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Ethnic and Racial Studies

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Constructing racial difference

through group talk: an analysis
of white focus groups' discussion
of racial profiling
Sharla Alegria
Published online: 10 Sep 2012.

To cite this article: Sharla Alegria (2014) Constructing racial difference through group
talk: an analysis of white focus groups' discussion of racial profiling, Ethnic and Racial
Studies, 37:2, 241-260, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2012.716519
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Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2014

Vol. 37, No. 2, 241
260, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2012.716519

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Constructing racial difference through

group talk: an analysis of white focus
groups discussion of racial profiling
Sharla Alegria
(First submission March 2010; First published September 2012)

Abstract
Overtly racist statements are socially and politically unacceptable in the
USA. Yet black people in the USA continue to experience discrimination
and prejudice at both the individual and institutional levels. This paper
examines white peoples talk about race in focus groups from the
North Carolina Traffic Violation Study. The participants discussed race
obliquely, by talking about hypothetical behaviour related to crime and
police profiling while largely avoiding direct mention of race. At the same
time focus group members voice different expectations for white people
and black people. By differentiating between behaviours expected from
individuals perceived to belong to different racial groups, they reproduced racial difference. Focus group members legitimized racial profiling
and did so using language that was largely colour-blind and socially
acceptable by attributing the disproportionately high rate of stops for
black drivers to ostensibly non-racial factors. The groups used mostly
colour-blind language, but the result was racializing discourse.

Keywords: racial difference; interaction; racial profiling; racism; racialization;

focus groups.

Introduction
Research on racism and race-related talk has demonstrated that
publicly displaying racist attitudes is unacceptable, although the same
norms do not apply to private talk (Myers 2005; Bonilla-Silva 2006;
Picca and Feagin 2007). Racist statements are socially unacceptable
and racial discrimination in the areas of employment, lending and
housing is illegal. Yet, racial inequality persists. The majority of white

# 2013 Taylor & Francis

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242 Sharla Alegria

people in the USA now disagrees with biological racist accounts but
also opposes government programmes designed to aid black people
and reduce the race gap in income, educational attainment, wealth and
other areas (Kluegel 1990; Bobo and Charles 2009). Studies have
shown clear evidence of negative attitudes towards black people held
by employers, realtors, landlords and bankers (Pager and Quillian
2005; Pager 2007; Pager and Karafin 2009; Roscigno, Karafin and
Tester 2009). Americans claim to be opposed to racial discrimination,
do not consider themselves to be racist, and do not openly believe
some races to be innately inferior to others; yet, the preponderance of
evidence suggests that racial discrimination occurs regularly and in
ways that lead to systematic disadvantages for people of colour.
Social science researchers have defined types of racism that describe
systems, structures and interactional styles that denigrate people
of colour and result in privilege for white people (see Bobo and
Kluegel 1993; Fiske 1998; Sears and Henry 2003; Bonilla-Silva 2006;
Picca and Feagin 2009). Bonilla-Silva (2006, p. 2) contends that white
people have developed explanations
which have ultimately become
justifications
for contemporary racial inequality that exculpate them
from any responsibility for the status of people of color. He calls these
explanations colour-blind racism. Colour-blind racism, according to
Bonilla-Silva (2006, p. 7), is an ideology that allows white people to
attribute racial inequality to non-racial dynamics
particularly by
rearticulate[ing] elements of traditional liberalism while preserving
the racial status quo and believing in equality of opportunity.
Bonilla-Silva (2006) uses interviews to examine how white people talk
about race. While he emphasizes interactions, his method, one-on-one
interviews, limits his analysis of interaction. Instead he demonstrates a
set of techniques that interviewees use to talk about race without using
specifically racial language. He shows that colour-blind race talk is used
to deny the significance of race and the systematic workings of racial
inequality. I examine public conversation among all white focus group
participants about racial profiling by police and ask how racialization
operates in publically acceptable, colour-blind race talk. Since I use
focus groups rather than one-on-one interviews I am able to study race
talk situated in interaction, filling a gap left by Bonilla-Silvas method.
Focusing on interaction allows me to examine how group members
react to statements about race and examine the push and pull of the
conversations towards or away from colour-blind language. I am able to
examine how the groups co-create meaning around race when they are
publicly accountable for the language they use. My study more closely
reflects the conditions of everyday speech than does an interview study.
In this paper I examine the reproduction of racial difference in
conversations where the speakers use almost exclusively colour-blind
language. I do this by analysing white Americans talk about racial

