Unlinking fate? Discrimination, group-consciousness, and political participation among Latinos and whites

ABSTRACT

Twenty-five years after its publication, Michael Dawson’s Behind the Mule remains a monograph of great theoretical and empirical value. In the wake of the election of the first nonwhite president of the United States in 2008 and primed racial-ethnic threat throughout the 2016 election and Trump presidency, however, Dawson’s theory requires deeper reflection and reconsideration. In this paper, we investigate the political relevance of racial-ethnic group-consciousness among Latinos and Whites. We demonstrate the dynamic nature of solidaridad among Latinos and linked anxiety among Whites as well as the complex connections each has to both personal experiences of and perceptions of racial-ethnic group discrimination and to political participation. We find that solidaridad and linked anxiety are differently rooted in experiences and perceptions of discrimination, but that connections between solidaridad and linked anxiety and participation are weaker.

KEYWORDS:

• Racial politics
• political participation
• Latino/a politics
• social identity
• white politics

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Matt Barreto, Lorrie Frasure-Yokley, and Natalie Masuoka for their comments and work organizing this Dialogues Section. The authors are also thankful for the incredibly helpful feedback provided by the anonymous reviewers of our manuscript. The authors would also like to thank Jane Junn and Darren Davis for their helpful comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Wayde Z. C. Marsh http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1079-867X