'Colour Coding' is Skin Deep

A University of Melbourne Final Essay Assignment

Under the Freshman Sociology subject "Understanding Society"

Passed with High Distinction (H1)

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By Benjamin L.C.Y., written during Semester 1, 2011


BEST FIRST YEAR ESSAY


 Melbourne University Arts Students' Society (M-ASS)


Annual Essay Competition 2011


in conjunction with National Australia Bank (NAB)

Tutor's Comments - Dr. Jackson, I.:

Ben, this essay presents an integrated and nuanced overview of the situation with a strong technique and structure. All the technical aspects are good. If anything, the essay could be strengthened by more explicit use of theory in analysis of the role that stereotyping plays, eg. as explored by Goffman, Mead, Cooley and others, and by investigation of the nature and basis of race and ethnicity as constructions. As it is, it is an elegantly written essay that describes [the] key aspects associated with the topic but it doesn't have much 'bite'; perhaps explicit indication of scenario outcomes via statistics of incarcerations [eg. 'Stolen Generations' in Australia], inter-racial marriages etc., thus to ensure it reads clearly as an academic essay rather than an op-piece. Nevertheless, this essay indicates your deep understanding of issues related to the topic nd its overall location within the academic discipline.

Author's note: This piece follows the Symbolic Interaction school of thought. The mandated word limit for this assignment is 2000 words,

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INTRODUCTION

Identification is a process that distinguishes individuals and groups from other individuals and groups during social interaction (Jenkins, 2004). Others can often be identified by their ethnic category, defined as human populations whom outsiders perceive as a culturally and historically distinct (Smith, 1991). However, race – the hereditary qualities manifested in visible bodily differences (Luke & Carrington, 2000) – tends to be conflated with ethnicity in the form of a racial stereotype. These racial stereotypes are defined as bidirectional cognitive associations between racial appearance and certain perceived ethnic attributes (Jones & Fazio, 2010).

While racial/ethnic stereotypes may be partially true, they are often misleading when applied to particular individuals. In addition, stereotypes are usually stigmatised by their association with “deeply discrediting” attributes (Goffman, 1963 in Kurzban & Leary, 2001) that impose a “spoiled social identity” of varying severity on the stereotyped subject (Goffman, 1963 in Harvey et. al, 2005). I will argue that ‘colour coding’ – the combined application of stereotypes and their accompanying stigma(s) – identifies the ethno-racial other in a way that that misinforms behaviour and leads to social conflict.

MICRO-SOCIAL COLOR CODING
Identifying an individual using racial stereotypes may lead one to misunderstand him or her and negatively prejudice social relations by creating conflict. This is especially true among intimate social groups like close friends and family, and conflict with these groups tend to create considerable emotional distress.

For example, marriage across the ‘colour line’ to people of a different race tends to meet with severe disapproval from family members. Their reactions are informed by a stereotypical conceptualisation of the ethno-racial ‘other’. Australian biracial couples reported that these stereotypes were often based on stigmatising media reports. Some Australian media vilify Filipina woman as financially exploitative “mail-order Filipina brides”, while newspapers in the Philippines warned against violence and abuse from white Australian men (Luke & Carrington, 2000). The exploitative or violent portrayal of these stereotypes is morally derogatory and attaches a stigma to the ethnicity of the racial other, thus creating a negative stereotype through the association of discrediting attributes and race. These stereotypes then inform the disapproving response of the couple’s parents. One Chinese-Malay woman recounts how her Anglo-Australian mother in-law blatantly told her: “What’s wrong with my kids? They are all married to Asians!” This sentence reveals two cognitive processes. Firstly, the term “Asians” indicates her mother-in-law identifies her as a generalised “Asian” stereotype rather than a unique individual and, secondly, stigmatizes her by implying that it is categorically ‘wrong’ – a term of moral disapproval – to enter into marriage with members of this out-group.

The stigmatic conceptualization of identity subsequently informs the imposition of various ‘sanctions’ against biracial couples that often forced them to choose between their lover and their family. This binary dilemma was an emotionally stressful event because it forced biracial couples to forfeit close family ties to stay with their lover. An Italian-Australian woman who married a Vietnamese man recounts that the lack of family support “really hurt… but we knew it would be either us or them”. In protest, family members commonly boycotted the wedding or cut off contact for prolonged periods, if not permanently (ibid.). A Maltese-British-Indian woman recounts that “we had six or seven years of no contact” with her Italian parents-in-law, while a Vietnamese man reports that his uncle was “basically disowned by the family for the 15 years he was married to her [a French woman]” (Luke & Carrington, 2000).

