08: The Experience of Race and its Complexity, Pt. 2

Welcome to The American Ingredient, a podcast that examines grace in American society from
an academic perspective, focusing on the work from social scientists and legal scholars. The
American regent demonstrates that race is not the only ingredient in making America. But in order
to make America, you need to heaping spoonfuls. This episode is a set apart of our interview with
Professor Gasman Irizarry. Professor Irizarry, who is a professor at the University of Texas,
focuses on the complexity of race. And she highlights the social construction of race.
And that race has different meanings in different context, using the context of Latin America
and specifically the experiences of Latin American immigrants into the U.S. She demonstrates
how race can take on different meanings in different spaces, but also highlights
how Latin American immigrants come to develop a new understanding of race.
In this episode, Professor Irizarry highlights the problems we’ve had in
terms of our quantitative analysis and making assumptions about a lack of bias.
She start this interview with her discussing teacher evaluations of students, and she highlights
that the arguments that there is a lack of bias because of variety of studies which
found a lack of bias is problematic because these arguments but a lack of bias is
biased based on averages, and that if you look a little bit closer, you can see that there is
bias. Specifically, those at the bottom end of the top wrongs and at this bias may be more
damaging than we realized. What about to go back to now? Is your discussion
as a methodology methodologies and you talked about that many of times we get these coefficients, there are their averages.
And you pointed out that this average could mean that, okay, this is an experience across
the entire group. It could be bimodal. And since you have one group at one in another group
at the other end, or you could have one group that is driving it. And
so where where are you seeing some? So can you just tell us the more some of the research where you’ve been
able to highlight that BS coefficients are aren’t telling
are telling a overly simplified story. I’ve seen it everywhere I look
pretty much almost every study I do, I find evidence that these coefficients
are oversimplistic. And that’s because the real world is never that simple.
Right. We don’t all have these experiences. We come from different regions. We
have to complexions, we have different ancestries. We have different levels of wealth,
different genders. Yeah, right. And sexual identities and all of that.
Intersects with race to shape all kinds of experiences. And so
all the time I’m finding ways that these average effects
rate are really just representative of some kind of
other thing going on that we’re not really sure about that it’s not a universal experience that we can understand through a coefficient.
So to give you an example, I have an article in social science research
and this was some work that came out of my dissertation research. I my dissertation
looked at two main ideas. One was this idea
of multidimensional measures of race. The idea of interest thinking about the way people are racialized
through race, ethnicity, immigration status, and how all those come together to create a particular
subgroup experience. So thinking about how would we measure that, what would that look like? But the other
part of my work, since I’m an associate of education scholar was looking at the experiences really young children.
So I was interested in what happens when children entering school.
What happens in first grade? And one of my chapters explored teachers perceptions of students,
their behaviors, their perceptions of their academic ability. And I
this was even I had other chapters as ended up being the one that I really.
Found to be so important. And ends up exploring in a lot of detail. And one of the papers
that came out of that chapter looked at teachers.
Perceptions of a student reading ability in first grade
and and really just looking at that because what students that what teachers think about students will shape
things like gifted placement, access to opportunities and resources. Right. So thinking of that as a starting point
for me and my main finding of this paper was when you look at the average effect,
it looked like there were no racial gaps in teachers perceptions of reading ability.
Zero. There were no significant coefficients in this case. There was no average effect, but there was
a reason for that. And the reason was that teachers
and how race works and how teachers racialized students varied based
on the student’s academic performance, because part of the stereotypes
that drive maybe differential attitudes are entrenched in this idea of who can and who
can’t write about students abilities, supposed abilities, their
intellects. Right. And so what I found was when you look at students across the spectrum of performance,
I won’t say ability per say, because I won’t say that this test could ever capture their true ability or potential.
When you look across the spectrum of performance, I found that at the
bottom of the achievement distribution, teachers rated
black students nonwhite Latin. Next, students and
Asian students. More positively than white students
who perform similarly on tests. So they raided the the white students more negatively,
the white students were punished for being yes. At the bottom of the chief industriales, right? Yes.