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Constructing racial difference through group talk 243

profiling. Data for this study come from two focus groups about racial
profiling held in North Carolina in 2000. At the turn of the century,
the debate over racial profiling was the key civil rights issue in the
USA. Affirmative Action has been the only other civil rights issue to
receive similar public and legislative attention in the last few decades.
My approach focuses on interactions and processes that reproduce
racial difference. I show that the focus groups use language that
reproduces racial difference discursively and has implications for
legitimizing racial profiling by police. The respondents voice behavioural and geographic expectations for black people that differentiate
them from white people and legitimize heightened police surveillance,
all while attributing the behavioural expectations and heightened
police surveillance to non-racial dynamics.
Race and racism
Sociological literature understands race to be socially constructed. My
goal in this study is to demonstrate part of a process whereby socially
constructed racial categories gain meaning and consequences. I use the
terms white people and black people to refer to these socially salient
groups, and I do not mean to imply any innate, inherent or essential
characteristic for group membership. It is important to note that there
is no consistent marker that differentiates race groups. People who
are considered white may have darker skin than some people who are
considered black, or vice versa. Geographic boundaries used to assign
race are unreliable as national boundaries change and people emigrate
from one part of the world to another. Racial categories are entirely
constructed, and in order to maintain racial difference race must be
constantly reproduced in interactions (Fields 1990).
Furthermore, it is not my intent to single out white people for
holding racist attitudes. I understand racism as part of a racial
structure that cannot be separated from the accomplishment of racial
difference. Bonilla-Silva (1997, p. 476) argues racial practices that
reproduce racial inequality in contemporary America (1) are increasingly covert, (2) are embedded in normal operations of institutions,
(3) avoid direct racial terminology, and (4) are invisible to most
whites. Bobo and Charles (2009, p. 255) argue that most white
Americans endorse broad goals of integration, equality, and equal
treatment without regard to race and incorporate these ideals into a
colorblind identity even though they tend not to perceive structural
and race-discrimination-based barriers to black advancement. Yet,
Myers (2005), Bonilla-Silva (2006) and Picca and Feagin (2007) have
demonstrated that, under certain conditions, many white Americans
make statements demonstrating racist attitudes. Making racist statements does not necessarily mean that they do not believe in the goal of

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244 Sharla Alegria

racial equality or that they even recognize those attitudes as racist.

As Feagin (2010) argues, many white Americans understand white
people to be generally virtuous with little awareness of the acts of
racism they perform. This literature suggests that many white people
act and speak in ways that discursively reinforce racial inequality
without recognizing the moral implications of their words and actions.
Regardless of whether or not they are aware, the consequence is racist
discourse.
I am following Bonilla-Silva (1997) in understanding racism
through the viewpoint of racialization, which refers to the outcome
of a process wherein racial meaning is newly extended to a relationship, practice or group. He argues that races are the effect of racial
practices of opposition (we versus them) at the economic,
political, social, and ideological levels (Bonilla-Silva 1997, p. 472).
Bonilla-Silvas understanding of races as the effect of practices
suggests an ongoing process, but his explanation of races as the
outcome of racialization suggests a more static end product. Racialization, for my purpose, is the process of extending, re-enforcing, or
revising racial meaning to a relationship, practice or group. I believe
this understanding is more consistent with an emphasis on process,
practices, and historically and locally situated racial meanings (see
Bonilla-Silva 1997).
Bonilla-Silva (1997, p. 474) uses the terms racism and racial
ideology to refer to the segment of an ideological structure of a
social system that crystallizes racial notions and stereotypes. Moreover, [t]his ideology is not simply a superstructural phenomenon
(a mere reflection of the racialized system), but becomes the
organizational map that guides actions of racial actors. It becomes
as real as the racial elements it organizes (Bonilla-Silva 1997, p. 474).
By collapsing racism and racial ideology, Bonilla-Silva understands
racial inequality as part of the racial structure. In other words, racism
is not separate from the notions and stereotypes about race that
serve as a map for racial actors. I adapt Bonilla-Silvas argument by
taking an interactional approach to understanding categorization and
viewing racialization as an ongoing process accomplished in interactions between racial actors. In this study I analyse that process as it
unfolds in conversations between racial actors.
Difference and interaction
Fields (1990) argues that the accomplishment of racism results from
racial ideologies that we all act out every day. She writes: If race lives
on today, it does not live on because we have inherited it from our
forebears of the seventeenth century or the eighteenth or nineteenth,
but because we continue to create it today (Fields 1990, p. 117).

