Joe Feagin
Joe Richard Feagin is a U.S. sociologist and social theorist who has conducted extensive research on racial and gender issues, especially in regard to the United States. He is currently the Ella C. McFadden Distinguished Professor at Texas A&M University. Feagin has taught at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, University of California, Riverside, University of Texas at Austin, University of Florida, and Texas A&M University.
Feagin has done much research work on race and ethnic relations and has served as the scholar in residence at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He has written over 60 books. He is the 2006 recipient of a Harvard Alumni Association achievement award and was the 1999–2000 president of the American Sociological Association.
Early life
He was born in San Angelo, Texas, but spent most of his childhood and adolescence in Houston, TX in the area now known as West University Place. He attended Mirabeau B. Lamar High School.Education
After completing his undergraduate education at Baylor University in 1960, Feagin moved to Boston where he went on to earn his Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard University in 1966. He was the Scholar-in-Residence at the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. Currently, he is the Ella C. McFadden and Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts at Texas A&M University. His research and teaching interests concern mainly the development and structure of racial and gender prejudice and discrimination, especially institutional and systemic discrimination and racism.Works
His books have won numerous national and professional association awards. His book Ghetto Revolts was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He is the 2006 recipient of a Harvard Alumni Association lifetime achievement award and was the 1999–2000 president of the American Sociological AssociationResearch (books)
He is author of over 200 research articles and 70 plus books on racial, gender, and urban issues. Amongst his books are:- Asian American Women with S. Chang
- A Systemic Racism Critique of Racial Theories with S. Elias
- Microaggressions and the Language of Racial Analysis with E. Chun
- Rethinking Diversity Issues in Higher Education with E. Chun
- Latino Peoples in the New America: Racialization and Resistance" with J. Cobas, D. Delgado, and M. Chávez
- The Global Color Line: Racial and Ethnic Inequality and Struggle from a Global Perspective 2nd ed. edited with P. Batur-Vanderlippe
- Racist America 4th ed. with K. Ducey
- Elite White Men Ruling: Who, What, Where, and How with K. Ducey
- Systemic Racism: Making Liberty, Justice, and Democracy Real edited by R. Thompson-Miller and K. Ducey; contributors present research on systemic racism in honor of mentor and friend, Dr. Joe Feagin
- How Blacks Built America
- Racial Theories in Social Science with S. Elias
- How Blacks Built America
- Jim Crow’s Legacy: The Lasting Impact of Segregation with R. Thompson-Miller and L. H. Picca
- "Pulling Back the ‘Post-Racial’ Curtain: Critical Pedagogical Lessons from Both Sides of the Desk," in K. Haltinner, ed., Teaching Race and Anti-Racism in Contemporary America: Adding Context to Colorblindness..
- "Systemic Racism Theory: Critically Examining College Sport Leadership," in L. L. Martin, Out of Bounds: Racism and the Black Athlete..
- Liberation Sociology with Hernan Vera and K. Ducey
- Latinos Facing Racism: Discrimination, Resistance, and Endurance with José A. Cobas
- Racist America
- The White Racial Frame: Centuries of Racial Framing and Counter-Framing
- Yes We Can: White Racial Framing and the Obama Presidency with A. Harvey-Wingfield
- White Party, White Government: Race, Class, and U.S. Politics
- Racial and Ethnic Relations with Clairece Booher Feagin
- How the United States Racializes Latinos: White Hegemony and its Consequences edited, with José A. Cobas and Jorge. Duany
- Systemic Racism: A Theory of Oppression
- Social Problems: A Power-Conflict Perspective
- Black in Blue: African-American Police Officers and Racism Kenneth Bolton with Joe R. Feagin
- White Men on Race with Eileen O'Brien
- The Many Costs of Racism with Karyn McKinney
- The First R: How Children Learn Race and Racism with Debra Van Ausdale
- White Racism: The Basics with Hernan Vera and Pinar Batur
- In 2014, he published a book about Asian Americans with Rosalind S. Chou titled Myth of the Model Minority: Asian Americans Facing Racism. The second edition of this popular book adds important new research on how racial stereotyping is gendered and sexualized. New interviews show that Asian American men feel emasculated in America’s male hierarchy. Women recount their experiences of being exoticized, subtly and otherwise, as sexual objects. The new data reveal how race, gender, and sexuality intersect in the lives of Asian Americans. The text retains all the features of the renowned first edition, which offered the first in-depth exploration of how Asian Americans experience and cope with everyday racism. The book depicts the “double consciousness” of many Asian Americans—experiencing racism but feeling the pressures to conform to popular images of their group as America’s highly achieving “model minority.”
