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Reference 3 (Lott)

7 The Cultural Mosaic

The self [may be] … conceptualized as a multidimensional structure that mirrors the multiple positions of one’s unique interaction network (Piliavin, Grube, & Callero, 2002, p. 472).

Every person is a member of multiple social groups, and thus everyone has multiple social identities (Murphy, Steele & Gross, 2007, p. 879).

[I]dentities change in meaning and significance in response to changing social circumstances (Clayton & Opotow, 2003, p. 308).

Each of us, as a unique multicultural individual, has multiple social identities as a consequence of our multiple cultural memberships. These groups of which we are a part vary in size and location, and their salience and influence vary with time and place. If we use as criteria for culture groups of people who share history, current problems, common experiences, language, values, similar adaptations or behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes as well as the passing on of these similarities to future generations, then we must recognize that culture is not limited by physical proximity or by size. We can identify cultures as large as “Western civilization” and those as small as a neighborhood gang or a college. As a faculty member in a public university with a sizable commuter student body, I frequently asked my students to think about how the culture of their school compared with that of a private ivy-league university in the same state just 40 miles away. No one ever had any difficulty making cultural distinctions between the two.

In one study (Haslam, Rothschild & Ernst, 2000), a sample of U.S. undergraduate students were able to identify special characteristics of 20 social categories that included (beyond those of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and social class): age, dietary groups (e.g. vegetarians), disability groups, political groups, and regional/geographical groups. In scholarly journals as well as in fictional and non-fictional literature, and the media, one finds accounts of youth culture, sport fan culture, occupational cultures, and so on. Brewer and Pierce (2005) reported on a mail survey of households in Ohio in which respondents listed their important group memberships. Sports fans viewed other fans as people similar to themselves.

These smaller cultures may or may not matter as much as those discussed earlier in this book. According to Frable (1997, p. 140), “the cultural categories that matter … [are] the ones that we all pay attention to in our daily lives.” What these are is an important empirical question. The cultures that matter are likely not to be the same for all of us and to vary across persons. The value or consequences of membership in different cultural communities will differ among us, even for those cultures that are most often studied and recognized as important in daily life. West and Fenstermaker (1996) discuss “situated conduct” and suggest that we ask which behaviors or reactions in situation X by person A is a reflection of which of A’s cultural identities.

Not all “older” people identify themselves as part of a senior culture, but many are similarly offended by a physician who talks past them to the daughter or son accompanying them about their health, or by a store clerk who assumes that they don’t know how to work a computer, or by being ignored in a restaurant, or by “elderspeak” – being called “sweetie” or “dear” or by their first names (Leland, 2008). Older persons share such incidents with one another. When shared with younger friends or colleagues they are likely to be presented in the context of “preparation” for those who will be moving into a new culture of age.

Diverse Cultural Communities

It is not possible within the pages of this book to do more than select a few of these less studied cultures for some brief discussion. For someone who is a member of an “other culture,” however, membership in it may be of fundamental and primary significance with the extent of its importance varying with time, context, and immediate situation, from looming large and dominant to inconsequential.

Cultures of Place

There are cultures of “place” that have shifting consequences for individual behavior. Beginning with Newcomb’s early classic study of political norm development among students at Bennington College (Newcomb, Koenig, Flacks & Warwick, 1967), research has documented the growing similarity of attitudes and beliefs among people living in close proximity to one another. In a recent study (Cullum & Harton, 2007), increasing similarity over time in attitudes on a wide range of issues, and particularly on issues judged to be important, was found among housemates in residence halls in a Midwestern university.

Residents of New York City can talk knowledgeably about the cultures of Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant or Williamsburg, Flushing in Queens, the Upper West Side, the Upper East Side, Harlem, and the South Bronx (to name just a few). These are neighborhood cultures that are heavily intertwined with social class and ethnicity. With the advent of Governor Sarah Palin into the national political scene, we have all learned a good deal about her state of Alaska, and its unique culture. It has been described as “its own world,” colonial and frontier, big, wild, and cold with a special history, economy, inhabitants, and set of values (“Alaska’s uniqueness,” 2008). Cultural status is also attributed to other geographical locations in the United States, e.g., the Midwest, far west, New England. Those of us who are Rhode Islanders by birth or adoption can speak at some length about our unique words, pronunciations, foods, and foibles, celebrated and shared in stories and cartoons (e.g., Bousquet, 1997).

