Negotiating
Black Identities
Karyn Lacy, University of Michigan
Presentation Sections:
Overview:
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Dr. Karyn Lacy presented
"Constructing Racial Identities" at Emory University on
March 2, 2005. In excerpts from her lecture, Prof. Lacy advances
the idea of strategic assimilation as an way of understanding how
contemporary middle-class Blacks are managing their lives in suburban
spaces. She draws from her research in two counties near Washington,
D. C.: Prince George's County, Maryland (a majority-Black county)
and Fairfax County, Virginia (predominately White). |
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Video:
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Part 1
(5:37 min.) |
Increasing numbers of middle-class
Blacks are living in the suburbs of cities such as Atlanta, Washington
D.C., St. Louis, and Chicago. How are they managing these spaces?
Why do they appear to be segregating themselves? |
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Part 2
(3:49 min.) |
Prof. Lacy outlines her sources and methods, and
describes the settings of her research : "Riverton/Riverdale"
in Prince George's County, Maryland (65 percent Black population)
and "Lakeview" in Fairfax County, Virginia (4 percent
Black population). |
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Maps Referenced: |
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Part 3
(5:59 min.) |
Constructing racial identities in
the suburbs: attitudes on interracial marriage and White college
attendance. |
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Part 4
(5:06 min.) |
Middle-class suburban Blacks feel
strongly about the importance of Black spaces and places for the
socialization of identity. |
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Part 5
(4:06 min.) |
Comparing the everyday experiences
and perspectives of Blacks in the two suburban communities. How
do the young learn to negotiate race relations? What are the purposes
of Black social organizations here? |
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Part 6
(3:49 min.) |
The changing mission of an elite
Black social organization, Jack and Jill, in the suburbs. |
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Part 7
(1:58 min.) |
A "spatial community"
compared with an "imagined community." The two suburbs
of this study present different ways in which black parents are
preparing their children to live successfully in the White world,
while retaining connections to the Black world. |
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About the Speaker:
Karyn Lacy
is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan. Her
areas of research include race and ethnicity, the sociology of culture,
suburban sociology, and stratification. Prof. Lacy's book, Negotiating
Black Identities (forthcoming from the University of California Press),
examines how the Black middle class defines itself in relation to Whites,
to the middle class, and to Blacks from other classes. Her current work
explores the impact of an elite social organizations on the construciton
and reproduction of class-based identities among middle-class Blacks.
Prof. Lacy's lecture was sponsored by the Emory American Studies Program and the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts.
Prof. Lacy's lecture was sponsored by the Emory American Studies Program and the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts.
Presentation Sections:
