, 129
segregation of, 404
working class and, 129
University of California Board of Regents v.
Bakke (1978), 309, 375–378
University of Michigan, 380–383
unmarked and marked statuses, 38, 220,
204–205
“unmarried partner,” 14
“Uprooting Racism: How White People Can
Work for Racial Justice,” 511–516
urban renewal policies, 404
urban violence, 164
US News and World Report , 450
Vassar College, 351
Virginia Racial Integrity Law of 1924, 108
visible stigma, 209–212
Voting Rights Act of 1965, 483
War on Drugs, 199–200
Warner, Michael, 20
Washington, Booker T., 64
Watergate, 269
“we make the road by walking,” 483–486
wealth stripping, 452–453
“Wealth Stripping: Why It Costs So Much to Be
Poor,” 452–456
wealth, 132–137, 446
wealth-health gradient, 136
Weinberg, George, 19–20
Weiss, Penny A., 10, 272–277
Takao Ozawa v. United States (1922), 108
tale of three umpires, 3
tax favoritism, 403
“Tearing Down the Gates: Confronting the Class
Divide,” 447–452
Teen Vandals (TV show), 196
teenagers, 42
Tehranian, John, 17, 251–261
Tenayuca, Emma, 399
Tennessee v. Lane (2004), 196, 378–380
Terman, Lewis M., 352
Texaco tapes, 348
“That Moment of Visibility,” 312
Third World Liberation Front, 82
Thirteenth Amendment (1865), 361
Thomas, Danny, 255
Thomas, W.I., 159
Thurmond, Strom, 398
time constancy, 503–504
“A Time I Didn’t Feel Normal,” 337
Title V of the Social Security Act, 426
traceable amount rule, 65
Tran, Hoia Huong, 239–241
transcultural identities, 234–235
transgender/transgendered, 31, 44
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), 21, 349
tribal citizenship, 71
triracial hierarchy, 109–110
T-shirt objectifying women, 39
Twain, Shania, 72–73
U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities, 6
U.S. Census Bureau
Arab, Middle Eastern categories in, 14, 23
Asian-origin categories in, 17 fn
Asian Indian categories in, 17 fn
Hispanic Advisory Committee and, 12
Latino/Hispanic categories in, 15, 242
Latino/Hispanic responses to, 16, 244
multiracial identifi cation and, 14
race and ethnicity questions in, 11–15, 70 fi g ,
66, 90
unmarried partner category in, 14
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Index I-19
Williams, Patricia J., 197
Williams, Vanessa, 62
Wimsatt, William Upski, 507–510
Winicott, D.W., 229
Wiseman, Rosalind, 210
within vs. between group difference, 35
Wolfe, Thomas, 268
woman vs. girl, choice of term, 10
women
double consciousness of, 341
employment and, 411–424
missing, 405–411
occupational reference group of,
420–421
self-objectifi cation and, 39
sexuality of, 142–147, 287–302
Social Darwinism and, 351
stigma and, 38–41
suffrage, 349, 362–363
worker vs. CEO salary, 446
Wu, Frank H., 227
Yahoo! Personals, 344
“yellow horde,” 111
Yick Wo. V. Hopkins (1886), 367–368
Yoshino, Kenji, 256
zambo , 91–92
Zimmerman, George, 19
Zip Coon, 354
Zola, Irving, 34
Zweig, Michael, 32–33, 127–130
Wellesley College, 351
“What Wounds Enable: The Politics of Disability
and Violence in Chicago,” 163–176
“What’s Class Got to Do with It?,” 127–131
white ethnics, Catholic church and, 219 fn
white fl ight, 343
White, Jane, 63
White, Walter, 63
white/non-white divide, 21–22, 108–109
Whitehall I Study, 306
whiteness
colonial discourse, 101–106
de jure vs. de facto and, 256
unmarked racial category of, 101–106
whites
allies and, 512–514
characteristics attributed to women and, 40 fn
colorblindness and, 217
Census category of, 14
culture of, 19, 101–106
emergence of racial category of, 56
Middle Easterners as, 253
“people in the boat” as, 19
racial attitudes of, 347–348
“Who is Black? One’s Nation’s Defi nition,”
61–69
“Why Are Droves of Unqualifi ed, Unprepared
Kids Getting into Our Top Colleges? Because
Their Dads Are Alumni,” 307–312?
Wilchins, Riki, 31, 117–123
Wilde, Oscar, 434
Wilkinson, R.G, 305
Williams Institute, 29
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Title Page
Copyright Page
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Contents
Preface
SECTION I— CONSTRUCTING CATEGORIES OF DIFFERENCE
FRAMEWORK ESSAY
WHAT IS RACE? WHAT IS ETHNICITY?
1. “Race” and the Construction of Human Identity Audrey Smedley
2. Who Is Black? One Nation’s Defi nition F. James Davis
3. The Evolution of Identity The Washington Post
Personal Account: A Loaded Vacation Niah Grimes
4. Real Indians: Identity and the Survival of Native America Eva Marie Garroutte
5. An Interlocking Panethnicity: The Negotiation of Multiple Identities among Asian American Social Movement Leaders Dana Y. Nakano
Personal Account: I Thought My Race Was Invisible Sherri H. Pereira
6. Latino Racial Choices: The Effects of Skin Colour and Discrimination on Latinos’ and Latinas’ Racial Self-Identifi cations Tanya Golash-Boza and William Darity, Jr.
7. Whiteness as an “Unmarked” Cultural Category Ruth Frankenberg
8. Plus Ça Change . . . ? Multiraciality and the Dynamics of Race Relations in the United States Frank D. Bean and Jennifer Lee
Personal Account: The Price of Nonconformity Julia Morgenstern
Personal Account: Basketball Andrea M. Busch
WHAT IS SEX? WHAT IS GENDER?
9. The Olympic Struggle over Sex Alice Dreger
10. All Together Now: Intersex Infants and IGM Riki Wilchins
11. Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference Cordelia Fine
WHAT IS SOCIAL CLASS?
12. What’s Class Got to Do with It? Michael Zweig
13. The Silver Spoon: Inheritance and the Staggered Start Stephen J. McNamee and Robert K. Miller Jr.
Personal Account: I Am a Pakistani Woman Hoorie I. Siddique
14. The Great Divergence: America’s Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do about It Timothy Noah
WHAT IS SEXUALITY?
15. Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire Lisa M. Diamond
16. The Biology of the Homosexual Roger N. Lancaster
17. The Heterosexual Questionnaire Martin Rochlin
WHAT IS DISABILITY?
18. Disability Defi nitions: The Politics of Meaning Michael Oliver
Personal Account: Invisibly Disabled Heather L. Shaw
19. What Wounds Enable: The Politics of Disability and Violence in Chicago Laurence Ralph
20. Ethnicity, Ethics, and the Deaf-World Harlan Lane

