The Colorblind Organization

Ray, Victor; Purifoy, Danielle

doi:10.1108/s0733-558x20190000060008

Cited by 45 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…Racialized organizational structures that successfully muster resources (gain power, in Sewell’s language) can be formalized by gatekeepers and exert top-down pressure on subordinates, potentially shifting the relation between schemas and resources. This can occur via the adoption of explicitly race-based (or even colorblind) rules (Ray and Purifoy n.d. ), or by adopting the practices of peer organizations within a field.…”

Section: Organizations Are Racial Structuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Theory of Racialized Organizations

2019

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Organizational theory scholars typically see organizations as race-neutral bureaucratic structures, while race and ethnicity scholars have largely neglected the role of organizations in the social construction of race. The theory developed in this article bridges these subfields, arguing that organizations are racial structures—cognitive schemas connecting organizational rules to social and material resources. I begin with the proposition that race is constitutive of organizational foundations, hierarchies, and processes. Next, I develop four tenets: (1) racialized organizations enhance or diminish the agency of racial groups; (2) racialized organizations legitimate the unequal distribution of resources; (3) Whiteness is a credential; and (4) the decoupling of formal rules from organizational practice is often racialized. I argue that racialization theory must account for how both state policy and individual attitudes are filtered through—and changed by—organizations. Seeing race as constitutive of organizations helps us better understand the formation and everyday functioning of organizations. Incorporating organizations into a structural theory of racial inequality can help us better understand stability, change, and the institutionalization of racial inequality. I conclude with an overview of internal and external sources of organizational change and a discussion of how the theory of racialized organizations may set the agenda for future research.

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Section: Organizations Are Racial Structuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Theory of Racialized Organizations

2019

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“…Faculty maintain a culture of niceness when they use race-neutral language to explain the existence of racial inequity (Dowd & Bensimon, 2015) and to exonerate themselves from any responsibility to advance racial equity (Harper & Patton, 2007). Ray and Purifoy (2019) argued that colorblind routines are rooted in norms of interracial comfort, familiarity, and trust, which organizational actors repackage as race-neutral objective merit, professionalism, collegiality, and teamwork, which are reflective components of a culture of niceness (Alemán, 2009; Castagno, 2014; Roegman, Allen, & Hatch, 2017).…”

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confidence: 99%

Moving Beyond a Culture of Niceness in Faculty Hiring to Advance Racial Equity

Liera

2019

American Educational Research Journal

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This study applies cultural historical activity theory to examine the experiences of 17 professors at a religiously affiliated private university who participated in a 10-month, inquiry-based intervention to change their culture around faculty hiring. The findings illustrate that professors who use race-conscious language and tools to interrogate their campus culture’s historical roots with racism rethought their hiring process. In doing so, faculty perceived racial equity work as an action-oriented, organizational effort to use equity-minded language and create a more equitable hiring structure. The study contributes to the literature on organizational change for racial equity by identifying faculty experiences with racism and critical knowledge about the organizational culture mediating faculty learning and agency.

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“…Racialized burdens do not incidentally fall on racially marginalized groups: they are historically designed to do so while maintaining a myth of formal race neutrality. In doing so, racialized burdens link the overt racism of the pre-Civil Rights era with contemporary colorblind denialism (Bonilla-Silva 2010), providing public organizations with both racialized procedures and plausible deniability (Ray and Purifoy 2019).…”

Section: Studying Racialized Burdens: Bringing Organizations Back Inmentioning

confidence: 99%

Racialized Burdens: Applying Racialized Organization Theory to the Administrative State

Ray¹,

Herd²,

Moynihan³

2020

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Administrative burdens allow a form of hidden politics to shape people’s experience of the state. But what do those politics hide? In this paper we seek to partly answer this question by developing the concept of racialized burdens. Racialized burdens are the experience of learning, compliance and psychological costs, which serve as tools to reinforce racial inequality; they are the handmaidens of the racialized state. To develop this concept, we examine the role of administrative burdens in the US state from the theoretical perspective of racialized organizations. This framework puts the focus on the effects of organizations on individuals, rather than using individual agency – of the client, or bureaucrat – as the starting point for analysis. Using examples from attempts to access citizenship rights – via immigration, voting and the social safety net – we show how burdens have historically been used to normalize and facilitate racially disparate outcomes from public organizations that promise fair and equal treatment.

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The Colorblind Organization

Cited by 45 publications

References 58 publications

A Theory of Racialized Organizations

A Theory of Racialized Organizations

Moving Beyond a Culture of Niceness in Faculty Hiring to Advance Racial Equity

Racialized Burdens: Applying Racialized Organization Theory to the Administrative State

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