At the top of the achievement distribution, the black students nonwhite let
next students, Asian students were rated more poorly. Then the white students.
So at the bottom, the distribution whites are punished being at the white, the bottom at the bottom, the distribution at the top,
the distribution. non-Whites are being punished for me at the top of this. Absolutely.
Now think about it. If I have on one side a negative for and on the other side a positive for, what does that
average out to? Zero. Zero. So it looks like there’s no inequality,
there’s no inequities, there’s no discrimination when in fact race is working differently
within these different domains for these children. And it was masked by an average
of zero. Right. Something really important, especially important because
it both speaks to the kind of maybe lower expectations teachers have students.
Which is why they may it may have been a higher expectation of white students or vise versa. You know, it glorification
as soon as the color at the lower end of the treatment decision, that may lead to students not providing as much rigor
when, let’s say they’re in urban communities, low income communities or working with students, who are
they enter school less prepared that they don’t. They they have lower expectations, maybe yoga.
I don’t see the same kind of potential. So don’t provide the same kind of rigor or opportunities for those students.
And at the top of achievement distribution, it speaks to the barriers for students of color in trying
to be seen for their potential. Right. That they are, in fact, meeting all this, given all the barriers
to success. They’re meeting those goals and yet they’re not being seen that way by
teachers. And that’s going to shape what kind of opportunities the
teacher is going to provide for those students. That seems to be that when the white students at the bottom, it’s OK.
What is wrong with you for being here? So that’s why it must be punished more like what’s wrong with you
with nonwhite students being at the top? It’s almost seems like, well, do you
really deserve this or is it just what is it? Is it something like. No, you really don’t deserve
this. And so that’s why I’m not going to rate you as high as your white counterparts. Whereas
the white counterparts at the bottom. What’s wrong with you? Much white. Worse than your, I guess, nonwhite counterparts
at the bottom. Yeah. And you know, the thing about Kwanzaa, because I can’t tell you exactly the you know, the thought
process. A teacher was having. But I can tell you the capture there. And if their significant and if they’re
large enough that they can have a pretty large impact. And this is just one moment, one experience in
one moment. And really, race, race and racism are cumulative. Right. So all
kinds of moments accumulating to an experience. But in this one moments in this one measure that I
was looking at a students reading, they’re kind of average ability of a student. Yes.
The teachers were whether they were being whether they were
penalizing the license, the bottom or maybe had law citations for the sins of color. I couldn’t
tell you which one it was. Or maybe it’s both at the top of this mission, whether they saw greater potential, the white students
or whether they were more skeptical of the performance since the color. I couldn’t tell you when it could be both, too.
But in the end, the result of that was
an inequity that was masked by an average and that,
without knowing, couldn’t be dealt with in a way that could possibly lead to both.
Maybe. Great expectations for students who come in
less prepared because they still have great potential. Where they come in is not where they could end up being,
depending on what a teacher thinks and what they offer. But they have to believe that.
And at the, you know, towards the top of the distribution, really.
Questioning one’s biases and thinking about how we. Think about someone’s potential
in an in a different way, right, in terms of offering opportunities, stopping going. Am I. Am I thinking this because
of the actual performance or is there something inside of me that is shaping
this perception without me even realizing it? And there’s tons of social psychological research that
the pride’s evidence of the way that race shapes the way we receive behavior, performance
and different kinds of actions. Right. So it’s hates all those kinds of interactions. And the way we read
people for everyone for for for for people of every race, not just for individuals
who are white. Do you see your work as making the world more complicated? Because, again, we wanted
we want even amongst academics or we think of ourselves, understand the complexity of the world. We do
want things a little bit simplified if we look at the articles. They’re very simple. Okay. Give me
give me a simple story. So do you see your work as making the world more complicated? Or as painting
a better picture? Really painting a better picture because.
