 |
Effects of Skin Color Bias in SES on Political Attitudes and Activities
| |
| | Unformatted Document Text:
3
Skin color and appearance obviously matter in distinguishing among what Americans categorize as separate races and ethnicities. That categorization has a huge impact on individuals’ life chances, identities, and political engagement. Those two observations are so obvious as to be banal. Skin color and appearance also matter within groups normally thought of as separate races and ethnicities; skin tone is deeply implicated in determining individuals’ life chances, identities, and political engagement. That observation may be equally true, but pointing it out moves us from the realm of the obvious to the realm of the intensely controversial, even hidden. Our purpose in this paper, and in the larger project of which it is a part, is to bring the relatively unknown role of skin color in politics into public discussion so that one can determine how, how much, and why it matters.
In this paper, we consider only the role of skin color among adult residents of the United
States, as determined by national public opinion surveys. In the larger project, we consider the role of skin color among candidates as well, and the broader questions of how racial and ethnic boundaries are shaped, and blurred, by appearance and all of its sequelae and implications.
A robust research tradition in sociology shows clearly that skin color affects levels of
education, income, likelihood of unemployment, and other social and economic statuses. A smaller but persuasive line of research in psychology shows that skin color affects individuals’ stereotypes of and treatment of others, both within racial or ethnic groups and across them. A huge set of writings in history, popular culture, the law, and literature, as well as an equal number of memoirs and essays, show the impact of skin color on laws, legal decisions, self-definitions, emotions, and interpersonal interactions. But to our knowledge, there is just one published article within political science that addresses the topic, and it only used skin color as a variable on the way toward its central focus on symbolic racism (Terkildsen 1993). There is, however, no a priori reason to believe that skin color is unimportant in politics given its importance in all other arenas of life; certainly the question is worth investigation.
The logic of our argument is as follows: given that skin color affects so many facets of
life, and has done so for centuries in the United States, it makes sense to see if it also affects political attitudes and behaviors. The evidence available to us, in four national surveys, is that skin tone is somewhat associated with political phenomena such as perceived discrimination, a sense of linked fate, political participation, and policy preferences. The main effects of skin color on political behavior, however, operate through socioeconomic status; that is, light-skinned people have higher SES, and higher-SES people behave differently in the political arena than do lower-SES people. After showing these patterns, we discuss how and why skin color matters politically, and why it has less direct impact in political behavior than in other arenas of life. We suggest how further research could reveal the importance of complexion in different aspects of politics, and we show why this research is increasingly important to conduct. We conclude with ruminations on why the consideration of skin color within race or ethnicity is so controversial and difficult for political scientists to analyze, especially among people who are very willing to discuss the importance of race and ethnicity in politics more generally. C
OLORISM
We start our analysis from the presumably uncontroversial presumption that race matters.
More precisely, African Americans can be expected to resemble each other in their group-oriented identities and perceptions of discrimination more than they will resemble members of any other group. With less certainty, we predict the same for Hispanics. Our lack of certainty in that case stems from the indeterminacy of whether Hispanics in the United States are becoming
|
| | Authors: Hochschild, Jennifer., Weaver, Vesla. and Burch, Traci. |
|
| |
|
|
3
Skin color and appearance obviously matter in distinguishing among what Americans categorize
as separate races and ethnicities. That categorization has a huge impact on individuals’ life
chances, identities, and political engagement. Those two observations are so obvious as to be
banal. Skin color and appearance also matter within groups normally thought of as separate
races and ethnicities; skin tone is deeply implicated in determining individuals’ life chances,
identities, and political engagement. That observation may be equally true, but pointing it out
moves us from the realm of the obvious to the realm of the intensely controversial, even hidden.
Our purpose in this paper, and in the larger project of which it is a part, is to bring the relatively
unknown role of skin color in politics into public discussion so that one can determine how, how
much, and why it matters.
In this paper, we consider only the role of skin color among adult residents of the United
States, as determined by national public opinion surveys. In the larger project, we consider the
role of skin color among candidates as well, and the broader questions of how racial and ethnic
boundaries are shaped, and blurred, by appearance and all of its sequelae and implications.
A robust research tradition in sociology shows clearly that skin color affects levels of
education, income, likelihood of unemployment, and other social and economic statuses. A
smaller but persuasive line of research in psychology shows that skin color affects individuals’
stereotypes of and treatment of others, both within racial or ethnic groups and across them. A
huge set of writings in history, popular culture, the law, and literature, as well as an equal
number of memoirs and essays, show the impact of skin color on laws, legal decisions, self-
definitions, emotions, and interpersonal interactions. But to our knowledge, there is just one
published article within political science that addresses the topic, and it only used skin color as a
variable on the way toward its central focus on symbolic racism (Terkildsen 1993). There is,
however, no a priori reason to believe that skin color is unimportant in politics given its
importance in all other arenas of life; certainly the question is worth investigation.
The logic of our argument is as follows: given that skin color affects so many facets of
life, and has done so for centuries in the United States, it makes sense to see if it also affects
political attitudes and behaviors. The evidence available to us, in four national surveys, is that
skin tone is somewhat associated with political phenomena such as perceived discrimination, a
sense of linked fate, political participation, and policy preferences. The main effects of skin color
on political behavior, however, operate through socioeconomic status; that is, light-skinned
people have higher SES, and higher-SES people behave differently in the political arena than do
lower-SES people. After showing these patterns, we discuss how and why skin color matters
politically, and why it has less direct impact in political behavior than in other arenas of life. We
suggest how further research could reveal the importance of complexion in different aspects of
politics, and we show why this research is increasingly important to conduct. We conclude with
ruminations on why the consideration of skin color within race or ethnicity is so controversial
and difficult for political scientists to analyze, especially among people who are very willing to
discuss the importance of race and ethnicity in politics more generally.
C
OLORISM
We start our analysis from the presumably uncontroversial presumption that race matters.
More precisely, African Americans can be expected to resemble each other in their group-
oriented identities and perceptions of discrimination more than they will resemble members of
any other group. With less certainty, we predict the same for Hispanics. Our lack of certainty in
that case stems from the indeterminacy of whether Hispanics in the United States are becoming
|
|
 Convention | | All Academic Convention can solve the abstract management needs for any association's annual meeting. | | Submission - Custom fields, multiple submission types, tracks, audio visual, multiple upload formats, automatic conversion to pdf. | | Review - Peer Review, Bulk reviewer assignment, bulk emails, ranking, z-score statistics, and multiple worksheets! | | Reports - Many standard and custom reports generated while you wait. Print programs with participant indexes, event grids, and more! | | Scheduling - Flexible and convenient grid scheduling within rooms and buildings. Conflict checking and advanced filtering. | | Communication - Bulk email tools to help your administrators send reminders and responses. Use form letters, a message center, and much more! | | Management - Search tools, duplicate people management, editing tools, submission transfers, many tools to manage a variety of conference management headaches! | | Click here for more information. |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
