Sociology 128
Interracial Interpersonal Dynamics
Tu Th: 10-12
Spring 1997
Carl Jorgensen
Faculty Assistants: Vicki Castro
Eric Gong
Kyle Kim
Sarana Miller
SYLLABUS
Subject Matter
Interracial Interpersonal Dynamics is a special course. In this course we combine aspects of
sociology, psychology, and ethnic studies to examine the ways in which social history, social
structure, and cultural difference influence person to person interaction between persons of
different racial/ethnic backgrounds. The course emphasizes contemporary interpersonal
interracial dynamics in the United States.
We use two types of literature in this course. We study traditional research analyses wherein
theories about interpersonal interracial relationships are proposed and analyzed. From this
material we learn generalizations which usually hold true. Additionally, we read case study
material. This material does not allow us to generalize about human behavior. It does provide
us with concrete examples of what is sometimes true. From these readings we expand our sense
of what is possible. Both forms of literature are useful. It is important to understand what rules
of behavior probably hold in particular circumstances. It is important to gain a sense of the
potential range of likely behaviors.
I have three major instructional goals for this class. One is for you to learn concrete information
and specific understandings about interracial interpersonal dynamics. The second is for you to
increase our capacity to observe, categorize and analyze the interracial interpersonal interactions
you encounter or read about long after you have completed this course. A third is for you to
develop the capacity to integrate sociological, psychological and ethnic studies perspectives in
analyzing material. In order to achieve these goals we will have to share our observations,
reflections, critiques and hypotheses in reading logs and class discussion.
The primary subjects we will be covering in this course are:
Cultural differences and interracial interaction.
Effect of racial status on White personality and perspective
Effects of racial status on personality and perspective amongst people of color
Effects of racial status on interracial interaction
Bi and multi-racial identity and status (identity and status among recently racially remixed people)
Interracial relationships in friendship, love, and marriage
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Learning
In this class we learn from reading and writing, about the readings in logs, listening to and
participating in class discussion, watching, analyzing and critiquing videos, participating in
classroom exercises and listening to and responding to lectures. I will lecture at most for one hour
in any class session. Classes are scheduled for two hours rather than an hour and a half because
effective classroom activities and class discussion require time. Since a substantial portion of class
time will be spent in discussion, your willingness to contribute to discussion and the quality of
student discussion are a prime determinant of the quality of each class session. I will provide
guidelines and coaching on developing and maintaining quality student participation.
Requirements and Grading
This course requires three written logs and class attendance. The reader contains a handout on
guidelines for logs. Grading is 80% logs and 20% attendance. Logs may be rewritten and
resubmitted if you are dissatisfied with your grade.
A relatively high proportion of the class grade is allotted to attendance because I believe that you
will learn a substantial amount if you attend class. In this course classes missed are an educational
issue, not a moral issue. Therefore while classes missed can be made up by completing extra
assignments, absences will not be excused for illness or any other reason.
READINGS
Every year there are a few students who do not do as well as they should in this course
because they do not write clearly. A very brief article on writing is included in this reader.
Read it. Follow its advice.
Course Handouts
The reader contains a copy of all handouts used in the course. The handouts are listed below.
Skim all handouts and read the ones marked with an asterisk.
•*Comments on Thomas Kochman: Black and White, Styles in Conflict
•Communicating Across Culture: Common Differences
•Different Forms of Intelligence According to Incomplete Understanding of Selected
Writers
•*Fifteen or More Differing Meanings of the word, “Racism”
•*Guidelines for Logs
•Interracial Marriage: Rates and Attitudes
•List of Multiracial Associations
•Partial Chronology of Interracial Marriage Laws
•Poussaint: African-American Psyche
•*Questions from Previous Finals
•Stages of “Negro to Black” Conversion
•*Things to Remember in Using Cultural Differences to Understand Interpersonal
Interaction
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Reading Readings
When you read a reading that focuses on a specific ethnicity, be sure to consider whether the
hypotheses in the reading apply to a subgroup of that ethnicity or to the ethnic group as a whole.
Additionally, be sure to consider whether the hypotheses in the reading apply to any other ethnic
groups, beginning with your own. Consider whether the hypotheses applies to categories other
than ethnicity. For example, Mitsuye Yamada writes about her invisibility as an Asian-American,
but she is building upon the conception of invisibility developed in Ralph Ellison’s novel of
African-American experience, The Invisible Man, and many students of ethnicities other than
Japanese-American and African-American find her conception of invisibility to be a useful tool
of analysis. In addition, Yamada talks about her invisibility with respect to an additional social
characteristic - gender. So in reading Yamada, you should think of whether or not Yamada’s
hypotheses about how invisibility applies to ethnicity also apply to gender. One can take this
concept of invisibility further. Are there situations in which students become invisible in ways
similar to ethnic invisibility, or children, or parents? Further, do any other authors write about
a concept similar to Yamada’s sense of invisibility? For example, popular writer M. Scott Peck
surveyed the main tenents of the major world religions in his book, The Road Less Traveled. In
this book, he argues that a major sin in all these religions conceptions is that of living a lie. Is this
concept of misrepresentation of who one is to God, oneself and others similar to or distinct from
Yamada’s concept of invisibility?
