Du Bois Review

03/31/2025

New from DBR:
What Effect Does Being a Have on ? Some Counterfactuals and Decompositions
- Gregory Price
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X25000025

This article estimates several causal counterfactual parameters of the effect of being an Historically Black College/University (HBCU) on college/university endowment, and on the probability of a college/university failing as a function of its financial health, which is proportional to endowment. Our various counterfactual causal parameter decomposition estimates suggest that the racial distinctiveness of HBCUs causes, and can account for cumulative HBCU/non-HBCU endowment disparities between $11.5 billion and $58.9 billion for the HBCUs in our estimating sample. This is consistent with, at least in part, racial discrimination against HBCUs in philanthropic endowment contributions/gifts. With respect to failure, as HBCU status contributes to higher failure probabilities that are a function of college/university financial health, reducing the HBCU/non-HBCU endowment disparity would also enhance the ability of HBCUs to continuously exist. We suggest two public policy interventions to close the endowment disparity. First, increase the tax subsidy for contributions/gifts to HBCUs relative to non-HBCUs, as a way to incentivize more gifts to HBCUs from wealthy foundations and individuals. Secondly, to the extent that the wealth of HBCU alumni—who give back to their alma mater at higher rates than their non-HBCU peers—has been constrained due to the legacy of Slavery and discrimination, a distribution of reparations to the descendants of Black American Slaves would close Black-White wealth disparities that could translate into larger endowment contributions/gifts from HBCU alumni.

📷: Members of the Congressional Black Caucus wearing HBCU gear, 2017. Photo by Terri Sewell, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

03/31/2025

New from DBR:
Pandering Politics? Examining the Effect of Positive, Explicit Racial Appeals on Support for Political Candidates
- Leah Christiani & Jeremiah W. Muhammad

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X25000013

We hypothesize that positive, explicit racial appeals to Black voters from White politicians will be seen as pandering if not accompanied by an endorsement from a Black elite, which would increase credibility of the appeal. To test this, we use a preregistered survey experiment with approximately 400 Black Americans. Contrary to our expectations, we find that pro-Black appeals can function to increase support for the politician, even without an endorsement. In the full sample, the candidate enjoyed increased support when only using a positive appeal, when only receiving an endorsement, and when making an appeal and receiving an endorsement—relative to the control condition. Qualitative analyses of open-ended responses reveal that respondents saw the politician as pandering in all conditions—an appeal was not necessary to evoke pandering. We conclude that campaign strategies like appeals and endorsements can function to boost support even when the candidate is perceived as pandering.

03/29/2025

Free to read for a limited period in the Spring 2025 issue:
Principle-Policy and Principle-Personal Gaps in Americans’ Diversity Attitudes
cup.org/42a0Dw8

New from DBR on :
Principle-Policy and Principle-Personal Gaps in Americans’ Diversity Attitudes
- Neeraj Rajasekar, Evan Stewart & Douglas Hartmann

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X24000079

Americans generally celebrate the abstract principle of diversity, but research suggests that they have a comparatively lower (1) favorability towards policies that promote diversity and (2) sense of personal closeness with others from diverse backgrounds. The current study analyzes nationally representative survey data to assess such “principle-policy gaps” and “principle-personal gaps” in Americans’ diversity attitudes. We find that these attitudinal gaps indeed exist and are substantial in the general population. We also consider how individual-level factors relate to these attitudinal gaps. Following common findings in previous research, we find that participant racial identity and political partisanship have statistically significant relationships with these attitudinal gaps. But our overall findings illustrate that principle-policy gaps and principle-personal gaps in diversity attitudes are fairly substantial and prevalent across Americans who vary by race, politics, and several other individual-level factors. We consider our findings in the current social and political context, and we discuss directions for future inquiry.

📷: Photo by Matheus Viana on Unsplash.

03/26/2025

NEW ISSUE - Spring 2025
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race
Volume 22 - Issue 1

While Americans generally celebrate the abstract principle of diversity, research suggests that they have a comparatively lower 1) favorability towards policies that promote diversity and 2) sense of personal closeness with others from diverse backgrounds. In the Spring 2025 issue (22.1), Neeraj Rajasekar and colleagues analyze nationally representative survey data to assess such “principle-policy gaps” and “principle-personal gaps” in Americans’ diversity attitudes.