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Constructing racial difference through group talk 245

She argues that there is no straight and inevitable line from the
conditions of slavery in the USA to current conditions of racial
inequality; rather, we continue to reproduce inequality through our
interactions. Racial ideology comes from and contributes to the tools
people use to understand their lives; these ideologies shape the ways
that individuals interact and are shaped by the interactions they have
with others (Fields 1990).
Race and racial inequality are interactional accomplishments acted
out and performed by individuals behaving according to interactional
norms (West and Fenstermaker 1995). To the extent that race is
socially important, individuals are accountable for acting as others
expect members of their race category to act (West and Fenstermaker
1995). Accountability in this context means that individuals who do
not behave in expected ways or hold expected attitudes based on race,
gender and class norms may be asked to explain their unexpected
attitudes or behaviours. As West and Fenstermaker (1995, p. 24)
argue, the accomplishment of race (or gender) does not necessarily
mean living up to normative conceptions of attitudes and activities
appropriate to a particular race category; rather, it means engaging in
action at the risk of race assessment. Race, class and gender
boundaries are reproduced in interactions as individuals demonstrate
attitudes and actions that are consistent with their perceived category
and risk having their competence as social actors questioned when
they do not. West and Fenstermaker (1995, p. 24) further argue, the
accomplishment of race renders the social arrangements based on race
normal and natural. The accomplishment of race as normal and
natural obscures the systematic production of racial inequality.
Interaction in context is key to this theory: difference is accomplished as individuals are accountable for acting and appearing
in ways that are normatively consistent with the gender/race/class
category to which they are understood to belong. Since the biological
basis for racialization is non-existent, categorization ought to be
understood as perceived and enforced by others and the self. Since
categorization is subject to change across a variety of contexts,
including time and place, socially salient categories must be understood as accomplished in context.
Methods
This study uses focus groups to examine the communicative interactions
of white people in public conversations about a racially loaded topic.
The advantage of focus groups over individual interviews is that they
allow the researcher to examine interactions among participants
(Morgan 1997). Thus, focus groups allow me to analyse the interactional process of accountability and reproduction of group difference.

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246 Sharla Alegria

Because focus groups require that participants interact, they allow the
researcher to examine complex behaviours and motivations, particularly as participants ask each other questions and give explanations
(Morgan 2004). Whereas interviews require intimacy and a sense of
private, non-judgemental conversation, focus group participants are
confronted by unfamiliar others who are not necessarily working to
understand their thoughts, feelings and actions. As such, participants
are more socially accountable than they are in one-on-one interviews
where the interviewer attempts to provide a safe space for the
respondent. In this sense, focus groups happen in public. Focus groups
are ideal for this study for two reasons. First, they have a more public
character than interviews, which means that participants are accountable for using publically acceptable speech. Second, they are interactional and thus more closely approximate the real world processes by
which race is produced and reproduced. By using focus groups I can
observe interactions between group members where Bonilla-Silva
(2006) could not. Myers (2005) and Picca and Feagin (2007) use reports
of statements made privately by individuals who did not know that they
were being studied and thus were not accountable for the norms of
public speech.
Early stages of data analysis revealed that the structure of talk, that
is how the conversations moved within and between topics and
speakers, was in some ways even more important than what was
said. In order to be systematically attentive to these shifts and twists
I broke the conversations down into turns at talk that include
everything one speaker says before another speaker begins. I then
coded and analysed turns at talk. I present turns numbered chronologically in order to demonstrate the flow of the conversations.
I observed themes emerging sometimes in one turn but often over the
course of several turns as participants questioned and supported each
others statements.
Data
I rely on secondary data of two focus groups conducted with white
North Carolina residents who had been stopped for speeding by North
Carolina police in the previous year. The original research team from
North Carolina State University conducted these focus groups in
partnership with the North Carolina police as part of an effort to
investigate racial profiling. The focus groups took place in WinstonSalem and Wilmington in 2000. Wilmington and Winston-Salem are
comparably sized small cities. Wilmington is in the former plantation
agriculture region, while Winston-Salem is in a more manufacturingbased region with a smaller black population. Both cities are racially
segregated and contain poor and middle-class black neighbourhoods.

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Constructing racial difference through group talk 247

