Source of Our Strength: Perceptions of Racial Resilience Across Race and Gender

• In Event: Identity and Diversity in Anti-Pluralist Times

Abstract

The increased electoral and nonelectoral participation of racial and ethnic minorities, women of color, non-US native, and other marginalized groups in the US has garnered increased attention to the role of racial identity, and its implications for countering policies enacted under former Presidential administration. At the time same times, racial and ethnic minorities, particularly African Americans, have endured generations of social and economic hardship in the United States. Here, I consider the intersectional roots and contours of racial resilience among racial and ethnic minority populations. Racial resilience is an original measure of awareness of group economic subjugation and orientation towards triumph, which seeks to explain individual perseverance in politics. I rely on a large, collaborative dataset to examine formation of racial resilience for Black women, women of color, immigrants, and working-class Americans. Together, this research highlights the importance of non-politicized measures in explaining political behavior and attitudes of racial and ethnic minorities.

Author

• Christine Marie Slaughter, Princeton University