We say we want things simple, but we’re a country with so many different people and
within a particular community it may be simple, but it’s simple for a subgroup within a community, right?
You can have a community that has particular subgroups there for that community. That’s all they know. For them,
that’s simple. But simple in an article may not translate to simple within their community. Right. Because
what is simple in a community may be very nuance within our research. And so I don’t see myself so much as
let’s say, complicating as I see it fleshing out, because
our articles don’t ever capture all the nuance. But they can be more specific.
They can be more targeted. They can be more accurate at trying to understand
individuals experiences. And it’s through that greater accuracy and that effort towards
that, that we can have better understandings of how these processes work within society,
better understanding how to target. Particular policies, interventions
and efforts because of we believe that there’s just as black effect. What we gonna do every part of the country is a black
person to a sane policy because we assume that there’s this black effect or if we don’t find something
for a similar reason, then what I found are we just gonna assume that this is not discrimination?
And so it’s not it’s not so much about this idea that it’s complicated because really, honestly,
think of my work is complicated. Yes. I don’t I don’t think of it that
way. I just think of it as more detailed. OK.
So when you’re filling in many of the blank spaces, I guess on the canvas, one of things
also you mentioned policy issues and I’m thinking about the various ways. And when we think
about Polis, we thing about target populations and understand their complexity is a population that what might work
in Appalachia is not going to work in San Diego. Well, my work in Seattle is not gonna
work in El Paso. And we’ve seen this also with social movements. So, for
instance, King realized that once he moved outside of the south, many things they were talking
about just weren’t going to work. And so he had to he had to update. So
where are the policy issues where you believe this failure to understand nuance has been
most damaging?
I don’t think so much that there’s one policy arena, in fact, I think it probably most policy arenas.
What I think that it has done is it kind of reified this idea that
that nonwhite groupings are monoliths. Right. When we have
simplistic measures, simplistic effects, we
over and over and over again reify this idea that
if you are not white, that you’re simple, right, that you’re simplistic, that you’re monolith and that we can
understand the black experience, the Latin experience. But I never hear people say the
white experience. I never hear that. I never hear people talk about that on TV.
Whites are diverse. So are we, but in the research,
we’re not painted as such. In the narratives that people create
around the promotional policy, around discussions of issues of inequality
in the news media were painted with very broad strokes and
this impacts all of our experiences and how we’re seen in every arena, right. So then in essence, it impacts
every policy. So, I mean, I look at specific things and sometimes
those things are can be tied to specific policies or school policy, a district
policy, a national policy. But sometimes they’re just a challenge.
That notion to begin with, there may not be a policy to fix what it is that I’m looking
at. It’s not something that is easily fixable because it’s entrenched their ideas that are entrenched.
And the starting point for dealing with that is challenging those
ideas, showing the diversity and showing it not
just through stories, because I think all stories are so important, but also showing it through numbers because people just
people tend to believe the numbers are truths. They’re not one of the things. One of the first things I tell my students is numbers are tools,
not truths. I tell them this over and over again. But we have been taught to
believe the numbers are truths is that we need to see numbers assume as truth. And if we hear stories and goals, if that story
reaffirms what we believe, we take it. If the story does it, then we say up.
It’s just an anecdote. Regardless of what is, we believe we tend to do this right as humans,
but people tend to see numbers angle. Those numbers are truth and believe them
without without any question. And so maybe I’m trying to use numbers to create a different narrative,
one that challenges the kind of ideas that numbers have for a long time
promoted this idea that we that we can understand that nonwhite groups
and the experiences of individuals within these groups. Simplistically, given the
amount of complexity that the that sociology political science must mean,
the social sciences are willing to talk about with a wide experience and the simplification of the
non nonwhite experience. What are some of the pushback you’ve received in your work?