I am sure this appears complex, but let me make it simple. When you read an article, ask yourself
the following questions:
What are the implicit and explicit hypotheses in the reading?
To what portion of the ethnicity under question do the hypotheses apply?
In what situations do the hypotheses apply?
Has the applicability of the hypotheses changed since the article was written?
Do the hypotheses apply to other ethnicities?
Do the hypotheses apply to other social categories, in particular class, gender, and gender
orientation?
Are the concepts and hypotheses similar to concepts or hypotheses you have encountered
in other contexts, such as other reading in this course, outside reading, other academic
courses, movies and television, news or “real life?”
Does this reading help you to understand your life? Does your life help you to
understand, analyze and evaluate this reading? For example, do some of your experience
or the experiences of others you know support or contradict the hypotheses? Does the
reading help you to explain what you have experienced or observed? Do your experiences
and observations allow you to expand upon or lead you to want to reframe some of the
hypotheses?
You may write the logs in a way that is relatively impersonal - emphasizing analysis of the internal
logic of the readings and comparing and contrasting different authors, or you may write the logs
in a way that is relatively personal - emphasizing the degree to which he readings help you to
understand, analyze and evaluate your experience and the degree to which your experience allows
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you to understand, analyze and evaluate the readings. You may change focus from one
commentary to the other. All are legitimate strategies.
Reading List
Week 1: Tu Apr 1, Th Apr 3
Tu: Introduction: “Race”
Th: The Nature of “Race” in the U. S.
a. Terry Wilson, “Blood Quantum: Native American Mixed Bloods.”
b. Carlos A. Fernandez, “La Raza and the Melting Pot: A Comparative Look at Multiethnicity.”
Chapters 9 & 10 in Maria P. P. Root (Ed.) Racially Mixed People in America. Newbury Park,
CA: Sage Publications, 1992.
Exercise: Interracial Bingo Game
Video: Field experiment in social discrimination on eye color: The Eye of the Storm**
Week 2: Tu Apr 8, Th Apr 10
Cultural Issues in Communication and Values
Tu: Verbal Communication and Cultural Differences.
Thomas Kochman, "Introduction," "Classroom Modalities," "Style," and "Epilogue." In Thomas
Kochman, Black and White: Styles in Conflict. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1981.
Video: Cultural differences in communication: Valuing diversity #3 - Communicating Across Cultures
(Compland-Griggs Productions, 1987)
Th: Verbal Communication and Cultural Differences.
a. Keith H. Basso, “Joking Imitations of Anglo-Americans: Interpretive Functions.” In Keith
Basso, Portraits of The Whiteman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
Non-Verbal Communication and Cultural Difference
b. Edward Hall, The Silent Language. Chapters 1 & 10. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959.
The Limits of Cultural Relativism
c.Henry Louis Gates, Jr., “A Liberalism of Heart and Spine.” The New York Times Op-Ed.
Sunday, March 27,1994. p. 17.
d. Ellen Goodman, “Sparing Girls from Mutilation.” San Francisco Chronicle, March 29, 1994,
p. A23.
Week 3: Tu Apr 15, Th Apr 17
Tu: Understanding Communication: Dimensions of Interpersonal Communication
a. Charles Tart, “Identity States,” and “Balance and Imbalance in Three-brained Beings.”
Chapters 12 &14 in Charles Tart, Waking Up: Overcoming the Obstacles to Human Potential.
Boston: New Science Library, 1987
Exercise: I see, I imagine, I feel
Th: Understanding Communication: Male-Female Differences
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a. Deborah Tannen, “Asymmetries: Women and Men Talking at Cross-purposes.” in Deborah
Tannen, You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. New York: William
Morrow and Company, Inc. 1990.
Week 4: Tu Apr 22, Th Apr 24
Racial Status: Effects on Whites And Interracial Interaction
Tu: Racism and White Values.
a. David Wellman, "There Wouldn't Be Any Problems if People's Heads Were in the Right
Place - Roberta.”; and "Towards a Sociology of White Racism." In David Wellman, Portraits of
White Racism, 2nd edition. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Note: first logs due
Th: Racism and White Values
a. Robert W. Terry, "The Negative Impact on White Values." Chapter 6 in Benjamin P. Bowser
& Raymond G. Hunt, Impacts of Racism on White Americans. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage
Publications, 1981.
b. Peggy McIntosh, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” Peace and Freedom,
July/August, 1989.
Video: Field experiment in racial discrimination using Black/White matched male pairs, True Colors
(MTI Film and Video)
Week 5: Tu Apr 29, Th May 1
Tu: The Effect of Class and International Stratification on Cultural and Personal Aesthetics
a. Hiroshi Wagatsuma, "The Social Perception of Skin Color in Japan.” In John Hope Franklin
(Ed.), Color and Race. The Daedalus Library, v. 13. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1968.