Focus group conversations lasted approximately two hours. The

research team ensured that men, women and a diversity of ages
were evenly represented in each group. A professional, white male
moderator asked both groups questions about attitudes towards
police, police practices and racial profiling.
These focus groups occurred when racial profiling was at the
forefront of conversation about police work
it was the civil rights
issue at the time. In 1999, police in New Jersey made national news
when they were formally investigated and indicted for falsifying stop
records to cover up racial discrimination (Meeks 2000). In response to
this and additional evidence of racial profiling, members of the US
Senate proposed a bill calling for data collection on traffic stops
nationwide. The bill did not pass, but a number of states, including
North Carolina, collected these data.
These focus groups are an especially rich data source to examine
racial ideologies and discourse because the conversations were mostly
about views of and interactions with police. Race enters these focus
groups primarily in terms of the dominant racial politics of that time.
The moderator encouraged participants to discuss race, but in practice
they did this by talking about hypothetical behaviour related to crime
and police profiling. Thus, it is an ideal setting and historical moment
to examine racialized speech and colour-blind language.
I analysed the conversation by turns at talk and examined how turns
and topics were linked. This allowed me to view the conversations as
interactional processes more than the sum of connected statements.
I coded turns based on the sentiments they voiced regarding race,
racism, racial profiling and police work. The Winston-Salem focus
group contains 542 turns at talk and the Wilmington group contains
679 turns at talk for a total of 1,221 turns. I use pseudonyms to protect
the confidentiality of group participants. There are some turns where it
is unclear who is speaking, and in these cases I employ a pseudonym
marked with an asterisk. However, my analysis focuses on what was
said and how turns are connected rather than who was speaking.
I identify three different ways in which the topic of race is managed
in the groups. First, it is avoided. In these cases the moderator or a
group member will direct the conversation towards race and someone
will respond with a comment about an unrelated topic. In these cases,
a comment about racial profiling quickly leads to a discussion of
geography or police sexuality instead. Second, when adequately
pushed, the groups do discuss race and engage in race talk
much
of which, though not all, denies the significance of race or racism.
Third, race enters these conversations as difference through the use
of phrases like us and them to describe white people and black
people.

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Findings and analysis

Much of the race talk I examine is what Bonilla-Silva termed colourblind. In interviews with white and black college students and
working-class adults, Bonilla-Silva (2006) finds that white people
work to avoid talking about race. When they cannot avoid it they
employ a variety of linguistic techniques to avoid revealing their
negative attitudes towards black people. He describes these moves as
verbal pirouettes that may include incoherent speech or failure to
answer direct questions. I observe focus group participants using many
of the strategies that Bonilla-Silva (2006) identifies: avoiding the
subject, incoherent speech, not answering direct questions, blaming
black people for racism, and attributing racial inequality to non-racial
dynamics.

Avoiding race
The moderator actively encouraged participants to discuss racial
profiling as one of the goals of the focus groups. He asked questions
about police treatment and profiling in general that suggested racial
profiling, but the groups did not respond by discussing race until they
are pushed. For instance, the moderator directly asked the group
which types of people were more likely to be stopped by the police.
411. Moderator: . . . Tell me a little bit more about that, are there
types of people that are more likely to be pulled over.
412. Linda*: I think that there are types of cars. You dont generally
find criminals in minivans with car seats. I mean, I guess.
413. Moderator: The police are less likely to . . .
414. Harry*: Pull over a family car, I would think, then a sports car.
415. Moderator: So sports cars, yes, family cars no.
416. Sylvia*: I would have to agree with that.
Linda did not answer the moderators question; instead she shifted the
conversation from profiling people to profiling cars. The group
continued the conversation about car types rather than returning to
the moderators question. The moderator asked the question twice
more before someone mentioned race.
417. Moderator: Okay, the vehicle, what about the driver? Are there
certain types of drivers that are more likely to be pulled over do you
think?
418. Paul*: Yes
419. Moderator: Tell me. Let me make a list up here. Tell me the
types of drivers more likely to be pulled over.

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420. Paul*: Young black males.

421. Ester*: Young males.
422. Moderator: What else.
423. Simon*: I think the executive types that look like they are,
I dont know a fancy car.
424. Rachel*: A car full of young black males.
425. Kurt*: People that dont fit the vehicle, too
The group only discussed race when pushed by the moderator. Even
when Paul mentioned race, Ester modified his comment to exclude
race before Rachel brought race back in several comments later. They
also mentioned wealthy drivers in fancy cars and people that do not
fit the vehicle. This type of discussion came up in both groups and
suggests that group members have expectations for the types of people
who drive certain types of cars.
When a group member did bring up race, another group member
sometimes changed the subject, as Ester did above. In another
example, Orin, the only respondent who repeatedly challenged racist
discourse in his group, finished telling a lengthy story about being
caught in a ticketing trap with several other drivers. The drivers in his
story joined forces to hire a lawyer to fight their tickets. When Orin
finished his story the moderator asked if certain types of drivers are
more likely to be stopped, and Orin stated that race matters. Martin
qualified Orins assertion by suggesting that race only matters in some
places. Then a third respondent, Pam, changed the subject away from
race entirely. Moreover, Pam began the topic change with a statement
that sounded like it was referring back to a previous comment, in that
situation. The situation she referenced was Orins lengthy story about
being stopped by police and treated in a way that he felt was unfair.
324. Orin: . . . All four of us went over and sat and drank coffee and
talked about
who is making the money on this, the judge, the
highway patrolman, who is making it. If we dont cooperate I know
who is going to make money. The insurance company. So we really
didnt have a whole lot of say.
325. Moderator: I understand that is a difficult situation. But you
dont think it was because of your age there, it was just the way it
was set up? I really need to know about this and this is one of the
places I need to be rude a little bit because we still have lots to cover.
I want to know is this a complete list. Is this, are these the ways or
the qualities of a driver that will make them more likely to be pulled
over: violation, type of car, color, age.
326. Orin: I think probably race.
327. Martin*: Depending upon the location.
328. Pam*: Dont you think in that situation that sometimes it is sex

