Racemaking in New Orleans: racial boundary construction among ideologically diverse college students

ABSTRACT

We explore how an ideologically diverse group of white students at Tulane University respond to evidence of racial inequality in post-Katrina New Orleans. In line with prior research, we find commonalities in racialized attitudes and behaviours between students whose racial ideologies otherwise differ. Drawing from anthropological theories of boundary construction and sociological work on colour-blind racism, we argue that the Otherization of non-whites is part of the everyday worldviews and social practices of white Americans. We draw on fieldwork in New Orleans to demonstrate that racist stereotypes and beliefs in racial difference continue to be transmitted within white social spaces. We find that even the most progressive Tulane students are engaged in the construction and reinforcement of symbolic and spatial boundaries between themselves and African Americans. This achieves the purpose for which racial stereotypes were originally constructed – namely, the persistence of racial inequality.

KEYWORDS:

• Race
• Racemaking
• colour-blind racism
• symbolic boundaries
• spatial boundaries
• New Orleans

Acknowledgements

We thank James Igoe (advisor for the project) and Sienna Craig for helpful discussions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The term ‘racial apathy’ is used by a number of social scientists, most notably Forman and Lewis (2006), to describe the indifference of white Americans towards racialized issues of discrimination and inequality. It is also used to describe the tendency of white Americans to actively avoid interacting with people of different racial backgrounds.

2. According to Carr (1994), an individual ‘flips the script’ when she reverses her conventional, expected role in a relationship. In this case, Morgan presents herself as a victim of boundaries constructed by non-whites.

3. The headlines of interest read as follows: “11th rape reported in 2008–09”; “Shots fired on Mardi Gras day”; and “TUPD, Gibson respond to rape.”

4. Some of these organizations were locally based, such as the Homeless Action Team, an organization dedicated to helping homeless New Orleanians, and the Gulf Restoration Network, an NGO dedicated to local environmental issues.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the Claire Garber Goodman Fund for the Anthropological Study of Human Culture, Dartmouth College, to N.A.E.Y.