Racial Status: Effects on People of Color and Interracial Interaction
Th: Changing Minority Identity and Orientation in the Shift from Accommodation to Protest
a. Alvin Poussaint, "A Negro Psychiatrist Explains the Negro Psyche."
New York Times Magazine, August 20, 1967 (abridged).
b. William Cross, "The Negro to Black Conversion Experience." Black World, July 1971.
Reprinted in Joyce Laner (Ed.) The Death of White Sociology. New York: Vintage Books, 1973.
Week 6: Tu May 6, Th May 8
Tu: Cultural and Status Conflict between Blacks and Jews in Crown Heights, New York.
Anne Deavere Smith, Fires in the Mirror. New York: Anchor Books, 1993. Video: Fires in the
Mirror
Th: Ethnic and Gender Invisibility
a. Mitsuye Yamada, "Invisibility is an Unnatural Disaster: Reflections of an Asian-American
Woman." In C. Moraga and G. Anzaldua (Eds.), This Bridge Called My Back, pp. 35-40.
Watertown, MA: Perspephone Press. 1981.
Activity: sharing ideas from logs
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Week 7: Tu May 13, Th May 15
Bi-racial and Multi-racial Peoples: Managing Multiple Public and Personal Identities
Tu: The Ignoring of Bi-Raciality in Hollywood and Real Life
a. Jamoo, "Passing for White in Hollywood: The Outing of Mixed Race People." Interrace: The
Source for Interracial Living, 2(6), p. 24
b. Chris M. Appling, "Critic’s Calls: The Cosby Show: Good Riddance to Bad Trash." Interrace:
The Source for Interracial Living. 3(1), p. 21ff.
c. Velina Hasu Houston, "The Defense and Nurture of Amerasian Culture in America." Pacific
Citizen, 1 September 1989, p. 5.
Video:I Images of Asian-American Women in Media: Slaying the Dragon (National Asian American
Telecommunication Association, San Francisco)
Th: Multiple Identities - Black and White, Black and Gay
a. Adrian Piper, “Passing for White, Passing for Black.” Transition, 58, pp. 4-33.
b. Anita Cornwall, “Three for The Price of One: Notes from a Gay, Black, Feminist.” In Anita
Cornwall (Ed.) Black Lesbian in White America. Tallahassee, FL: Naiad Press, 1983.
Note: 2nd logs due
Week 8: Tu May 20, Th May 22
Tu: Multiple Identities - Native American and White, Chicano and White
a. Leanne Howe, "An American in New York." In Paula Gunn Allen Spider Woman's
Granddaughter's: Traditional Tales and Contemporary Writing by Native American Women.
New York: Ballantine, 1989
b. Richard Rodriguez, "Complexion," Chapter 4 in Richard Rodriguez, The Hunger of Memory:
The Education of Richard Rodrigquez: An Autobiography. Boston, MA.: D. R. Godine, 1982.
Friendship, Love, Sex and Marriage
Th: Friendship.
a. Gloria Feman Orenstein and Adah Askew, "A Friendship." Chapter 12 in Rhoda Goldstein
Blumberg and Wendell James Roye, Interracial Bonds. New York: General Hall, Inc., 1979.
b. C. Howe Steele, "Bonds between Indians and Other Racial Groups in an Urban Setting.
Chapter 3 in Rhoda Goldstein Blumberg and Wendell James Roye, Interracial Bonds.
Week 9: Tu May 27, Th May 29
Tu: Intimacy in Colonial and Contemporary America
a. James Axtel, "The White Indians of Colonial America." Chapter 2 in Blumberg and Roye,
Interracial Bonds.
Benjamin DeMott, “Put on a Happy Face: Masking the Differences Between Blacks and
Whites.” Harper’s Magazine 191(1744), September 1995, pp. 31-42.
Th: Responding to Black Power. Status Awareness or Color Blindness?
Charles Vert Willie, "Oreo -- Marginal Man and Woman." Chapter 9 in Blumberg and Roye,
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Interracial Bonds.
Week 10 : Tu Jun 3, Th Jun 5
Tu: Interracial Friendship and Romance
a. Jane Low, Tiles of the Mosaic: The Ethnic, Social and Family Backgrounds of Freshmen
Entering UC Davis in Fall 1991. Davis, CA: Student Affairs Research and Information, UC
Davis. September, 1992.
b. Irving R. Stuart and Lawrence Abt, "A Group of College Students Review their
Conceptions." and "An Individual Student Discusses her Experience." In Irving R. Stuart and
Lawrence Abt (Eds.), Interracial Marriage: Expectations and Realities. New York: General
Hall, Inc., 1979.
Interracial Adoption
Th: Interracial Adoption and Multi-racial Identity.
a. Joyce Ladner, "Transracial adoption: Can White parents bring up a healthy Black child."
Chapter 11 in Blumberg and Roye, Interracial Bonds.
b. Kathy Dobie, "Black Kids, White Homes." The Village Voice, 34(32), 8 August 1989, p.18ff
c. Nazario, Sonia, "Identity crisis: When White parents adopt Black babies race often divides:
The stories of five families." Wall Street Journal, 12 September 1990, p. 1ff.
Note: Third logs due
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