These testimonies illustrate the process of stereotyping, stigmatisation, and the coercive measures taken against those who form marital relationships with stereotyped ‘Others’. It denies their unique individuality and reduces his/her identity to a stigmatized ‘colour coded’ construct. The severe estrangement incurred by marrying across this ‘colour line’ demonstrates that ‘colour coded’ identification informs behaviour that produces significant familial conflict and personal distress.

MARCO-SOCIAL POLICY IMPLICATIONS
At a macro-social level, ‘colour coded’ stereotyping likewise reduces individuals to a stigmatised construct that misinforms actions in response to it. Any inadvertent and erroneous application of stereotypes in public policy has wide-ranging macro-social implications because it identifies segments ethno-racial categories or communities as problems. The resulting ‘remedial’ actions that specifically target these groups may exacerbate the situation instead of addressing its root social causes.

The policing of Lebanese ‘problem’ youth in Sydney vividly demonstrates these dangers. Since the 1880s, groups of Lebanese youth on the street – commonly called ‘Larrikins’ – organised themselves into gangs in the working-class areas of Sydney (White, 2007). Street fights often caused injuries and occasional death, while abusive remarks were hurled at passers-by, sometimes followed by physical intimidation and assault. The media reported these incidents as ‘ethnic crime’ and made race a salient feature, as if being Lebanese was “intrinsically bad” (sic!), while ignoring the socio-economic factors behind it. The racially salient identification of disorderly Lebanese youth behaviour was used in official crime records from 1883 (Murray, 1973 in ibid.) and eventually created the stereotype of the Larrikin based on a bidirectional cognitive association between “Larrikin appearance” and “Larrikin-type offences” (Finnane, 1994, in White 2007). Given the deeply discrediting attributes of socially undesirable “Larrikin-type offences”, the Larrikin stereotype also carried a stigma.

The conflation of race and undesirable behaviour in official records then informs official policy aimed at ‘redressing’ the problem, but treating the stereotype as an explanation belies the underlying sociological causes behind it. Police in New South Wales (in which Sydney is a city) adopted a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to curbing Larrikin activity through greater surveillance, use of force, and arrest for relatively trivial offences like littering or verbal abuse (White, 2007). This coercive strategy did not search for the problem’s root cause and made the targeted group even more resentful and uncooperative. Indeed, it is precisely because the Lebanese youths had been ostracised by mainstream society and subjected to economic disadvantage that they gathered in gangs for mutual social affirmation (Collins et. al., 2000, in ibid.) and engage in offensive behaviour with the intention of upsetting the ‘respectable’ members of society that shun them (White, 2007). Targeted ‘zero tolerance’ policing informed by racially ‘colour coded’ Lebanese/Larrikin stereotypes and the associated “Larrikin-type offences” only increases these youths’ sense of social marginalisation and further motivates the formation of gangs and offensive behaviour. In other words, the application of racially ‘colour coded’ stereotypes in macro-social policy has exacerbated a vicious, coercive cycle of mainstream ostracism and ethnic backlash by treating racial difference as social explanation. This obscured the underlying issues that motivated “Larrikin-type offences” and perpetuated social conflict based on ethno-racial targeting

STIGMA REVERSALS & INTER-ETHNIC CONTENTIONS
However, the preceding sections do not imply that ‘colour coding’ is only practiced by social authority figures (e.g. parents, the police). In response to perceived discrimination, racial minorities can practice ‘stigma reversal’, defined as “the imputation of guilt and moral inferiority to the members of a [socially] dominant group” based on the latter’s racial descent (Killian, 1985). Unlike the aforementioned cases, stigma reversals are made by minorities in response to an antecedent stigma imposed on them by the dominant majority. During the 1960s-70s in the USA, stigma reversals informed court rulings seeking to redress the effects of past racial discrimination (ibid.). It provided preferential treatment for ostensibly oppressed blacks (Afro-Americans) over the purportedly oppressive white majority (Americans with European descent). However, this racialised conception of social inequality still relies on racial stereotypes and the resulting affirmative action inadvertently created a ‘reverse racism’ against whites based on their race.