Oh boy. Okay. So. And it’s funny because I’m actually going to sit on a panel
at a pre-conference on recent racism in the sociology of education right before the American
Sociological Association meeting in Philadelphia in August. And this is one of my topics that I’m going to speak
about and the pushback. Oh,
boy. I could talk about this for for a while. But really the pushback is that I would say
the starting point for the pushback is that many scholars believe that somehow they’re exempt from
the very forces they study or sociologists are notorious for this. They
study things like race or racism, but believe that it couldn’t exist within their own
departments, associations, fields. Right. And
when we’re creating. Academic work. Right. Especially quantitative work
where you’re going through that kind of constant peer review at different journals. It’s our our peers
that are reviewing our work. And so I have individuals reviewing my work
who believe they know about race, not because they’re scholars of it, but because.
They know Burris the way everybody else does. Right. And that will shape
the kinds of arguments they make about the work. What they value, what they say,
how they frame it. It’s like a lot of pushback, but that pushback is is often not situated
in my methodology as much as it is an ideology, sadly.
And so I do get that and I get I get some of that. The pushback that comes particularly from my own colleagues
at times doing the very same things I study in in the real world, because they’re real people.
They live real lives in the real world. They send their children to schools. Many of them segregated
in the real world. They pick their houses based on the same kinds of criteria. Other people do
right in the real world. They befriend individuals. And while their friendship networks may be somewhat more diverse,
they often look not too dissimilar to other individuals like them.
So in the in the in the real world, they live real lives. Right? There are people. And that means
that real forces impact their view. And there’s no
way to be entirely objective. We bring that back with us into our work.
I bring it back into my work. It’s what shapes how I see the work that I’m doing. It’s my own experiences and
I’ll admit that readily. But it also shapes how people respond. And I won’t say so. I won’t say that the pushback
that I get all push back, that it’s all negative. In fact, there are many people that are supportive of what I’m doing and see
it as the kind of next step. Right. That that we’re not done. We have a lot more work we
can do. Yes. There’s a lot more research to be done. We’re not done studying these topics. We just
have to think about new ways of studying them and understanding them. There’s so much to be known still. Right.
And so there’s space for the work that I’m doing after the work of others that are trying to also, you know,
forge into these new areas. But there’s also a pushback
to that. Okay. And I noticed that one of the things,
at least as a public scientist, what I’ve faced and people talked about this. For instance, Melissa
Harris Perry has talked about the fact that in political science, that
work, which treats blacks as objects so well within the race work.
So that publishes mainly about white attitudes towards non-whites. And the nuance
of white racial attitudes. But work that treats non-whites as agents tells their story,
seems to be pushed away, seems to be ostracized or treated as
specialized. And what I’m gonna give you is this seems to be the case as well,
that when you talk about these groups as agents and talk
about the complexity of these groups, people see this as well. This is too
this is too specific. This is not general enough. Whereas we talk about whites, it is general.
And it seems to me that seems to be refute that to me seems to be reflected
in well, tell us some of the pushback. But also from the previous work that’s been done
is that these nonwhite groups, I guess, really
aren’t about America. And if we see ourselves as exclusively
scholars of the social sciences within an American context, that these groups don’t really
need to be studied, the complexities within these groups really don’t matter is.
Are you seeing that as well in sociology or do you believe do you
believe we are getting better at acknowledging these groups as agents and
and acknowledging the complexity of their lives? We so on average, I’d say we’re getting
better. But again, averages don’t always represent everyone’s experience. Right.
So I would say that maybe some people done a lot better and now there’s not so much at all that
we still see the kind of pushback we’ve seen for
a long time from some some of power, the power to reject
papers, to challenge promotions, to
to really, you know, black people’s trajectories and their opportunities
to kind of produce this work and to see this kind work to fruition and bring out to
the world. But there are also opportunities. People are hungry for
it. I remember presenting some of the work I do. So I do work on
attitudes, black attitudes towards discrimination. And in fact, my first solo
authored article was a an entirely black sample looking at attitudes about
race and racism and whites. And my main argument that we’ve spent a lot of time
trying to understand, you know, ideas of interracial contact and it’s about whites, but those
whites aren’t the only ones having contact within this space. And so what happens? For blacks within
these spaces, can we say it’s as good as it is for whites? Right. It’s not. But.