SECTION II— EXPERIENCING DIFFERENCE
FRAMEWORK ESSAY
RACE AND ETHNICITY
21 . Formulating Identity in a Globalized World Carola Suárez-Orozco
Personal Account: Hair Sarah Faragalla
Personal Account: The Americanization of a Reluctant Vietnamese-American Hoai Huong Tran
22 . Latinos and the U.S. Race Structure Clara E. Rodríguez
23 . Everybody’s Ethnic Enigma Jelita McLeod
Personal Account: My Strategies Eric Jackson
24 . From Friendly Foreigner to Enemy Race John Tehranian
Personal Account: Master Status: Pride and Danger Sumaya Al-Hajebi
SEX AND GENDER
25 . The Privilege of Teaching about Privilege Michael A. Messner
26 . Proving Manhood Timothy Beneke
Personal Account: Just Something You Did as a Man Francisco Hernandez
27 . “I’m Not a Feminist, But . . .”: Popular Myths about Feminism Penny A. Weiss
SEXUALITY
28 . Dude, You’re a Fag: Adolescent Male Homophobia C. J. Pascoe
29 . Gendered Sexuality in Young Adulthood: Double Binds and Flawed Options Laura Hamilton and Elizabeth A. Armstrong
Personal Account: Living Invisibly Tara S. Ellison
30 . Sexual Orientation and Sex in Women’s Lives: Conceptual and Methodological Issues Esther D. Rothblum
SOCIAL CLASS
31 . Cause of Death: Inequality Alejandro Reuss
32 . Why Are Droves of Unqualifi ed, Unprepared Kids Getting into Our Top Colleges? Because Their Dads Are Alumni John Larew
Personal Account: That Moment of Visibility Rose B. Pascarell
33 . The Myth of the “Culture of Poverty” Paul Gorski
DISABILITY
34 . Public Transit John Hockenberry
35 . “Can You See the Rainbow?” The Roots of Denial Sally French
36 . Not Blind Enough: Living in the Borderland Called Legal Blindness Beth Omansky
Personal Account: A Time I Didn’t Feel Normal Heather Callender

SECTION III— THE MEANING OF DIFFERENCE
FRAMEWORK ESSAY
RACE AND ETHNICITY
37 . Fourteen Key Supreme Court Cases and the Civil War Amendments
38 . Blink in Black and White Malcolm Gladwell
Personal Account: Just Like My Mama Said Anthony McNeill
39 . Safe Haven in America? Thirty Years after the Refugee Act of David W. Haines
40 . Hispanics Are Forgotten in Civil Rights History Nicholas Dauphine
41 . Balancing Identities: Undocumented Immigrant Asian American Students and the Model Minority Myth Tracy Poon Tambascia, Jonathan Wang, Breanne Tcheng, and Viet T. Bui
Personal Account: Let Me Work for It! Isabelle Nguyen
42 . Segregated Housing, Segregated Schools Richard Rothstein
SEX AND GENDER
43 . Many Faces of Gender Inequality Amartya Sen
Personal Account: He Hit Her Tim Norton
44 . The Not-So-Pink Ivory Tower Ann Mullen
45 . The Gender Revolution: Uneven and Stalled Paula England
SEXUALITY
46 . Sex Education and the Promotion of Heteronormativity Tanya McNeill
Personal Account: Learning My Own Privilege Mireille M. Cecil
47 . Gaga Relations: The End of Marriage J. Jack Halberstam
48 . Queers without Money: They Are Everywhere. But We Refuse to See Them Amber Hollibaugh
SOCIAL CLASS
49 . Rethinking American Poverty Mark R. Rank
50 . Tearing Down the Gates: Confronting the Class Divide in American Education Peter Sacks
51 . Wealth Stripping: Why It Costs So Much to Be Poor James H. Carr
DISABILITY
52 . Disability Trouble Bradley A. Areheart
53 . Learning Disabilities: The Social Construction of a Special Education Category Christine E. Sleeter
54 . (Re)Creating a World in Seven Days: Place, Disability, and Salvation in Extreme Makeover: Home Edition Emily Askew

SECTION IV— BRIDGING DIFFERENCES
FRAMEWORK ESSAY
55 . Adolescent Masculinity in an Age of Decreased Homohysteria Eric Anderson
56 . What Can We Do? Becoming Part of the Solution Allan G. Johnson
Personal Account: Parents’ Underestimated Love Octavio N. Espinal
57 . In Defense of Rich Kids William Upski Wimsatt
Personal Account: Where Are You From? C.C.
58 . Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice Paul Kivel

Credits C-1
Index I-1

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