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because young girls driving cars and officers pull them over wanting
to know who the girl was or carding them to find out their name
and address?
Following Pams change of topic the group discussed male police
officers looking for attractive women to stop for eleven turns, far
longer than they had discussed race up to this point. The group
members seemed more comfortable and more interested in discussing
police using their authority to objectify and harass women than
discussing how law enforcement treats people of colour. While group
members were not eager to discuss Orins statement about race, they
joined quickly to discuss Pams statement about gender even though
her statement was disconnected from the statements preceding it.
Race talk about racial profiling
Both groups did eventually engage in conversations about whether
racial profiling happens. In the Winston-Salem group the moderator
had to ask specifically about black people being profiled before the
group would discuss it.
345. Moderator: What I want to get to here is there has been a lot of
attention recently paid to racial profiling sometimes called driving
while black and what I would like to ask you is do you think the
police are more likely to pull over a black driver than a white one?
These conversations often involved denial, qualification or justification. Racial profiling was prominent in the news at the time and would
have been difficult to avoid. When group members denied racial
profiling, they did so with ready explanations for its appearance.
In other words, they would claim that something other than race was
the cause of police stops, often stating or implying that any race
difference in the rate of stops was actually unrelated to race per se.
549. Cynthia*: I think that they go by the car a lot. I mean if you are
on the highway going 70, you cant really tell if there is a blond in
there, especially [with] tinted windows. You dont really know if it is
black person. So, I think a lot of times, the type of car.
It is not clear in this statement whether Cynthia believes black people
are more likely to be stopped but she had an alternative explanation
for the appearance of racial profiling. Racial profiling was also denied
by arguing that police simply stop people who are committing crimes;
the logic being that if black people are stopped more it is because they
commit more crimes.

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441. Patricia: On no particular, I mean, it can just be one that, you

know the criminal type that might be dealing drugs or anything like
that and each time he catches them well we are caught more than
anybody else, but it is because they are doing more than anybody
else. That is the way I feel.
In these accounts, police are cleared of any improprieties on racial
grounds. Racial inequality in the rate of police stops is not the
problem
rather more black people are driving suspicious cars or
violating the law.
Participants stated or implied that black people are more likely to be
stopped by police, but argued that the phenomenon is not as
widespread as it seemed. The media received condemnation from
both groups for giving racial profiling undue attention and making it
seem unrealistically widespread.
606. Ray*: . . . whenever you have crimes of any kinds, whether it is
on the road or drugs or whatever, which gets publicized more, if it is
a bunch kids or white men and everything or white people, they are
busted for a major drug bust of white people, it is not going to be
publicized as much as it will if it were black. You turn [on the] radio,
you turn the local news or TV and all you hear is about this black
person getting busted for this, or this black person getting, you
whatever, and it is always the publicity is a lot more. . . . they show
more of the black[s] on TV and I believe it is a media thing.
Group members used the terms sensationalization (612. James:
I think its sensationalization, a little bit over blown), trying to sell
a story (640: Rhonda*: the media is trying to sell a story), blown up
(659. Jane: I guess as far as it being blown up so around here) and out
of proportion (445. Sam*: I mean the media tends to blow so much
out of proportion) to describe the media coverage of racial profiling,
implying that stories of racial profiling are media hype that do not
reflect real inequality.
The groups also qualified their responses by isolating racism as an
act of individual police officers, or locating racism equally in black
people and white people. Gloria explained that racial profiling is not
something that happens because of police department policy, it is a
problem of individual racist police officers.
431. Gloria: I want to back up and say here again it depends on the
individual. I dont think you can say the whole department or the
whole police force, I think it is maybe certain individuals. That they
are doing their own thing as far as that goes. It is not a policy but
their own feeling, you know they are following through and doing it.