The culture of the American South has been richly and often portrayed in plays and novels. A recent example of a segment of this culture can be drawn from newspaper reports of how symbols of the old pre-Civil War South remain extraordinarily important to some. In the mid-1990s, in several Southern states, there were efforts to remove Confederate flags from courthouses, to remove Confederate statues, to change lyrics of official state songs or to replace them with others, and to discontinue waving Confederate flags at sports events or putting them on state license plates (Sack, 1997). Such efforts were met with strong opposition by supporters of the Southern heritage with which they identify. Groups like the Southern Heritage Association and Sons of Confederate Veterans defended the continued public presence of the symbols of their culture.

Disability Cultures

There were strong public protests within the past two decades by students and staff at Gallaudet University, a liberal arts university for the deaf, over the selection of a new president (Leigh & Brice, 2003; Schemo, 2006). In 1988, when the Board of Trustees selected a hearing candidate, passing over candidates who were deaf, the protest was led by a group calling itself the Deaf President Now movement. A more recent protest raised significant questions about deaf culture, including whether deafness should be viewed as a disability or an identity. Should American Sign Language be the exclusive means to communicate among the deaf, with professors required to be fluent signers? The use of technology to enhance hearing, such as cochlear implants, and the use of spoken language, present challenges to deaf culture and are subjects of heated debate.

Beckenroth-Ohsako (1999) argues for the legitimacy of a deaf minority culture in which individuals share a language, an identity, common problems and frustrations. In addition, deaf people share personal history, customs, stories, and jokes, and some define themselves as a “minority group within a multicultural society” (p. 114). Moradi and Rottenstein (2007) also regard deaf persons as members of a unique culture with shared experience, history, and language. Among those who are most vocal in the deaf community are voices calling for a perception of themselves not as part of a larger disability culture, but rather as a distinctive linguistic minority culture.

That there is a disability culture is a view increasingly voiced and strongly promoted by activists who have successfully raised consciousness about disability issues and access to public places, employment, and housing. There are close to 50 million people with disabilities in the United States, that is, people with some impairment that limits at least one major life activity (cf. Quinlan, Bowleg & Ritz, 2008). Those who view disabilities as a form of diversity highlight the existence of common experiences among the disabled (e.g., Leigh & Brice, 2003). As is true for many other minority cultures in the United States, members experience stigma, marginality, and discrimination, and are devalued as vulnerable. Scheer (1994, p. 251) proposes that a “sociopolitical definition of disability connects people with the broadest range of disabilities to each other by locating disability in the interaction of the person within her or his environment, rather than solely within the individual.”

Political Cultures

Members of a political culture may be diverse in many respects but are held together by a special set of values, beliefs, attitudes, language, and behaviors. For example, Napier and Jost (2008) found important differences between conservatives and liberals in a large nationally representative sample in their beliefs about (or rationalizations of) inequality. Political cultures, broadly understood, might be said to include, in addition to liberalism and conservatism, pacifism, socialism, and feminism (Huddy, 2001). Numerous studies have found that feminists, for example, are bound together by common attitudes, beliefs, and self-identification (e.g., Eisele & Stake, 2008). As with other cultural identities, those based on politically similar views will vary in importance depending on the situation, context, time, and place.

Wellman (1999, p. 79) writes of his parents, that they did not see “themselves as ethnic nor … as religious…. Their identity was political. They were Communists…. The powerful categories in our lives were not ethnicity, religion, or race. The category that defined us was politics.” Some children brought up by left-wing parents have referred to themselves as “red-diaper babies.” Persons who consider themselves politically progressive or left-of-center are spread across geographical areas in the U.S. but share a culture that is maintained and transmitted by membership in formal groups, Internet connections, periodicals, and newsletters. Members of this culture may get their news, commentaries, and analyses from In These Times, Mother Jones, or The Nation while those imbedded in a right-wing culture keep their TVs tuned to Fox News and follow the political guidance of commentators like Rush Limbaugh. A small conservative political community connected primarily by the Internet was the subject of a New York Times article (Eligon, 2008). Described is a group of young Black Republicans calling themselves HipHop Republicans who maintain a blog of the same name. Another source of connection and information in the African American “conservative blogosphere” is Booker Rising. Political cultures, like others, can be described by distinctive beliefs, symbols, sometimes music, actions and attitudes, and efforts to transmit these to new generations.