But might might really work within thinking about that. Exactly that. Right. What are other people
thinking about? What are our stories and other stories and trying to find ways to bring
those out? Is there pushback to that? Yes, there is pushback to that. But
it’s not a. It’s not a barrier, it’s more like a hurdle.
Right. It’s not impossible. But boy, do some people make it really hard. So it is it’s it’s harder
to get this workout and it’s harder to get this work published. You will have people that’ll steer you towards.
They’ll say you should put this in the, you know, race and ethnicity journals. Right. They’ll
they’ll try to. Shift the work into particular venues
as though that work is not relevant to everyone like it shouldn’t be in the mainstream or generalist
journals within those journals, you’ll have many, many more views. They
will be more negative. They will be longer. Just send in a paper with some
colleagues. In our first set of reviews was five reviewers, a 19th single-spaced pages
for a six thousand word article. There were more words problem with double
the words in the reviews to the article. Second review three reviewers
and 15 single spaced pages. It took many reviews,
but our premise never changed. The paper didn’t change, most of that was proving without
a shadow of a doubt in the minds of people who don’t believe race matters. A race is important to this kind of way that it does.
Yes. And that’s we spent most of our time doing so. You you’re engaged in an ideological fight?
Not not a mythological fight. It was people were entrenched in this idea that race was
a matter. And you had to basically. Climb that hill some
methodology and then write no papers perfect going in, I won’t say that the paper was perfect. Going right.
There were some changes to the models. There were some things that we added, some citations that,
you know, we did improve the paper. I won’t say that it wasn’t improved in that process, but
we had to find those points within. Yes, some also
ideology where people actually just outright said, I don’t abide by your argument. I don’t abide by this
is a thing. And that’s not for me. It’s not
uncommon. It happens in a lot of the things I said, especially my sentiments isn’t generals journals that I’m used to, people actually
just outright saying that they don’t buy the race argument. They don’t buy that race is an issue. They
don’t buy that this is. Really important or that or sometimes downplaying it.
And when I find these differences, it’s just an incremental amount of knowledge. Right.
So there it is there that kind of that pushback is there that kind of work to push
this work to the periphery into particular journals? Is there. It just means fight a little harder. I don’t mind.
I’m one of those for a fight. I’m from Newark. Professor arizonas work points to the need
for social scientists to be more aware of the complexity of race. She’s highlighted that
because race is a social construction. The way in which we develop our racial identities or come to understand what race means
differs from context to context. Furthermore, she’s highlighted that many of the race
problems that we thought were solved are not solved at all. But if we scratch the surface, it would look
a little bit more. We see greater disparities than expected. Professor Irizarry
is trying to push the social sciences to be more aware of the bear’s intricacies
of the racial experience. She sees a work not as prating a more complex picture,
but a more detailed picture. In many ways, she is pulling things that would beat in the shadows
out into the light for us to better understand the race problem and how to work
to solve the race problem. As earlier interviews have suggested and have discussed,
the tools that we use are important and we know that we cannot use the same tool for every group.
And that minute the problems that we think may have gone away are hidden, meaning that we must update the tools
that we use. So as we go forward, I hope that you as well as
others will take the time to think a little bit more deeply about the complexities of race in the racial experience
and how we can change the way in which we study it. Also, what are the tools and activities
we can engage in to help solve this problem?
Thank you for listening to the American ingredient. I’m Eric Daniel, a professor in the Department of Government at the University
of Texas. I would like to think Michael heidenreich and Jacob Weiss for their assistance, along
with the Department of Government, the University of Texas and the University of Texas. Ali, ISIS
Development Studio.