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It doesnt mean that the whole department is racist because you have
one person . . .
By locating racial profiling in the misdeeds of individuals, the problem
of racial inequality shifts from being a system of racial disadvantage to
an isolated problem of individuals. If racial disparity in police stops is
a result of individual racist cops, then correcting the problem is as
simple as firing those cops.
In addition to arguing that individual police officers might be racist,
both groups argued that black people were guilty of reverse racism.
This quote from Tim exemplifies the argument made in both groups
that black people are racist against white people:
590. Tim: I think that I saw, part of the problem right there, by saying
that is reverse racial, if somebody is racist, automatically if you say
racist, you automatically think white against black and that, you
think, I think totally wrong. Racist or racism, it exists in all, you
know, no matter who you are. There are just as many people that are
black who cannot stand somebody just because they are white.
Maybe you are white and you cant stand Oriental, you know, you
dont like a red head, or whatever it is. It doesnt matter, Im sorry,
Im just . . . no offense. I just think that automatically that everywhere
across the United States that that has been put out there so hard that
automatically you are racists and that is a white against a black.
Tims comment reflects a common-sense understanding of racism.
Not only is racism divorced from power in his statement, it is equated
with dislike for people based on hair colour. When the term racism
can be used to describe any kind of dislike it ceases to have value
for identifying and demonstrating systematic, long-standing racial
inequality. The logic follows that if black people are just as racist
against white people as white people are against black people, then
everyone is guilty
and if everyone is guilty then everyone is equal.
Both groups offered justifications for racial profiling. They argued
that black people are more likely to commit crimes, particularly drugrelated crimes, so targeting black people is good police work. Claude,
in Wilmington, exemplified this argument:
429. Moderator: Good list, good list, guys. Great. Young males, a
carful of young black males, young males in general, executive types,
people who dont fit the car . . .
[A group member emphasizes agreement that people who dont fit
the car will be stopped.]
433. Moderator: And teens. These are sort of groups that have a
tendency to get pulled over. Why? Why do you think that, lets start

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Constructing racial difference through group talk 253

at the top, young black males. Why are they more likely to get pulled
over?
*434. Dean: Because they are stereotyped. A lot of media . . .
*435. Phil: Total racial profiling.
436. Claude: That is just straight up generic textbook racial
profiling that they are there. They are in the type of vehicle and
they are the type of individual that is more likely to commit a crime
based on our experiences as law enforcement officers and our
whatever with the media. So, we are going to pull them now and
deter that crime from happening or catch them in a crime, I would
think. That is just kind of common sense.
Similarly, Justin in Winston-Salem argued that inner city blacks are
more likely to commit crimes so police should be profiling them:
505. Justin: . . . The inner city black has a greater chance of
committing a crime of some sort so why shouldnt police be looking
for them.
Justin, Claude and others did not view racial profiling as a problem;
instead they saw it as intelligent use of law enforcement experience.
Meanwhile, studies have shown that, while minorities are more likely
to be stopped by police, they are not more likely to be driving with
contraband (Engel and Calnon 2004; for North Carolina, see Warren
and Tomaskovic-Devey 2009). The disproportionate rate of drugrelated charges against black people is more effect than cause of racial
profiling.
Accomplishing race difference
Throughout both conversations participants made statements signalling and demarcating racial difference. This is clearest in their use of
the terms us and we to refer to white people and them to refer to
black people. Before the conversations turned to race, participants
discussed their interactions with police. In this part of the conversation
they were the police and we were civilians. Consider the following
statement segments taken from the beginning of the conversations
before the groups discussed race: I think as a whole, they keep us in
line . . .; I support the police. They do the things we are not able to
do . . .; They keep the order and that is important to do . . .. However,
when the groups discussed race we become white people and police
while they become black people. The following statements were made
towards the end of the conversations: We pull cars over.; We pull
that car over and it is full of drugs or whatever.; They are suspicious.;
They [are] harping about slavery. We had nothing to do with it.;

