Skin Deep: How Race and Complexion Matter in the "Color-Blind" Era - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1929011261 ISBN 13: 9781929011261

Publisher: Inst Research on Race & Public Policy, 2003

Synopsis

Shattering the myth of the color-blind society, the essays in Skin Deep examine skin tone stratification in America, which affects relations not only among different races and ethnic groups but also among members of individual ethnicities.
 
Written by some of the nation's leading thinkers on race and colorism, these essays ask whether skin tone differentiation is imposed upon communities of color from the outside or is an internally-driven process aided and abetted by community members themselves. They also question whether the stratification process is the same for African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans.
 
Skin Deep addresses such issues as the relationship between skin tone and self esteem, marital patterns, interracial relationships, socioeconomic attainment, and family racial identity and composition. The essays also grapple with emerging issues such as biracialism, color-blind racism, and 21st century notions of race.
 

About this title

About the Author

Cedric Herring is Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago and in the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois. Dr. Herring is former President of the Association of Black Sociologists, and he was the Founding Director of the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy at UIC. He has published widely on topics such as social policy (e.g., social welfare and affirmative action), political sociology, labor force issues and policy, stratification and inequality, and the sociology of African Americans. He is the author of Splitting the Middle: Political Alienation, Acquiescence, and Activism and he is the editor of African Americans and the Public Agenda: The Paradoxes of Public Policy and co-editor of Empowerment in Chicago: Grassroots Participation in Economic Development and Poverty Alleviation.

Verna Keith is Chair of the Department of Sociology at Arizona State University. She has two main areas of research interest: (1) the study of how stress affects health and emotional well-being among African Americans and the elderly, and (2) issues related to minority access to health care. She is currently investigating gender differences in the effects of chronic stressors such as marital problems on the mental health of African Americans. She also has a project that focuses on skin-color, gender, and self-concept among African Americans. In addition, she recently completed a project that investigated socioeconomic status and use of health care among African Americans. She is a co-editor of In and Out of Our Right Minds: African American Women's Mental Health.

Hayward Derrick Horton is Associate Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Albany. Professor Horton specializes in demography and race and ethnicity. He has published over 20 articles on topics such as: the demography of rural Black families; differences in black-white levels of home ownership; population change and the employment status of college-educated blacks; race, ethnicity and levels of employment; the demography of black entrepreneurship; and the feminization of poverty. Professor Horton developed the first and only sociological model of black community development. He is currently co-authoring a book on the model entitled, Rebuilding Black Communities: Black Community Development in Contemporary America. Professor Horton has held leadership positions in the American Sociological Association, the Southern Sociological Society, the Rural Sociological Society, and the Society for Applied Sociology. He is currently Chair of the American Sociological Association's Section on Race and Ethnic Minorities, and he is currently President of the Association of Black Sociologists.

Reviews

This collection of essays by various social scientists focuses on inter- and intrarace color consciousness in this era of purported color blindness. Though the primary emphasis is on African American and Latino subjects, the contributors also explore color consciousness among Southeast Asians and Brazilians. Some of the most interesting essays center on Americans of biracial heritage and the political fallout from their struggle for self-definition. All of the contributors confirm that "color" matters, with value weighted in favor of lightness. The biracial struggle to identify as "other than black" reflects internal and social forces that favor lighter-colored skin. This quest for status suggests that the African American fight against second-class citizenship in America may be supplanted by a fight against third-class citizenship. This work is a worthy primer on the import of race and color in America, but its greatest value may be as an indicator of America's future direction on the issue. Vernon Ford
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Inst Research on Race & Public Policy
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1929011261
• ISBN 13: 9781929011261
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256
• Editor: Herring Cedric, Keith Verna M., Horton Hayward Derrick