Abby L. Ferber

The Construction of Black Masculinity White Supremacy Now and Then

How can a White supremacist nation, which subjects Black men to ongoing racism and demonization, at the same time admire and worship Black men as athletes? The author argues that key elements of White supremacy and the new racism are reinforced by popular representations of Black male athletes. In viewing far-Right White supremacist and sports cultures, two sites representing seemingly opposite ends of the spectrum of contemporary racism, the author examines the continuing significance of the historical image of the buck and the obsession with controlling and “taming” Black male bodies. The author examines four common themes that permeate the contemporary construction of Black masculinity and work to justify color-blind racism and inequality: a continued emphasis on Black bodies as inherently aggressive, hypersexual, and violent; concern with taming and controlling Black males; inequality depicted as a product of a deficient Black culture; and the naturalization of White supremacy and White male superiority.

Racial Warriors and Weekend Warriors The Construction of Masculinity in Mythopoetic and White Supremacist Discourse

This article explores contemporary white male backlash by comparing the discourses of two movements usually assumed to have little in common: the mythopoetic mens movement and the contemporary white supremacist movement. While there are clear differences, the author argues that they are similar in important ways, and with consequences. These two discourses reinforce broader reactionary discourses about gender and share a number of common assumptions. They both construct gender in essentialist terms, depict contemporary American men as demasculinized, blame contemporary social problems on this demasculinization, blame women and the womens movement for this demasculin-ization, and seek to help men rediscover their lost masculinity and reassert their rightful authority. Both movements encourage white men to see themselves as victims and argue that (white) men are the truly oppressed minority in todays world.

A Commentary on Aguirre: Taking Narrative Seriously

I explore the incorporation of the narrative approach in sociology, the role of sociologist as narrator, and why this approach is unsettling to traditional sociology, where tension exists between the postmodern implications of a narrative approach and our empiricist assumptions. A narrative approach represents an epistemological shift and should force us to interrogate the crucial role played by narrative in the construction of reality. Affirmative action provides a perfect example, as sociologists actively define and construct what constitutes affirmative action through narrative. I argue that taking narratives seriously is key to confronting anti—affirmative action narratives and denaturalizing white privilege.

The Matrix of Oppression and Privilege: Theory and Practice for the New Millennium

This article discusses a creative, collaborative model the authors have developed between the Ethnic Studies and Womens Studies programs on their campus that provides a paradigm that other universities around the country might learn from. After situating the program within a historical and national context, this article examines the specific challenges faced within the university setting and offers a range of institutional strategies that have proven successful. The authors examine their collaboration, which consciously mirrors and attempts to implement the growing movement in teaching and research toward an intersectional approach to teaching about privilege and oppression. Within the university context, this framework has been institutionalized within the curriculum as well as the structure of the program. In the new millennium, this framework can serve as a model for other campuses.

Reading Right: The Western Tradition in White Supremacist Discourse

Abstract Our paper explores the white supremacist movements reliance upon the western genre to construct white masculinity. We argue that white supremacist discourse rearticulates both the narrative form and content of the classic western. We first examine the formal and substantive themes of the classic western, and then analyze the publications of a wide variety of contemporary white supremacist organizations, including Klan, neo-Nazi, and Christian Identity groups. We argue that white supremacist discourse draws upon the western genre, and its particular construction of white masculinity, to rearticulate and rationalize race and gender inequality and encourage readers to identify with the values and goals of the white supremacist movement.

Infusing Feminist Disability Studies in Our Teaching

Over the past 20 years, disability studies has become a vibrant, interdisciplinary field. The five co-authors have worked together to examine the work of feminist disability scholarship with the goal of incorporating disability studies into our current intersectional approach to teaching. We begin with a brief introduction to feminist disability studies, paying particular attention to issues of identity and embodiment, and the ways in which disability, like gender, is socially constructed. We then share how the incorporation of a disability studies lens has influenced each of our courses, providing concrete examples. We examine the creation of new courses, such as the Sociology of Disability and Disability Studies in Education, which both explore disability through a gender, race, and class lens. Additionally, we discuss the integration of disability into existing courses, including an intersectional theory course, and a course on class, stratification, and power. Finally, we present an example of how disability studies perspectives can transform the teaching of a specific subject widely taught in gender-related courses—reproductive justice and the politics of choice. Bringing disability studies into the dialogue does not simply add to the curriculum and make it more inclusive, it also transforms it.

Bringing Students into the Matrix: A Framework and Tools for Teaching Race and Overcoming Student Resistance

Teaching about race in the U.S today presents unique challenges that faculty are often ill equipped to address. This chapter will examine the contemporary context in which we teach, examining the ideology of color-blindness, as well as recent theorizing about race that examines issues of privilege, as well as intersectionality. I then present a framework for re-conceptualizing how we teach about race, that reflects both the theoretical developments in the field, as well as the pedagogical challenges we encounter, including student resistance. Finally, I argue that we must take seriously the emotional baggage students bring with them, and I provide a number of specific tools and strategies to accompany this framework.

“Are You Willing to Die for This Work?” Public Targeted Online Harassment in Higher Education: SWS Presidential Address:

This address examines a growing problem in academia: the public targeted online harassment of faculty. This harassment, organized and carried out by the alt-right and supported by other sectors of the right wing across the spectrum from mainstream to extreme, are intended to silence faculty and censor the curriculum. I examine a range of contextual factors that have facilitated this phenomenon, and discuss the experiences of seven other people, as well as myself, all with connections to higher education, that have experienced this unique form of attack. These conversations provide insight into the patterns evident in the form of the attack, individual and university responses, and informed the creation of lists of recommendations for those experiencing, preparing, and responding to attacks.

