Research projects

How are the attitudes and actions of African Americans shaped by their religiosity? Their perceptions of racial discrimination? Their local Black elites?

I have worked with a contingent of Michigan-area scholars on a few projects that explore the unique influence of Black identity on Black individuals’ formations of political ideology and policy preferences.

Current and working papers originating from this project include:

The Disempowerment Effect: Black Participation in Contexts of Entrenched Incorporation in the 21st Century (with Spencer Piston, Jennifer Chudy and Vincent L. Hutchings)

Here we find that compared to Black residents living under non-Black mayors, Black participation is increased under Black mayors who succeed non-Black mayors in office. But Black participation is decreased among those Blacks living under consecutive Black mayoral regimes. We run tests to determine whether the diminished Black participation under entrenched Black mayoral regimes is attributable to lessened mobilization efforts from electorally secure Black elites, or due to residents’ tempered expectations regarding the capacity of localized descriptive representation to bring about substantive change (in preparation).

“Race, Religion and Anti-Poverty Attitudes” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 55.2. 2016 (with Ronald Brown and R. Khari Brown of Wayne State University, and James S. Jackson of the University of Michigan)

Here we find that support for anti-poverty government interventions remains high among Black and Latina/o religious congregants, regardless of whether or not their religious leader weaves political discussions of poverty into sermons. In contrast, White religious congregants maintain low support for anti-poverty policies unless they hear politically relevant messages about poverty in their services.

Turning the Wheel: Striving and African American Social Identity in the 21st Century (with Ronald Brown of Wayne State University, and James S. Jackson of the University of Michigan)

This paper reimagines Du Bois’ concept of striving as a reflective, continuous attempt by African Americans to develop and maintain a positive sense of the social self and the racial group in the presence of racial discrimination. Developing a structural model of Black social identity, we find evidence that Black individuals strive to situate their encounters with racial discrimination within a larger narrative of Black struggle toward self-realization. This striving effort both animates support for collective action to achieve racial redress and narrows the sets of racial group members perceived to be fellow pilgrims in the struggle.