Class advantages and disadvantages are not so Black and White: intersectionality impacts rank and selves

• Published in: Current opinion in psychology 2017-12, Vol.18, p.117-122
• Main Authors: Brannon, Tiffany N, Higginbotham, Gerald D, Henderson, Kyshia
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 2352-250X; 2352-250X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.08.029

•The consequences of being working-class or middle-class vary by race/ethnicity.•Race/ethnicity and class intersect to differentially afford benefits and burdens.•Reconciling such variance, we propose that class and race are two sources of rank.•Implications of these two sources of rank for selves and inequality are discussed. At the intersection of race and class the consequences of being working-class or middle-class are not so Black and White. Rather, established and emerging research suggests that race/ethnicity and social class intersect to differentially afford benefits and burdens. For instance, racial/ethnic minorities often do not reap the social, psychological or economic benefits of higher social class; yet, in some key life domains (e.g. health and mortality) racial/ethnic minorities in the U.S. seem to be buffered from some burdens of lower social class. We integrate empirical evidence to suggest that such differential advantages and disadvantages along racial lines reflect that social class exists alongside, rather than separate from, race/ethnicity as two distinct yet intersecting sources of rank and in turn selves.