Too much talking, not enough listening: the racial contract made manifest in a mixed-race focus group interview

ABSTRACT

In this article, the authors utilize C.W. Mills’ Racial Contract Framework as a tool to unpack how racial power dynamics manifested in a mixed-race focus group interview designed to understand the participants’ insights on race, incarceration, and community. The focus group interview included four research participants: Two White women, one Black woman, and one White man. While the interview was framed as a collaborative, generative discussion, we observed contributions made by the Black woman to be rebuffed or dismissed by the White man, who positioned himself as the expert on the interview topic. The article concludes with implications and recommendations for researchers as they design and enact focus group interviews across racial lines in pursuit of racial justice and equity.

KEYWORDS:

• Charles Mills
• racial contract
• race
• racism
• sexism
• white supremacy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Charles Mills (1955–2021) was and still is a vital contributor in the fight for racial justice. And though he has physically departed this world, his scholarship and insights into how The Racial Contract manifests not only in global society but even within small interface group dynamics is, sadly, still relevant today.

2. According to a recent Brookings Report (2018), Nashville’s zip code 37,208 is the most incarcerated zip code in the nation.

3. Throughout this article, we use pronouns that participants specified appropriate.

4. All names used for research participants are pseudonyms.

5. The program in question does not require participants to adopt or change their religion. The first author was able to interview both personnel and participants to confirm this to be the case.

Corresponding Author E-Mail Address: [email protected]

Bryant O. Best is a PhD Candidate in the Justice and Diversity in Education program at Vanderbilt University. Best’s research seeks to use asset-based epistemologies and frameworks to counteract deficit narratives of Black and Brown communities.

H. Richard Milner IV is the Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair of Education at Vanderbilt University. Milner is President and a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association and an elected member of the National Academy of Education. His current research focuses on the lived educational experiences of people formerly incarcerated.