Michael L. Rosino

Howard Becker in Hyperspace: Social Learning in an On-Line Drug Community

Analyzing on-line drug communities provides important insights into the connection between computer-mediated communication and drug use in contemporary society. Drawing on social learning theory, we analyze conversations within the on-line community DMT-Nexus. We find that the on-line context affects the social learning process concerning drug use in distinct ways and identify how users gain relevant knowledge and interpretive strategies and acquire credibility. Based on these findings, we propose an expansion of Becker’s social learning model of drug use reflecting the unique constraints and opportunities of on-line contexts including the importance of vivid textual descriptions and modes of communication.

Speaking through Silence: Racial Discourse and Identity Construction in Mass-mediated Debates on the “War on Drugs”

As a set of criminal justice policies and practices, the “war on drugs” is a contested social issue linked to specific racial meanings and structures and political logics. As the legitimacy and value of the “war on drugs” has increasingly become a topic of public discussion, how such debates are shaped by both media communication and contemporary racial discourses warrants rigorous sociological analysis. In this article, we use a content analysis of newspaper manuscripts and online comments on “war on drugs” news stories to examine (1) the racial discourse within mass media agenda-setting and framing and (2) patterns of discursive identity construction in the context of digital and mass-mediated social commentary. Our findings show how “racial silence,” implicit and explicit racial discourse, and identity construction via racialized subject-positions assist to rationalize and legitimate racial inequality. We also outline the theoretical implications of these findings and avenues of future research.

Dramaturgical Domination The Genesis and Evolution of the Racialized Interaction Order

The history of racial domination in the United States is multifaceted and therefore cannot be explained through simple reference to ideologies or institutional structures. At the microlevel, racial domination is reproduced through social interactions. In this article, I draw on Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical approach to social interaction to illuminate the development of the racialized interaction order whereby actors racialized as white impose a set of implicit rules and underlying assumptions onto interracial interactions. I examine archetypal instances of racialized social interactions in America’s history and present-day to reveal the role of social interactions in racially structuring social institutions and everyday lives. First, I discuss the development and racialization of chattel slavery and its routinization as an interaction order. Next, I explore the dramaturgical and symbolic significance of the postbellum emergence and spread of racial terrorism such as white lynch mobs. I then analyze the contemporary discursive and performative strategies of white racial dominance and aspects of the contemporary racialized interaction order such as the de facto racialization of spatial boundaries, mass media and the digital sphere, and police violence. I conclude by discussing the significance of interactional analysis for understanding the present racialized social system.

Who's invited to the (political) party: race and party politics in the USA

ABSTRACT From the political behemoths of the Democratic and Republican Parties, to the Civil Rights Era racially progressive Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and reactionary American Independent Party, to the contemporary third party Green and Libertarian Parties, party politics in the USA has a long and storied relationship to the reproduction and contestation of racial domination. Recent works illuminate the strategic use of racial discourse by major party political elites, their deployment of racialized political platforms, and the relationship of these phenomena to power dynamics and racial interests but have yet to fully move beyond the two-party system and engage with innovations in political and cultural sociology. We outline openings for an empirically-grounded sociology of political parties that would reveal the micro- and meso-level features of racialized party politics and the operations of discursive and performative power within both major and minor political parties.

“A Problem of Humanity”: The Human Rights Framework and the Struggle for Racial Justice

While the historical and ongoing symbolic and material inequalities and violence faced by African Americans can be understood as a human rights violation, the efficacy of the human rights framework for addressing racial injustice in the United States remains contested. In this article, I examine the relationship between the emergence and dominance of the geopolitical doctrine of human rights and the struggle for racial justice in the United States. Through historical, legal, and sociological analysis of relevant issues and cases, I discern the benefits and limitations of the human rights framework for achieving racial justice and elucidate dynamics between relevant institutional, political, and social actors. I argue that the human rights framework opens international pathways for information, accountability, and symbolic politics conducive to combating racial injustice, particularly regarding overt manifestations of oppression and violence, but enduring issues such as the role of the state in racial politics and the dehumanization of people of color present hindrances.

The Race Whisperer: Barack Obama and the Political Uses of RacePriceMelanye T.The Race Whisperer: Barack Obama and the Political Uses of Race. New York: New York University Press, 2016. ix + 205 pp.

On January 20, 2017, Barack Obama ended his eight-year tenure as the 44th overall and first black president of the United States of America—a significant historical achievement whose meaning and legacy are subject to public and scholarly debate. Social scientists have long understood racial meanings, systems of oppression, modes of resistance, and political dynamics as intertwined (e.g., Du Bois 1920; Omi and Winant 1986). Recent scholarship covers the politics of racism and the uses of racial language by politicians of various persuasions (see Rosino and Hughey 2016). Yet there are unique flavors and textures to Obama-era racial politics. Scholarly attention has been dedicated to racial rhetoric about President Obama (e.g., Hughey and Parks 2014; Parlett 2014). But fewer works in this vein dedicate thorough analysis to Obama’s deft use of racial discourse. Melanye T. Price’s The Race Whisperer makes a welcome contribution by focusing on how Obama, a man known for his rhetorical style and substance, deployed racial narratives in distinct and powerful ways. American politics are shaped by ongoing racial subjugation and conflicts wrought with material interests and competing visions of order and justice. Yet somehow Obama’s rhetoric on potentially divisive racial issues resonated with large swathes of the American public and rallied a multiracial coalition of supporters. Price investigates exactly how and why Obama could do this. Obama is seen here as an archetypal “race whisperer”: “one who is seamlessly and agilely able to employ racial language and tropes by using personal experiences or common historical themes to engage and mobilize diverse racial constituencies” (p. 1). Importantly, this framework goes beyond an interrogation of the content of his words to connect them with their impacts among various audiences. Analysts have often shown how political leaders use racial animus instrumentally in their quest for power. Yet Obama drew upon a decidedly wider range of racial sentiments and ideals. Price argues that because racial schemas are dynamic, contextually dependent, and performative, Obama used race as a “political instrument” (p. 6) throughout his career. The book breaks down the rhetorical strategies that emerged in major speeches and his responses to flashpoint events. These strategies include employing abstract liberalism in articulating racial conditions, invoking a patriotic valorization of whiteness, conveying tropes of progress and racial transcendence, and his symbolic rather than substantive approach to racial profiling and police violence. Especially instructive is Price’s analysis of how Obama deracialized his campaign and presidency through narratives that signaled allegiance with whiteness and extolled “the determinacy of individual choice and personal responsibility rather than structural impediments to Black equality” (p. 36). And in response to these discourses coming from the campaign trail and the White House, black Americans were often left in a double bind: either avoid challenging the status quo or risk delegitimizing the first black president. Though careful not to depict Obama as “either a hero or a monster” (p. 31), Price nonetheless 707200 SREXXX10.1177/2332649217707200Sociology of Race and EthnicityBook Review research-article2017