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254 Sharla Alegria

It is easier to profile them [referring to black people in poor

neighbourhoods] and say we can catch a bunch of crooks because
we know they are going to be out here on the street doing business. In
other words, we are white and they are black, and the two are
distinct. During the conversation about racial profiling, respondents
used we to include the police. There are instances when the word
they continued to be used to identify police even towards the end of
the conversation, but the shift of inclusion is striking. Group members
largely identified police and their legal authority with white people,
while identifying black people as the target of that legal authority.
The understandings of place and criminality demonstrated in these
conversations signal an accomplishment of racial difference that has
concrete consequences. The group members repeatedly stated that
identifying people who look out of place is an important element of
police work:
381. Jake*: Say your black male driver and your Mercedes and
Lexus thing. If he is in the right place or rather the wrong place for
him, they would be more apt to pull him.
In other words, violating particular norms associated with a race
category constitutes grounds for police to suspect individuals of
criminal activity.
360. Paula*: I think any of this can go with either black or Hispanic
or white. If I go over into east Winston and Im driving a Mercedes
and Im in east Winston, Im a female and Im there at 7 oclock at
night I would think I would be suspicious no more than if a black
person, male in particular, would be coming over into Clemmons.
White people and black people are described as geographically
separate to the point that merely crossing that geographic divide
makes one suspect:
341. Lynn*: Yeah. Say you have got a guy, certain people are not
going to fit in the projects in Winston-Salem. They wouldnt be
going there for just any reason a lot of times because that is the way
the police might see it.
Lynn implied that white men would be stopped if police spotted them
in an area that is predominately poor and black. Moreover, this
statement indicates that police would expect the person who does not
fit in would be going to the projects with criminal intent. The
projects, places where poor black people live, were consistently
associated with drugs, even referred to as drug areas at least once in
both conversations. In other words, white people are suspect for
entering drug areas and black people are suspect for leaving them.

Constructing racial difference through group talk 255

While white people are suspect in black neighbourhoods, black

people are suspect everywhere. Black people are out of place in white
neighbourhoods and they are suspect in black neighbourhoods
because these neighborhoods are drug areas. This is evident in
Cindys description of police work:

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48. Cindy*: They patrol areas where there are potential problems.
They try to stop things, you know, drug areas they drive through
and try to prevent things from happening.
Simply being categorized as black makes one suspicious. Interactions
across racial categories are also suspicious since drugs and black
people are so deeply connected in the minds of these white respondents.
The respondents referred to predominantly black areas as the
projects, drug areas, low income areas, black town and inner
city, while they used proper names of neighbourhoods to refer to
predominantly white areas. The only reference to middle-class black
neighbourhoods explained that white people in these neighbourhoods
would be stopped and searched for drugs:
633. Glenn*: I dont believe
in my opinion I believe that it is in a
neighborhood it depends on what race is predominant. If you have
got a predominantly white neighborhood and you have black male,
especially a black male driving through the neighborhood, no
matter what time of day or night . . .
634. Moderator: No matter what kind of car?
635. Glenn*: No matter what kind of car, they are going to end up
getting pulled. I believe that the opposite to be true also. If it is a
predominantly black neighborhood, maybe a middle-class black
neighborhood, and you have a white guy pulling through, the first
thing they are going to do is to pull that guy and check for drugs
because Ive had some friends that that has happened to. Go to pick
somebody up for a ball game or something and get pulled for drugs
and nothing be on them or in the car or anything.
In this comment and others like it, people who are out of place
should expect to be pulled over. Black men in white neighbourhoods
should expect to be pulled over because they have violated a spatial
norm, while white people in black neighbourhoods should expect to be
pulled over because they have violated an interactional norm, which
makes them suspect. Group members primarily expected any interactions between blacks and whites to involve drugs. When they did
mention other reasons for cross-race interactions, the white people in
these circumstances were held accountable for drug-related criminal
activity.

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256 Sharla Alegria

The respondents made their expectations for race and class

categories visible simultaneously throughout these conversations.
They often described predominantly black neighbourhoods in economic rather than racial terms. Group members could slip between
economic and racial terms to justify racial profiling or to argue that it
is related to place and suspicion, not race per se. For respondents,
segregation that is simultaneously raced and classed is not cause for
suspicion but the violation of racialized geographic boundaries is
suspicious. Poverty and blackness go hand in hand in participants
understandings, and, therefore, they use colour-blind language to
describe the economics of neighbourhoods when communicating
something about race.
Summary
Group members articulated us/them distinctions that reflect the
crystallization of racial stereotypes. These crystallized stereotypes
provide the material for understanding and reproducing racial
difference. Most white Americans have only limited interactions with
black Americans, heightening the importance of stereotypes and
generalizations in their understandings of racial difference (BonillaSilva, Goar and Embrick 2006). Meanwhile, behaviours, such as
residential segregation, that limit interactions between white people
and black people seem natural and normal and reproduce racial
difference in ways that advantage white people while disadvantaging
black people.
Residential segregation, as evidenced in these focus groups, is not
simply separation of white people and black people into different
neighbourhoods; middle-class neighbourhoods with proper names are
reserved for white people, whereas impoverished neighbourhoods are
reserved for black people. Police stop black people when they enter
white neighbourhoods because they are out of place, which is not a
crime. Participants expected police to suspect white people in black
neighbourhoods of possessing drugs. In other words, white people who
associate with black people are accountable for behaviours expected
from black people. Residential segregation is an unremarkable fact in
these conversations; while most black people do not live in impoverished, high-crime areas, participants find it reasonable that black
people outside these areas are out of place and therefore expect police
to stop them.
Conclusion
According to participants accounts, law enforcements first priority is
to uphold the law, but as the conversations unfold it seems police work