The Culture of Singleness

The particular concerns and challenges faced by people who remain unmarried by choice (in a society in which this is considered to be a minority lifestyle) have prompted some to view single status in cultural terms. DePaulo (2006) has studied both bachelorhood for men and singleness for women. She found that “People who do not have a serious coupled relationship … are stereotyped, discriminated against, and treated dismissively” (p. 2). A typical response to a single person, she notes, is to assume that she or he is lonely, envious of couples, afraid of commitment, or too picky, perhaps even selfish and immature, or homosexual, and missing out on the emotional and physical intimacy that comes with being part of a couple. Studies confirm that a single woman, especially, is often marginalized, stigmatized, and seen as being outside of normal family life (Reynolds & Wetherell, 2003; Reynolds, Wetherell & Taylor, 2007), with the dominant message in Western society being that “emotional satisfaction, sexual fulfillment, companionship, security, and spiritual meaning” can only be found as part of an intimate couple (Trimberger, 2005, p. x).

Despite the dominant prejudice, Trimberger found, from her 2005 study of the narratives of a sample of single women, that they reported leading satisfying lives. Not being coupled has become a more and more viable life option, as indicated by U.S. Census data. In 2003, there were about 52 million adults in the United States who had been single all their lives. Counting other singles through divorce or widowhood, and not counting cohabiting couples, DePaulo (2006) estimated 76 million single people. Yet, the advantages and normativeness of being part of a couple continue to be assumed in the market place, in the law, in the media, in our institutions, and our social relationships. Persons who are single are often excluded by their coupled friends from outings, vacations, parties; there may be an assumption that a person who is still single is jealous of a married or coupled one, that “couples are special and singles are second-class” (DePaulo, 2006, p. 69). It is assumed that single persons are dedicated to exploring ways to find a partner and that, if they fail, they will grow old and die alone. Internet sites for meeting other singles abound.

But do the assumptions about singleness and common experiences provide a cultural connection with other singles? Some research suggests that ever-singles (women especially) tend to have stable, long-lasting friendships, to interact with others who share their interests, and to view friendships as important sources of intimacy and support. Ever-singles have also learned skills associated with performing everyday tasks by themselves. DePaulo (2006, p. 259) writes:

My guess is that single people, compared with coupled people, are more likely to be linked to the members of their social networks by bonds of affection. … The networks of single people … are more likely to be intentional communities rather than collections of matched sets of couples.

This conclusion is supported by Trimberger (2005) who sees the family networks among single women, that include childhood, work, political, and recreational friends, as connections akin to communities.

Cultural Identities: How Do I Describe Myself ?

Shelton and Sellers (2000, p. 27) note that “If you were asked to describe who you are … you might respond in different ways, depending on the situation.” At any given moment one’s membership in multiple cultures will be relevant to the performance of any social behavior. But while “people are all simultaneously gendered, raced, classed, and sexually ‘oriented’ ” (Rappaport & Stewart, 1997, p. 316), the relevance of each of these identities to behavior will depend upon the issue addressed by the behavior, its immediate context, those with whom interaction is anticipated, and the circumstances of the interaction (Phan, 2005). As I write this, I think of how I see myself when I am at my gym in an aerobics or stretch class; what is most salient to me there are my cultures of gender, age, and social class. But during a Passover holiday, spent at the home of my son and his family, what was most salient and prominent for me was my ethnicity. This became less significant during discussions of current social issues when it was my political identity that was most salient and relevant and strong. The cultures of which we are a part are not likely to have independent consequences but to interact or intersect as they influence what we say and do.

Cultural identity is based on group memberships that are accepted or claimed (Deaux, 2006). Some, like ethnicity, are primarily assigned. But whether a cultural community is one we are born into or adopt, it is clear that not all of our cultural ties are equally important, equally salient, or equally influential across situations and across time. What the literature suggests, according to Frable (1997, p. 155), is that “the personal meanings of social group memberships change over time, and the meanings are best understood in the context of socio-historical events.”