One landmark court case is “Barbara Gutter v. Lee Bollinger et. al. (1993)”, where Grutter charged that the University of Michigan Law School practiced racially discriminatory policies that violated of her constitutional rights (Kamalu & Kamalu, 2004). Grutter alleges that the law school practiced “a race based double standard” by favouring minority students with comparable qualifications based on their race. In defense, the University claimed that it only sought to build a “critical mass”, defined as a “meaningful representation/number” to provide minority students with a “sense of belonging” without making race a predominant factor in admission.

However, the university’s defense implies that a minimum, significant number of minority students are preferred based on their race. Assuming that the law school has a finite number of vacancies, it effectively reserves a vague, undefined quota for students from racial minorities. This means that blacks with comparable qualifications to whites will automatically be preferred on the basis of race until the unstated minimum “critical mass” is obtained and this effectively makes the University’s policy racially discriminatory.

Such categorical affirmative action presupposes that the social advantages of the majority are homogenous, just as the disadvantaged minority is homogenously victimized (Killian, 1985). The exclusively dyadic conception of oppressor-and-oppressed reverses the stigma burden from the ‘disadvantaged’ blacks onto the ‘discriminatory’ whites and informs policies seeking to redress the blacks’ previous disadvantage. These categories are racial stereotypes formed by creating a bidirectional association between race and collective guilt/victimization. It is misleading because such policies have since created a new class of victimized white students who are excluded from professional schools because of their race (ibid.). Such a policy of ‘reverse racism’ makes them guiltless victims while creating a mutually exclusive conflict of interest between black and white students along racial lines. While affirmative action may arguably enhance distributive justice, it does carry undesirable side effects. As seen in the legal battle above, among many others (listed in Kamalu & Kamalu, 2004), social conflict is exacerbated as victimized individuals contest “the polarization of the races in public institutions” (ibid.).

INTRA-ETHNIC COLOUR CODING
While ‘colour coded’ stereotyping may seem like an inter-ethnic phenomenon, intra-ethnic stereotyping and stigmatization among those of the same race also occurs. This occurs through ‘skin tone bias’: the tendency to perceive or behave towards members of a racial category based on their skin tone (Maddox & Gray, 2002). It is a variant of stereotyping that associates positive/negative attributes with people of certain skin tones who belong to the same race. Skin tone bias occurs in a number of countries and generally values lighter-skinned individuals over darker ones (ibid.).

For example, Maddox & Gray’s experiment (2002) found that both black and white college students strongly associated light-skinned blacks with positive traits and dark-skinned blacks with negative ones. The aim of the experiment was disguised as a questionnaire about participants’ knowledge of 7 racial and ethnic groups including “dark-skinned black women”, “dark-skinned black men”, along with their light-skinned counterparts. Participants were asked to list as many cultural beliefs as they could about a particular group. Testers later subsumed these cultural beliefs under broad trait descriptors (e.g. athletic).

Both black and white participants displayed a significant[1] tendency to associate negative traits like “criminal”, “tough/aggressive”, “unattractive” to dark-skinned black men and “lazy”, “poor”, “unattractive” to dark-skinned black women. Conversely, positive traits like “educated” and “intelligent” had closer associations with light-skinned men and “attractive”, “intelligent” to light-skinned women.

The negative attributes form a stereotype because of their cognitive association with race. The deeply discrediting nature of these attributes stigmatizes dark-skinned blacks by imposing a spoiled identity on them relative to their light-skinned counterparts. Since racism can be defined as the “beliefs, attitudes, institutional arrangements and acts that tend to denigrate individuals or groups because of phenotypic characteristics or ethnic group affiliation” (Clark et. al., 1999), it stands to reason that the negative stereotype of dark-skinned African-Americans makes them more susceptible to racism at the inter- and intra-racial level.[2] While little research has explored the effects of intra-racial stereotyping (Clark, 2004), skin tone bias may be used to restrict matriculation into predominantly black universities (ibid.). If so, dark-skinned blacks may respond to their denigration and marginalization with symbolic acts of contempt in a manner analogous to the Larrikins discussed above. Again, the practice of ‘colour coded’ identification through stigmatized stereotypes points towards potential social conflict.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, I have argued that ‘colour coded’ identification is the combined application of stereotypes and their accompanying stigmas. Identifying ethnic and racial others in this way misinforms behaviour, leading to social conflict along ethno-racial lines. At a micro-social level, the case of inter-racial marriages in Australia illustrates how the stereotypical conception of individuals informs punitive family behaviour and the ensuing social conflict places the couple under severe emotional distress (Luke & Carrington, 2000). At a macro-social level, the misinformed application of zero-tolerance policing on the basis of a ‘Larrikin’ stereotype became self-defeating and diverted attention from the Lebanese youths’ sense of social ostracism that motivated their offensive behaviour in the first place (White, 2007).