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Constructing racial difference through group talk 257

is also about the maintenance of racial difference. In the early

conversation about police, they have power over us. Police have
the authority to stop drivers and keep us in line. As the conversation
turns towards race we refers to white people and police. Respondents
re-frame the conversation, positing that police stop people for being in
the wrong place or appearing suspicious, but as the conversation
unfolds we learn that the wrong place is actually the wrong side of a
racialized geographic boundary. It becomes clear that the idea that
police stop black people because they believe black people are more
likely to possess drugs is hardly different from white authority figures
stopping black people because black people are expected to possess
drugs. Participants express normative conceptions of blackness that
include poverty and drug-related criminality. These expectations serve
to differentiate racial groups but importantly, if individuals are
accountable for the normative behaviours of their perceived group,
then anyone perceived to be black is accountable for poverty and drug
possession.
Both focus groups eventually acknowledge the existence of racial
profiling but deny the phenomenon has real or extensive consequences.
Participants make few overtly racist comments but routinely deny
racial inequality. By the end of both conversations a meta-story
emerges explaining away racial profiling and legitimizing race-based
differential treatment. Participants are able to justify and normalize
increased police surveillance of black people, especially black men,
with mostly colour-blind language stating common-sense understandings about their social world.
Racial ideology is the crystallized stereotypes and racial notions that
organize behaviour for racial actors (Bonilla-Silva 1997). This racial
ideology is part of the structure of a racialized society. Expectations
for races, for which racial actors are accountable, simultaneously
reflect and reproduce the existing, unequal racial structure. The focus
group conversations I analysed engaged in a process of racialization.
Participants used mostly colour-blind language to articulate differences between black and white racial groups, but in the end produced
racist discourse. Group members displayed expectations of racial
inequality independent from what would be thought of as traditionally
racist attitudes. These expectations were embedded in their understanding of racial difference. Given this framework, racist attitudes are
expressions of the racial ideology that provides the map to behavioural
expectations for different races. Thus, racist attitudes can be understood as reflections of the underlying racial ideology that guide the
ongoing process of racialization. Since inequality is already embedded
in the different behavioural expectations that distinguish racialized
groups, the persistence of racial inequality is unsurprising.

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258 Sharla Alegria

This study is situated in a particular time and place
the post-civil

rights era USA where race is still an important, but conversationally
taboo, vector of inequality. It is likely that different language and
ideologies will be at work for different groups, places and times.
I would not be surprised, however, to find processes of conversational
accountability, avoidance, coded race talk and colour-blind rationalizations of inequality in multiple contemporary contexts where explicit
racist talk is socially discouraged. In other places or times the
avoidance of race talk might not be socially necessary. Future research
will hopefully examine the interactional production of racial difference
of and by different groups in specific places and times. Such analyses
would reveal the generality of the interactional moves identified in this
study.
Racial ideologies are not static insomuch as racialization is an
ongoing process of building categories that reflect the racial ideologies
of the time. The specific categories and the language used to describe
racial actors should be expected to change over time and vary by place.
The conversations in these focus groups reflect the racialization that
supported and reflected slavery and Jim Crow apartheid in the USA
and the shifting reproduction of race shaped by the legacy of the civil
rights movement and a racist state-led war on drugs at the end of the
twentieth century. White Americans in the South during the Jim Crow
era likely would not have avoided racialized language to the degree
that these focus group members did, Northern white people during the
Jim Crow era would have likely sounded different still. Likewise,
racialization was not the same process in former colonies where the
colonizers were the numeric minority but economically, politically and
militarily dominant.
Racial difference, racial inequality and racism are intricately
interwoven, particularly at the level of interaction. This paper has
offered an understanding of race talk and racialization that links the
legitimization of racial inequality with the reproduction of racial
difference. Overt racism is not necessary to reinforce racial inequality;
simply expecting different behaviours and attitudes from white people
and black people is enough, especially when the behaviours expected
from white people are socially valued and those expected from black
people are devalued and, worse, criminalized.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Enobong Hannah Branch, Donald TomaskovicDevey, Joe Feagin, Donileen Loseke, Noriko Milman, Chris M. Smith,
Sarah Willie-LeBreton, Robert Zussman, the Narrative Reading
Group and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Constructing racial difference through group talk 259

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SHARLA ALEGRIA is a PhD candidate in the Department of

Sociology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
ADDRESS: Department of Sociology, University of Massachusetts,
Amherst, MA, 01003 USA.
Email: salegria@soc.umass.edu