Suchergebnisse

In W.E.B. Du Bois' Souls of Black Folk, he argued that the problem of the 20th century in the United States was the problem of the color line. Given that de facto and explicit racial discrimination persist, anti-immigrant rhetoric is intensifying, and legal status has become more salient, we argue Du Boisian theory remains relevant for understanding social and political cleavages in the 21st century United States. The intersection of race, ethnicity, and legal status or "racialized legal status" represents a new variation of Du Bois' "color line," due to how these statuses generate cumulative disadvantages and exclusion for citizens and immigrants of color, particularly the undocumented. We begin with a review of Du Bois' double consciousness theory, highlighting the marginalization of African Americans. Next, we apply double consciousness to the 21st century U.S. context to empirically demonstrate parallels between 20th century African Americans and the marginalization faced today by people of color. We close with a discussion about how double consciousness enhances our understanding of citizenship and has also generated agency for people of color fighting for socio-political inclusion in the contemporary United States.

For the last decade, scholars have pondered how the changing ethnoracial demographics of the United States would influence the country's racial, social, political, cultural, and economic landscape. Latinos are now the country's largest ethnoracial minority and the 2012 election provided an indication of just how significant this group will be for shaping the future of the United States. Scholars of race in particular have speculated how the ethnic and racial diversity of Latinos will change existing U.S. racial dynamics with some arguing that the historical Black/White binary will remain intact with Latinos falling on one or the other side of the binary. Yet, other scholars suggest that the Black/White binary will shift to a Black/non-Black binary in which Blacks will remain at the bottom of the U.S. ethnoracial hierarchy while Asian Americans and Latinos will be grouped with Whites. Going even further, another set of scholars argues that the size of the Latino population and its more fluid racial boundaries will trigger a Latin-Americanization of U.S. race relations such that Whites will remain at the top of the hierarchy, with Blacks and a few other lower-socioeconomic-status (SES) minority groups at the bottom while there will be an intermediate group between, "the Honorary Whites," that consists of mixed-race individuals and higher SES Asians and Latinos.