While the inadvertent use of categorical stereotypes may be benignly intended to redress past racism through affirmative action, it involves a stigma reversal process that imposes collective guilt on innocent individuals and deprives them of opportunities they would otherwise have. As seen in the American university admissions case, this produces social conflict along racial lines (Kamalu & Kamalu, 2004). Finally, recent research indicates that the travesties of stereotyping can also occur in intra-ethnic identification (Maddox & Gray, 2002) and the resulting marginalization could, hypothetically, create social conflict.

‘Colour coding’ is a pressing problem in globalised, poly-ethnic metropolises, such as Sydney (Poynting, 2007). Collins (8 Nov., 2005) notes that immigrants are increasingly depicted as criminals and a moral panic about ethnic crime has developed in Sydney. This was prophetically proven by the Cronulla riots later that year when young “Anglo-Celtic” men assaulted people of “Middle Eastern appearance” (Poynting, 2006 in ibid.). The latter’s appearance was associated with an “inherent criminality” and “deviance” (sic!) in young Lebanese-Australian men (Poynting, 2007), thus creating a bidirectional cognitive association between racial appearance and stigmatic, stereotypical attributes. This fits our definition of ‘colour coded’ identification as the combined application of stereotypes and their accompanying stigma, while its implicit use during the Cronulla Riots demonstrates that racial and ethnic identification is a pressing contemporary problem. Future research could focus on the feasibility of a post-ethnic consciousness where societies realize that ‘colour coding’ is, truly, only skin deep.

© Benjamin Low C.Y.

J

References

Clark, R., (2004) 'Interethnic and intraethnic group racism: Perceptions and coping in black university students', Journal of Black Psychology, Vol. 30, No. 4, pp. 506-526.

Clark, R., Anderson, N.B., Clark, V.R. and Williams, D.R., (1999) 'Racism as a stressor for African Americans', American Psychologist, Vol, 54, pp. 805-816.

Collins, J., (2005) ‘Ethnic minorities and crime in Australia: Moral panic or meaningful policy responses’, paper to a public seminar by the Office of Multicultural Interest, Western Australia, 8^th November.*

Jenkins, R., (1952) Social Identity, New York, Routledge.

Jones, C.R. and Fazio, R.H., (2010) 'Person categorization and automatic racial stereotyping effects on weapon identification', Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 36, No. 8, pp. 1073-1085.

Killian, L.M., (1985) 'The stigma of race: Who now bears the mark of Cain?', Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 1-14.

Kamalu, J.A. and Kamalu, N.C., (2004) 'From Bakke to Grutter: The Supreme Court and the struggle over affirmative action in the era of globalization', The Western Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 28, No. 4, pp. 489-500.

Kurzban, R. and Leary, M.R, (2001) 'Evolutionary origins of stigmatization: The functions of social exclusion', Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 127, No. 2, pp.187-208.

Luke, C. and Carrington, V., (2000) 'Race matters', Journal of Intercultural Studies, Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 213-232.

Maddox, K.B. and Gray, S.A., (2002) 'Cognitive representations of black Americans: Reexploring the role of skin tone', Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 250-259.

Poynting, S., (2007) ‘’Thugs’ and ‘grubs’ at Cronulla: From media beat-ups to beating up migrants’, in S. Poynting and G. Morgan (eds.), Outrageous! : Moral panics in Australia, Tasmania: ACYS Publishing.

Smith, A. D., (1991) National Identity, London, Penguin.

White, R., (2007) Policing the Other: Lebanese Young People in a Climate of Conflict. In J. Jupp, J. Nieuwenhuysen, and E. Dawson, (eds.) Social Cohesion in Australia, Melbourne VIC: Cambridge University Press.

Is a post-ethnic world desirable?

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[1] Maddox & Gray followed the academic conventions of psychology and defined the alpha level of statistical significance at p < .05. Some traits were listed with a significance of up to p < .0001

[2] Skin Tone Bias has only recently been defined by Maddox & Gray in 2002. As stated by Clark (2004), literature is exiguous and effectively limits our discussion to hypothetical scenarios

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*Unpublished paper. Soft copy received upon request via email on 10^th May, 2011, from the Office of Multicultural Interest (WA).