Thus, gender may trump ethnicity or sexual identity, or the latter may trump the former, at different times and in different places. In addition, for a particular person, a particular social identity may be relatively insignificant most of the time, since not all group memberships are equally valued and the same group membership will have varied meanings to different people. Over and above these considerations, for a particular person, a change in situation may evoke a particular cultural identity, or enhance or reduce its salience. One 1990 study by Luborsky and Rubenstein (cited in Tsai, Chentsova-Dutton & Wong, 2002) found, among a sample of Irish, Italian, and Jewish widowers, that their ethnic identity became more salient after the death of their wives. This enhanced their ability to retain connections with their earlier experiences and to assume their roles as cultural transmitters. Shelton and Sellers (2000) report data gathered with a sample of African American college students that indicated the increased importance of ethnicity in race-salient situations. They also found that the likelihood of interpreting an ambiguous event in terms of ethnicity increased with the importance or centrality of ethnic identification.

Roccas and Brewer (2002) present the example of a woman attorney. In some groups we expect her professional identity to be primary; in others, her gender. One of my daughters is an attorney and I have no doubt that when she appears to plead a case in court, it is the culture of the lawyer that is overwhelmingly (if not totally) influential in affecting her language and behavior. But, as Roccas and Brewer, note, “both gender and occupation may be equally salient in a work context” (p. 90), as was certainly the case when my daughter faced the difficult choice of staying home with a sick child when her daughter was younger or reporting for work and traveling to her office. Worchel (1999) notes that the salience of a particular identity may well change in response to a personal crisis. It may also be affected by a crisis for the cultural community. A racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, or heterosexist event, or series of events, in one’s neighborhood or workplace or city may turn a relatively dormant or low-strength identity into one with far greater salience.

Situational cues play an essential role in making a particular social identity salient but cultural memberships are not all of equal strength. Tsai et al. (2000, p. 57) note that the degree to which “one feels oriented to Chinese culture may depend on whether one is speaking Chinese or English …, or whether one is in the presence of an authority figure or peer.” Ethier and Deaux (1994, p. 243) report having found, in a one-year longitudinal study of Latino/a students at a primarily Anglo college, that the strength of a studenrt’s ethnic identity varied with “the language spoken in the home, the ethnic composition of the neighborhood, and the percentage of a student’s friends who were in the same ethnic group.” At the college, students with a stronger ethnic identity were more likely to get involved with other Latino/a students in cultural activities.

Even though socioeconomic status is powerfully linked to so many areas of life (health, education, opportunities, privilege, material advantages), the meaningfulness of one’s social class will vary greatly across persons and across situations (Liu, 2001). It is particularly difficult in the United States, where the myth of classlessness is still strong, for working-class or low-income persons to claim this identity despite awareness of economic and sociopolitical inequities. Fine and Burns (2003, p. 855) point out that

[T]here is little pride in being poor or working class … it is just assumed that it is ‘better’ to be middle- or upper-middle-class…. The desire to exit or be in the closet about poverty or the working class is understood.

Upward mobility is part of the American Dream (Ostrove & Cole, 2003), and being low-income is not a status to which anyone aspires. Positive stories about dignified and decent lives in working-class culture are infrequent in any of the mass media. Exceptions – films like Norma Rae (about textile mill workers) or North Country(about coal miners) – are notable by their small numbers. Depictions are more likely to be of dysfunctional, problematic families although, as hooks (2000, p. 72) notes, “On television the working class are allowed to be funny now and then.” Most often, it is affluence that is pictured as better, superior, and to be admired and strived for. Wealth is deserved and earned. Frable (1997) concluded, from a review of the empirical literature, that social class tends to become salient when an individual is in a clearly other-class context or situation – a working class student in an ivy-league school, a newly divorced middle-class woman experiencing a serious economic downturn, and so on.

There was a time in U.S. history when pride in union membership and working-class status was greater than it is now. I am old enough to remember the image of Rosie the Riveter who represented the army of proud working-class women who made enormous contributions to ending World War II by welding, hammering, and painting in factories and shipyards across the United States. These working women came from all over the U.S. “including…from states where blacks and whites wouldn’t be sharing drinking fountains for another 20 years” (Locke, 2007, p. A2). I am also old enough to remember exuberant May Day marches down Fifth Avenue in New York City, equivalent in spirit to Gay Pride parades and to the Black is Beautiful movement. Union culture contained music, stories, and shared experiences that were passed down from one generation to another. But that culture now continues strong only in some regions of the U.S. and is a dominant identity for a small minority.