Also in the issue, the research of Makeiva Jenkins and Justine Tinkler examines help-seeking behavior among Black and White college women; Cheryl Elman and colleagues look at systemic racial health inequity in the Jim Crow south; and Yao Qu investigates how racial capitalism impacts ethnic minority husbandry communities in Xinjiang, China. Other themes include racialized and gendered linkages between police-initiated contact and help-seeking outcomes; the work of the National Negro Business League (1900-1915); Du Bois, Black masculinity, and young people with diverse sexual identities; how the work of Du Bois and the Black Radical Tradition provides a model for a new historical sociology; and the pioneering social science of James McCune Smith.

Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race

11/18/2024

You can now read more than 5,000 open access Political Science and International Relations articles from Cambridge University Press journals including the American Political Science Review, Review of International Studies, International Organization, the European Political Science Review, Political Analysis, the British Journal of Political Science, and many more.

https://cup.org/4hLhJqV

Whether you study theory or public policy, methods or populism, we have it covered.

11/18/2024

New from DBR:
Examining the Racial and Gendered Impacts of Police-Initiated Contacts on Help-Seeking
- Heather Zaykowski and Aria Massoudi

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X2400016X


It is well known that marginalized communities of color, particularly young Black men, are more likely to experience police-initiated contact that other groups. Research suggests that these events contribute to legal cynicism, or the belief that the law and its agencies are ineffective, unwilling to help, and untrustworthy. In turn, cynical orientations limit one’s willingness to call the police to help. However, recent work on marginalized women suggests that despite holding cynical attitudes towards the police, their immediate needs for safety and services supersede these beliefs. The current study examines the racialized and gendered linkages between police-initiated contact and help-seeking outcomes (reporting crime, calling for an emergency, and seeking help from police for non-emergencies).

Using data from the Police Public Contact Survey (from the Police Public Contact Survey–2020) results indicate that Black and Hispanic participants were less likely than White participants to seek help. However, Black and Hispanic women were more likely than their male counterparts for calls for help regarding a crime or disturbance. Across all outcomes, police-initiated contact was associated with higher rates of help-seeking. Perceived illegitimacy of street stops reduced the odds of reporting crimes to the police. However, perceived traffic stop illegitimacy was not related to help-seeking. Police initiated contacts and perceptions of legitimacy did not moderate the relationships between demographic variables and help-seeking outcomes. Implications for theories on legal socialization and the impact of police-initiated contacts on help-seeking are discussed.

📷: Felix Koutchinski on Unsplash

11/14/2024

The Fall 2024 issue of DBR is now available.
All articles are or until Dec 31.
http://cup.org/3URjuZM

In the Fall 2024 issue (21.2) Tony N. Brown and colleagues evaluate the mental health significance among Black adults of Obama’s 2012 re-election; Sebastian Jackson explores in*******al intimacy in twentieth-century South Africa; Allen Heffner looks at racialized differences in impression management among job seekers; and Jauhara Ferguson examines American identity among U.S. Black Muslims.

Other themes in the issue include the impact of skin tone on perceived levels of attraction; Black American centrality in the age of the Black European renaissance; debt as racialized violence and how women resist; and quantitative inquiry in the early sociology of W. E. B. Du Bois.

11/12/2024

New from DBR:
The Weight of It All: An Analysis of Help-Seeking Behavior Among Black and White College Women

-Makeiva Jenkins and Justine Tinkler

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X24000158

Sociologists often interpret racial differences in help-seeking behavior in the United States as stemming from differences in cultural capital, an implication being that those who hesitate to seek help lack understanding of how important it is for success. In this paper, we draw on the work of W. E. B Du Bois and research on gender and racial stereotypes to show that it is not a lack of understanding about the importance of help-seeking, but rather, Black women’s double consciousness that underlies their reluctance to seek help relative to White women. Through twenty-nine in-depth interviews with Black and White college-aged women, we investigate how they make meaning of two competing ideals: the need to be seen as a strong woman and the need for help and social support. We identify a discourse around gender stereotypes for White participants and intersectional stereotypes for Black participants. Where Black and White women experience a consciousness born out of their marginalization relative to men, comparing how they differently navigate stereotypes about strong women reveals the analytic power of Du Bois’s concept of double consciousness. First, the “veil” reveals the racialized gender stereotypes Black women worry they might confirm by seeking help. Second, Black women’s sense of “twoness” means they more often than White women saw their help-seeking behaviors as reflecting negatively on their broader community. Finally, consistent with Du Bois’s point that “second sight” brings awareness but not liberation, we find that even though Black women were hyperaware of the disadvantages of not seeking help, they tended more often than White women to reach a breaking point before seeking it.

Photo by Artem Maltsev on Unsplash

11/11/2024

New from DBR:
Africa in Du Bois’s Internationalist Thinking

-Navid Hassanzadeh

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X24000146

This article addresses the recent interest in Black Internationalism in the history of political thought and related fields by engaging with a portion of W. E. B. Du Bois’s (1868–1963) work. It examines in particular how Du Bois treats Africa in his published and unpublished writings from the 1910s to the 1940s in light of the challenges of world war and continued imperial expansionism in the global South. I argue that through a rhetorical framing of problems on the continent, and by situating Africa in relation to global economic problems as well as the goal of long-lasting peace, Du Bois comes up with novel approaches to war and empire, as well as solutions to the problems that they pose. I conclude by reflecting on how he can contribute to debates on Black Internationalism today.

Image: 1922 Map of Africa via Wikimedia Commons.

11/05/2024

New from DBR:
Racial Capitalism in an Ethnic Minority Border Region: Husbandry Development in Altay Prefecture, Xinjiang, China
-Yao Qu

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X24000109

In the social, historical, and political context of Xi Jinping’s China, particular forms of racialization and racial capitalism have emerged in Altay Prefecture, the homeland of ethnic Kazakhs on China’s northwest border. This study examines the husbandry industry in Altay Prefecture to elucidate how Xi’s China has built a mode of racial capitalism through the management of Kazakh land, ethnicity, and culture. Within the framework of a case study, I employ document collection and participant observation methods to gather data that are then interpreted through critical policy analysis. The research shows that Kazakhs have been racialized based on their mobile pastoral traditions, enslaved in the “debt economy,” and exploited through husbandry policies and programs. The particular ways in which husbandry has been restructured and assimilated into Chinese industrial production chains exploit and reproduce the Kazakh-Han hierarchy and segregation. This close look at racial capitalism in Altay sheds light on the operations of Xi’s ecological civilization and war on poverty policies in an ethnic minority border region and discusses how they align with the broader geopolitics of the Belt and Road Initiative in Central Asia and Eastern Europe.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

11/05/2024

New from DBR:

U.S. Residents’ Current Attitudes toward Immigrants and Immigration: A Study from the Life In Hampton Roads Survey
- Daniel K Pryce

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X24000171


Immigration is a fiery topic in U.S. society, as it generally brings to a boil native-born citizens’ disparate attitudes toward immigrants and immigration. While immigration has its fierce supporters and opponents alike, the topic provides fodder for politicians who use it to stoke the fear of an impending “immigrant invasion” among citizens. This is why scholars must regularly undertake empirical studies to assess community members’ views about immigrants and immigration in U.S. society. To add to the contemporary immigration debate, I analyze data from a random sample of 610 respondents who reside in the seven cities that make up the Hampton Roads region of Southeast Virginia (this region has approximately 1.5 million people). The results show that younger people, the more highly educated, and males were of the opinion that immigration is generally good for the Hampton Roads economy. Moreover, participants who did not believe that immigration increased crimes rates or that recent immigrants will take jobs away from Hampton Roads residents agreed that immigration is generally good for the Hampton Roads economy. Finally, respondents who were pleased with the quality of life in both their neighborhood and city believed that immigration has a positive impact on Hampton Roads’ economy. The implications of my findings for scholars, elected officials, community members, public policy, and future research are discussed.

11/02/2024

Harvard specialists in history, sociology, government, political theory, and psychology exchanged views during recent symposium.