Log 4

• Between weeks 8 and 12, each student should provide a weekly reflection (500 words) on the data you have collected to date.
  • What data did you collect?
  • What is your initial impression of the data?
  • How have the data you have collected this week changed/progressed your thinking about your research project?
  • What challenges did you encounter while collecting the data?
  • What are your next steps?

This week I continued to reflect both on the polling data I have found and our conversation we had during office hours. I agree with you that conducting a poll of Bowdoin students would likely not be necessary. I may consider interviewing a few Bowdoin students if I feel that doing so would fill in the gaps of the surveys I have examined, but at the current moment I do not think such action would be necessary. Furthermore, I have been marinating on our conversation regarding the idea that white nationalists and antiracist advocates both utilize colorblind ideology. In this way, there is a strange ideological convergence between individuals with radically different ideologies regarding the paradigm they utilize in their conceptualization of race. I aim to advance the idea that this colorblind paradigm constrains both far-right and far-left millennial advocates, particularly focusing on how colorblindness impedes “woke” millennials who embrace diversity and racial justice. I think the recent examples of bias at Starbucks, the 14-year black boy who was shot at after knocking on someone’s door for directions, the spate of police killing unarmed black men, and the recent New York Times reporting on how racism affects black maternal health make my paper topic and the entrenchment of colorblind ideology all the more relevant.

Running with this idea, I have been conducting research to see if any scholars have anything to say regarding my hypothesis. I am still waiting to receive a number of books through ILL including Racists without Racists, White Out: The Continuing Significance of Racism, and White Bound: Nationalists, Antiracists, and the Shared Meaning of Race. From the summaries and book reviews I have read, these authors describe the pervasiveness and deleterious consequences of colorblind ideology, while also depicting how eschewing colorblind ideology can lead white individuals to embrace antiracism and be more conscious of race and its effects in American society. I hope to start unpacking the arguments and evidence that these authors put forward to help inform my understanding of the polling data I have uncovered in the last few weeks.

Lastly, I also stumbled upon an article that analyzed respondents understanding of racial prejudice by a survey conducted by the General Social Survey (GSS). The results of this survey illustrate how non-Hispanic, white millennials possess similar racial attitudes as previous generations. The percentage of white millennials who rate blacks as lazier than whites is only 1% lower than Generation X and 3% lower than Baby Boomers. Furthermore, more white millennials actually rate “blacks as less intelligent than whites” than white Generation X’rs. The results of this survey validate my previous findings and explicitly shows how white millennial views are quite similar to their older, white counterparts.

I feel good on my research and direction for and of my final project. I hope to examine the arguments put forward by other sociological scholars of race and colorblindness in the upcoming weeks. I think the evidence and theories these scholars advance will bolster my hypothesis and examination of race in the millennial generation.