Today … the American union movement is a shadow of its former self, except among government workers [and some others]. In 1973, almost a quarter of private sector employees were union members … [compared with today’s] mere 7.4 percent (Krugman (2007, para. 2).

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the total current union membership figure, including both government and private sector workers, is 12.1 percent of the workforce (cf. Zipperer & Schmitt, 2007). What has happened to the U.S. labor movement is largely the result of a concerted and powerful effort by corporate business to undermine and seriously injure it through both legal and illegal strategies. Anti-union campaigns against organizing efforts are run by law firms and consulting groups hired by 75 percent of employers; and a quarter of such employers illegally fire workers for union advocacy (Eiding & Slack, 2007). This determined corporate effort is in sharp contrast with the results of polls of non-managerial workers, half of whom express a desire for union membership (Zipperer & Schmitt, 2007); “close to 60 million workers say that they would join a union right now if given the opportunity to do so in a fair environment” (Eiding & Slack, 2007). Some note the success of the Service Employees International Union in reversing the decline of organized labor, and attribute this to its aggressive recruitment of minorities of color, and of the lowest paid service workers like home health workers and janitors (Keen, 2007). Recent gains in union membership generally are attributed to women and Black men (Zipperer & Schmitt, 2007).

Conflicting Identities

Special problems arise for persons in cultures with conflicting beliefs and values, and opposing behavioral prescriptions and proscriptions. Much has been written of clashes between ethnic identities and sexual minority identity (e.g., Greene, 2007; Harper, 2007). Allman (1996) notes that Asian Americans who are gay or lesbian may be chastised within their ethnic communities because homosexuality is considered to be a White problem/issue. At the same time, as a lesbian, she has experienced pressures to behave in accord with an unspoken lesbian norm of whiteness. Individual conflict resolution may involve attempts to integrate differences or to shift between cultures as the salience of each becomes more relevant in one situation or another. An African American gay man may be strongly connected to both Black and gay cultures. He may choose to be not “very public with his gay identity with his family or within his church” and yet not be closeted; at other times, he may associate “with predominantly White gay friends” and yet not be denying his African American culture (Reynolds & Pope, 1991, p. 178).

Anita Hill’s testimony before the Senate committee reviewing the suitability of Clarence Thomas for membership on the U.S. Supreme Court is a well-known example. Jordan (1995, p. 40) has discussed this event in the context of a clash of cultures – gender and ethnicity. “[O]ne of the ironclad conventions of black cultural life,” she notes, is that you “Don’t ‘air our dirty laundry’ in public” (p. 40). Hill’s decision to speak out publicly as a Black woman who had experienced harassment from a Black man broke the “dirty linen” taboo. This made her vulnerable to criticism from within the African American community while being praised and receiving positive recognition from feminists. Purdie-Vaughns and Eibach (2008) provide an insightful discussion of the negative reception among some African Americans to Anita Hill’s decision to make public her harassment charges against Thomas and the questions raised about why she waited so long to do so. Hill’s hesitation is explained by the “norms within the black community which impose a ‘code of silence’ on black women” (p. 387), as evidenced by criticism in some of the Black media leveled against Hill for violating the taboo.

Cultural Intersections

Recognition of one’s personal multiculturality can enhance awareness and widen one’s sphere of action. Duberman (2001) urges greater understanding of the intersections among sexuality, social class, ethnicity and gender. Issues associated with each need to be listened to carefully so that we will be better informed about the similarities in “hierarchies of privilege and power” and have a more accurate picture of “the complexities and sometimes overlapping identities of individual lives” (p. 21). Providing a personal example of a complex life, Kich (1996) describes how being biracial and bisexual helped him to better appreciate the wide array of experiences and knowledge associated with ethnic and sexual marginality. Such analyses can encourage intercultural competence and aid in bridging and reconciling differences.

An intersectionality perspective is entering more and more frequently into theoretical discussions. This perspective acknowledges simultaneous, intersecting memberships in multiple social groups (Brewer & Pierce, 2005), and recognizes and highlights “the mutually constitutive relations among social identities” (Warner, 2008, p. 454). What is emphasized is that these do not function independently but interact to influence self-view and behavior.

Overlapping identities can be brought to the center of experience by reactions from others. Cose (1993) interviewed a sample of affluent Black professionals who reported incident after incident in which the White people with whom they were interacting were responding to their ethnicity and not to their social class or occupational and educational status. They reported humiliating experiences in which they were treated with disrespect and lack of acknowledgement of their capabilities and accomplishments. Other middle-class people of color have frequently reported such experiences. Hooks (2000) notes that the only cultural identity that seems to matter to store clerks, for example, is ethnicity.

