Here is our latest update on some of the new titles from the research on race and racism. As always, I note which pieces are freely available on the web, or“open access” with (OA), and those behind a paywall with (locked).

• Gulati-Partee, Gita and Potapchuk, Maggie (2014) “Paying Attention to White Culture and Privilege: A Missing Link to Advancing Racial Equity,” The Foundation Review: Vol. 6: Iss. 1, Article 4. Key Points:· Racial disparities are driven and maintained by public- and private-sector policies that not only disadvantage communities of color but also over-advantage whites. Foundation processes aimed at racial equity change often overlook the privileged side of inequity. · Through our experience as racial equity practitioners, we have encountered at least three challenges to engaging foundations in exploring white privilege and white culture in their internal and external racial equity work.· For foundations to work toward racial equity through their philanthropic investments and leadership, they must shine a light on white privilege and white culture both internally and externally. · This article discusses tools for tackling those challenges: creating a container with intentional group norms, exploring accumulated racial advantages and disadvantages, reflecting on white culture, and caucusing by racial identity.(locked)

• Jablonski, Nina G. Living Color: The Biological and Social Meaning of Skin Color (University of California Press, 2014). Abstract: Living Color is the first book to investigate the social history of skin color from prehistory to the present, showing how our body’s most visible feature influences our social interactions in profound and complex ways. Nina Jablonski begins this fascinating and wide-ranging work with an explanation of the biology and evolution of skin pigmentation, tracing how skin color changed as humans moved around the globe, exploring the relationship between melanin and sunlight, and examining the consequences of mismatches between our skin color and our environment due to rapid migrations, vacations, and other life-style choices. Chapter 1 of the book is (OA).

• Mayorga-Gallo, Sarah. Behind the White Picket Fence: Power and Privilege in a Multiethnic Neighborhood (University of North Carolina Press, 2014). Abstract: The link between residential segregation and racial inequality is well established, so it would seem that greater equality would prevail in integrated neighborhoods. But as Sarah Mayorga-Gallo argues, multiethnic and mixed-income neighborhoods still harbor the signs of continued, systemic racial inequalities. Drawing on deep ethnographic and other innovative research from “Creekridge Park,” a pseudonymous urban community in Durham, North Carolina, Mayorga-Gallo demonstrates that the proximity of white, African American, and Latino neighbors does not ensure equity; rather, proximity and equity are in fact subject to structural-level processes of stratification. Behind the White Picket Fence shows how contemporary understandings of diversity are not necessarily rooted in equity or justice but instead can reinforce white homeowners’ race and class privilege; ultimately, good intentions and a desire for diversity alone do not challenge structural racial, social, and economic disparities. This book makes a compelling case for how power and privilege are reproduced in daily interactions and calls on readers to question commonsense understandings of space and inequality in order to better understand how race functions in multiethnic America. An (OA) excerpt of the book is available here.

• Whitfield, Darren L., N. Eugene Walls, Lisa Langenderfer-Magruder, and Brad Clark. “Queer Is the New Black? Not So Much: Racial Disparities in Anti-LGBTQ Discrimination.” Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services 26, no. 4 (2014): 426-440. Abstract: The present study examines the intersection of race and sexual orientation in the experience of discrimination among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people. The results of the study suggest that while a majority of LGBTQ individuals report being victims of anti-LGBTQ discrimination, racial minorities experience even greater levels of anti-LGBTQ discrimination than do White LGBTQ people. The findings suggest that the intersection of race and sexual orientation creates elevated levels of discrimination risk beyond the already elevated rates of discrimination experienced by members of the LGBTQ community for LGBTQ racial minorities. (locked)

Happy reading! Want to see your research appear in an upcoming brief? Don’t be shy, drop your shameless self-promotion in the contact form.