Gender, Race and National Identity: Nations of Flesh and Blood

perpetuate this binary gender system, drawing on William I. and Dorothy Thomas’ theory of how situations defined as real are real in their consequences. Girshick’s primary goal in this text is to provide a vehicle for the voices of people with transgender identities. According to the author, it is their stories that must be heard over those of gender theorists and other scholars. When academic voices dominate, she argues, we are too far removed from the everyday realities experienced by those who fall outside the gender binary. By listening to the experiences of transgender persons, we are invited into a radical endeavor of questioning the language and ideas that create and sustain this gender system—thus questioning fundamental aspects of our identities. This text is clearly organized and comprehensible, with Girshick offering a thorough review of relevant literature. In addition, her research is deep and methodologically sound. What is most helpful is the time she dedicates to discussing terminology, incorporating excerpts from her interviews as evidence of the ways in which gender constructs impose a language that further limits our ability to move beyond them. The complexity of terminology associated with transidentified people is particularly illustrated in the myriad ways her participants label themselves. Further, Girshick’s respect for her participants is demonstrated by her utilization of their self-selected identity labels throughout the text. The most significant contribution of Transgender Voices lies in Girshick’s extensive incorporation of quotes gleaned from the interviews she conducted with 150 transgender-identified people. Their insights and experiences detail a diverse array of encounters with coming out in professional and personal contexts, of developing identities, and of the limits of a binary gender system that often result in violence and discrimination. By including their voices, Girshick provides the reader with vivid evidence for her assertions throughout. Further, the thoroughness of her research clearly demonstrates how common it is to experience living outside normative gender categories and the potentially damaging impact of assuming otherwise. In this sociologically sound and welcome analysis of gender, Girshick contributes greatly to this field of study. Clarifying the distinction between gender, gender identity, sexuality, and sexual orientation, this work should prove useful to anyone teaching or researching in this area. Moreover, its content provides validation to the lives of those at the forefront of this struggle—those who dare to challenge the gender system by living their lives truthfully and openly outside the gender binary. Transgender Voices: Beyond Women and Men is a much needed launching point for moving toward what Girshick calls for—putting the struggle for gender diversity at the heart of efforts for liberation.

White Men on Race: Power, Privilege, and the Shaping of Cultural ConsciousnessWhite Men on Race: Power, Privilege, and the Shaping of Cultural Consciousness, by FeaginJoe and O'BrienEileen. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2003. 275 pp.

White Men on Race presents Feagin and O’Brien’s close analysis of interviews with approximately 100 high income, powerful white men in the United States. Executives, managers, professionals, and administrators, these men vary regarding how much status and national or local prestige and power they wield. While interest in the concept of privilege has grown in recent years, there has been little sociological research on the experiences of the privileged. As the authors argue, we know much more about the views of ordinary white folks than we do about the privileged, despite their disproportionate power. This book, thus, makes a significant contribution to the burgeoning subfield of the study of racial and ethnic privilege, and our understanding of racial and ethnic relations and inequality. Feagin and O’Brien examine the attitudes and experiences of these privileged men. They highlight key cultural constructs that emerged from their interviews that constrain the way these men interpret race relations, as well as their experiences of race. The text is clearly organized around central issues and themes, including interracial dating and marriage, affirmative action, and discrimination, among other topics. In each chapter the authors are careful to highlight the diversity in the views of this group, including several men who promote an antiracist perspective. White Men on Race focuses on the contexts, frameworks, and racial meanings these men draw on, rather than the individuals themselves. The authors examine the “sincere fictions” embraced and revised over the years by elite whites, which work to conceal and justify the extent to which racial inequality still exists. The authors identify and examine clusters of ideas and themes that arise in the interviews, including color-blindness, feelings of privilege, and feeling like a victim: themes that, while often contradictory, are tied together by a broader “ideological umbrella.” Feagin and O’Brien trace the ways in which certain stereotypes have evolved and become more subtle over time, and the variations in how they are articulated and reinforced by different individuals. They argue, convincingly, that the ideologies that emerge in their interviews are tied to a broader framework for understanding race in America. The men interviewed generally share the views of most white Americans on race. The authors argue, however, that these men, unlike their lower class counterparts, possess greater power to promote or attack the negative ideologies of race they encounter throughout their lives. These men live in what the authors term a “white bubble”: racially segregated communities, white schools and elite colleges, predominantly white workplaces, and most often their first significant interaction with a person of color is with domestic workers employed in their homes. This segregated existence precludes any significant, sustained, equal-status interaction with people of color. These men learn early in life the racial hierarchy and their privileged social position in the hierarchy. While much early research on whiteness has argued that whiteness remains invisible to whites themselves, Feagin and O’Brien find that the degree to which these men are aware of the privileges of their whiteness varies. It is not always invisible, and many of the respondents display an awareness of their collective identity as whites and the privileged status this entails. In connecting the individual responses of these men to the broader ideological racial framework, the authors examine the political implications of such views. They argue that the set of beliefs that emerge through their interviews undergirds much of the retreat from efforts to redress racial inequality in REVIEWS