To date, most of the theoretical and empirical work on intersectionality has focused on “people with multiple subordinate identities” (Purdie-Vayghns & Eibach, 2008, p. 378) in an effort to understand the effects of cumulative disadvantage. Hurtado and Sinha (2008) note that this concept was proposed by feminist scholars in reaction to a focus on women’s oppression without consideration of social class, ethnicity, sexual identity, and other subordinate categories. But, to be maximally useful as a theoretical construct, intersectionality should be extended beyond such categories to understand the intersections among all the communities of which an individual is a part. Diamond and Butterworth (2008, p. 366) articulate such a broader view, defining intersectionality “as a framework for analyzing the way in which multiple social locations and identities mutually inform and constitute one another.” These locations may vary in power, providing different degrees of access to resources.

Multiethnic writers have begun to share their experiences, challenges, and resolutions in fiction and memoirs (cf. Cardwell, 1998; Obama, 1995). Within psychology, there is a growing focus on biracial or mixed-ethnicity experiences (e.g., Root, 1990) and how those with a mixed ethnic heritage understand and define their identity. Reynolds and Pope (1991) assert that a resolution is necessary to allow for the coexistence of diverse parts of one’s heritage. One possible resolution is identification with each, accompanied by understanding each in the context of oppression. The experience of restricted access to resources needed for optimum human development may serve as a bridge connecting membership in one minority culture with membership in another. Petersen (2006) illustrates this in presenting the experiences of an African American adult woman with disabilities. Recognition of her multiple identities encouraged a comprehensive and authentic understanding of her life.

Since there are “power relations associated with our multiple identities” (McDowell & Fang, 2007, p. 550), there will be significant variation across persons, times, and conditions in the degree to which identities are compatible or in opposition. Constructive recognition of them must be accompanied by an assessment of the differences that may exist among them in status and privilege and the extent to which each assists or obstructs our access to resources (Chisholm & Greeene. 2008). While one cultural community of which we are a part may put us in the majority and provide advantages (as with skin color, sexual orientation, gender, or religion), another may put us in a stigmatized or oppressed or disrespected minority. As yet, we seem to know little about the psychological consequences of such a state of affairs, about the situations or circumstances which result in disparate behavioral pulls or objectives coming from different cultural attachments, and about modes of reconciling them.

While a full understanding of individual experience requires seeing a whole person as more than the sum of discrete social identities or cultural memberships and recognizing their interdependence (Bowleg, 2008), it is very likely that different contexts can raise one membership to greater salience over others. The context can be seen to influence experience in a study of Caribbean American working-class persons (Mattis, Grayman, Cowie, Winston, Watson & Jackson, 2008). In a predominantly African American community, respondents felt their ethnicity to be most salient, but in a middle-class White community, what was most salient was social class.

Each cultural identity will be an influence on behavior to an extent that varies with context, situation, place, time, and expected consequences – sometimes presenting conflicting pressures and sometimes concordant ones, but always in interaction. And this interaction among multiple cultural memberships affects how people live, their vulnerabilities, and strengths and motivations. As noted by Shields (2008, p. 304), “Intersectionality first and foremost reflects the reality of lives.” In giving full recognition to the intersectional consequences of multiple identities, we must also recognize at the same time that while “the salience, meanings, and functions of … identities can change,” as they are affected by national, institutional, personal, and geographic settings, some may be more likely to “remain fixed across time and across contexts” (Mattis, Grayman, Cowie, Winston & Watson, 2008, p. 426).

I finished writing this chapter soon after the election of Senator Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States. For some who worked hard for his election or just gave him their vote, it was the salience of ethnicity that mattered most; for many others, political culture values surpassed all others in importance. Personal behavior associated with the presidential candidacy of Obama illustrates the significance of ethnicity as a bond among African Americans. Black Americans differing in gender, sexual identity, and social class gave him an overwhelming level of support. At the same time, however, political values may trump ethnic bonds, and some influential Black voices were critical of Obama, even before he was inaugurated, for not being sufficiently focused on and not sharply articulating, problems stemming from racism and inequality (e.g., Muwakkil, 2008; Washington, 2008).