Policing the Boundaries of Blackness
How Black and White Americans Evaluate Racial Self-Identifications
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8323911 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Marissa E Thompson (0000-0002-9497-1400, Columbia University), Trejo (0000-0002-9880-5354, Princeton University), Sam Trejo, A J Alvero (0000-0003-4642-9788, Cornell University), AJ Alvero, Daphne Oluwaseun Martschenko (0000-0002-9046-5893, Stanford University) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 131 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 1147-1181 |
| Publication date | 2025-12-15 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Journal of Sociology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0002-9602 • E-ISSN: 1537-5390 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/740028 |
| OpenAlex | W4417344379 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 75 |
How do people assess the authenticity and legitimacy of another person’s racial self-identification? This study explores the racial conceptions held by both Black and White Americans as they decide who they believe can—and cannot—self-identify as Black across a range of contexts. We examine how a person’s responses compare to their perceptions of how other Americans evaluate racial claims. Using a series of survey experiments, we find that respondents privilege the information contained in genetic ancestry tests over and above other attributes, such as self-identification. We do not observe meaningful differences by race in the treatment effects, illustrating the shared nature of these schemas. However, we find a discordance between respondents’ beliefs and their perceptions of how other Americans would respond in similar settings, suggesting that the attributes people themselves use in both classifications and to judge authenticity differ from their perceptions of the broader social “rules” regarding race.
Ethnic group · Race (biology · Racism · White (mutation · Critical Race Theory in Education · Policing Practices and Perceptions · Racial and Ethnic Identity Research
Trans
Mediation Analysis
A global reference for human genetic variation
The Chicago face database
The intergenerational transmission of inequality
The Genetic Ancestry of African Americans, Latinos, and European Americans across the United States
To Be or Not to Be (Black or Multiracial or White)
The souls of Black folk (and the weight of Black ancestry) in U.S. Black Americans’ racial categorization
The Nature of Race
Immigration and the Remaking of Black America
Race and Economic Opportunity in the United States
Impacts of personal DNA ancestry testing
Divergence and Convergence across Presumed and Actual Stereotypes
The Partial Deinstitutionalization of Affirmative Action in U.S. Higher Education, 1988 to 2014
The Multiracial Complication
What’s Your Street Race? The Urgency of Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality as Lenses for Revising the U.S. Office of Management and Budget Guidelines, Census and Administrative Data in Latinx Communities and Beyond
Questioning Race
Contraction as a Response to Group Threat
Bright vs. blurred boundaries
Genetic Bio-Ancestry and Social Construction of Racial Classification in Social Surveys in the Contemporary United States
Ancestry, Color, or Culture? How Whites Racially Classify Others in the U.S
Ethnic Boundary Making
Black + White = Not White
Defining America’s Racial Boundaries
Latino Immigrants and the U.S. Racial Order
Pluralistic Ignorance and White Estimates of White Support for Racial Segregation
Pluralistic Ignorance-A Replication and Extension
Beliefs about Climate Beliefs
You’re one of us
Pluralistic ignorance and alcohol use on campus
Comparing Regression Coefficients Between Same-sample Nested Models Using Logit and Probit
The Generational Locus of Multiraciality and Its Implications for Racial Self-Identification
The Implications of Racial Misclassification by Observers
Cultural Schemas
Status Characteristics, Implicit Bias, and the Production of Racial Inequality
Who is Multiracial? Assessing the Complexity of Lived Race
Operationalizing Legitimacy
Cross-Field Effects and Ethnic Classification
It's the Conventional Thought That Counts
Shades of Race
Making the Most of Multiple Measures
Consensus and the Creation of Status Beliefs
Legitimacy and Collective Action
What We Talk About When We Talk About Ethnicity
Race-shifting in the United States
Engendering Racial Perceptions
Inequality without Groups
Talk Is Cheap
The Marketization of Identity Politics
Legitimacy as a Social Process
The Study of Boundaries in the Social Sciences
The Race Discrimination System
Who Polices Which Boundaries? How Racial Self-Identification Affects External Classification
Genetic Options and Constraints
The Geography of Racial/Ethnic Test Score Gaps
Genetic Options
Racial Fluidity and Inequality in the United States
Racial Boundary Formation at the Dawn of Jim Crow
The Making and Unmaking of Ethnic Boundaries
Latino racial choices
Unsettled identities amid settled classifications? Toward a sociology of racial appraisals
Kaleidoscope
The multiple dimensions of race
The Dolezal affair
Choosing race
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |