Nathanuel Brown

Nathanuel Brown,Word Count 450

Article #1:  "African American, Hispanic, and White Beliefs about Black/White Inequality, 1977-2004".

The methods used in this article was by using the General Social Survey or GSS (Hunt, 396). The GSS is a survey conducted by the National Opinion Research Center or NORC. The GSS has a survey size of 3,000 with a 82% response rate (396). Also, the GSS uses people who are 18 and older who live in non-institutionalized settings in the United States. The GSS is a survey that looks for trends in minority samples (396).

The first two tables used by the author Matthew Hunt found that whites tended to attribute a lack in ability for blacks as a reason for their inequality throughout the late 90's and early 2000's. However, there was a reduction in whites saying that motivation is the cause of inequality. Hunt's third table has findings of whites decline from ability reasoning for inequality, but an increase in the motivation reasoning for inequality of blacks and whites (399). Whites being the one giving the judgement of blacks. Another important trend is that non-hispanic whites seem to be choosing none, as in rejecting any reason for the gap between blacks and whites, has tripled (399).

Furthermore, there shows to be a decline in many areas. Whites ability reasoning is going down and blacks structural reasoning is going down. The inverse is happening, and therefore, an equalizing effect is occurring. Blacks are actually increasing in their opinion of ability as reasoning for inequality (400). Originally, whites attributed inequality more towards ability than structural reasoning, and blacks attributed inequality more towards structural reasoning than ability.

Article #2: "Race, Ethnicity and the Quality of Life in America,1972-2008".         

The methods used in this article was by using the General Social Survey or GSS (Coverdill et, al 783). The GSS is a survey conducted by the National Opinion Research Center or NORC. The GSS has a survey size of 3,000. Also, the GSS uses people who are 18 and older who live in non-institutionalized settings in the United States. Coverdill, Lopez, and Petrie use the GSS to assess four different variations of happiness among different races to determine quality of life (789).

The variations of happiness are categorized as: overall happiness, marital happiness, trust, and health status. Here in this study, it shows that gaps are closing as whites trust levels have gone down and blacks overall happiness have gone up (799). Also, latinos are an under researched group under the lens of equality because it is addressed as a black and white issue. However, quality of life is a minority and majority issue. Finding show that latinos have an overall lower quality of life compared to non-latinos (800). Latinos are a growing minority that are identifying as white rather than black lowering the quality of life results for whites(800).