- In 2007 he finished a book titled Two-Faced Racism: Whites in the Backstage and Frontstage with Leslie Houts Picca. Two-Faced Racism examines and explains the racial attitudes and behaviours exhibited by whites in private settings. While there are many books that deal with public attitudes, behaviours, and incidences concerning race and racism, there are few studies on the attitudes whites display among friends, family, and other whites in private settings. The core of this book draws upon 626 journals of racial events kept by white college students at twenty-eight colleges in the United States. The book seeks to comprehend how whites think in racial terms by analyzing their reported racial events.
- In 1996, he published The Agony of Education: Black Students at a White University'' with Hernan Vera and Nikitah Imani. The Agony of Education is about the life experience of African American students attending a historically white university. Based on seventy-seven interviews conducted with black students and parents concerning their experiences with one state university, as well as published and unpublished studies of the black experience at state universities at large, this study captures the painful choices and agonizing dilemmas at the heart of the decisions African Americans must make about higher education.
Research (peer-reviewed articles)
- "#BlackLivesMatter: Innovative Black Resistance," Sociological Forum forthcoming 2019
- "Free Space is Valuable Space: Lessons from Chocolate Cities," Ethnic and Racial Studies 42 : 431–438.
- "Systemic Racism and 'Race' Categorization in U.S. Medical Research and Practice," American Journal of Bioethics 17 :54–56.
- "The Persistence of White Nationalism in America," Contexts online journal pages
- "The Costs of Policing Violence: Foregrounding Cognitive and Emotional Labor," Critical Sociology 41 :887–895.
- "Systemic Racism and U.S. Health Care," Social Science & Medicine 103 :7–14..
- "Rethinking Racial Formation Theory: A Systemic Racism Critique," Ethnic and Racial Studies 36 :1–30..
- "The Racial Dialectic: President Barack Obama and the White Racial Frame," Qualitative Sociology 31
- "Language Oppression and Resistance: Latinos in the United States," Ethnic and Racial Studies 31 : 390–410
- "Latinos/as and the White Racial Frame," Sociological Inquiry 78 : 39–53
- "Continuing Injuries of Racism: Counseling in a Racist Context," The Counseling Psychologist 35 : 106–115
- "Success and Failure: How Systemic Racism Trumped the Brown v. Board of Education Decision," University of Illinois Law Review : 1099–1130
- "Heeding Black Voices: The Court, Brown, and Challenges in Building a Multiracial Democracy," University of Pittsburgh Law Review 66 : 57–81
- "Documenting The Costs of Slavery, Segregation, and Contemporary Discrimination: Are Reparations in Order for African Americans?" Harvard Black Letter Law Journal 20 : 49–80
- "White Supremacy and Mexican Americans: Rethinking the Black-White Paradigm," Rutgers Law Review 54 : 959–987.
- "The Continuing Significance of Racism: U.S. Colleges and Universities," American Council on Education, Occasional Papers 1 : 1–54.
- "The Many Costs of Discrimination: The Case of Middle-Class African Americans," Indiana Law Review 34 : 1313–1360
- "Social Justice and Sociology: Agendas for the Twenty-First Century," American Sociological Review 66 :1–20.
- "Doing Antiracism and Making a Nonracist Society," Contemporary Sociology, 29 : 95–110
- "Excluding Blacks and Others from Housing: The Foundation of White Racism," Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research 4 : 79–91
- "The Family Costs of White Racism: The Case of African American Families," Journal of Comparative Family Studies 29
- "Using Racial and Ethnic Concepts: The Critical Case of Very Young Children," American Sociological Review 61 :779–793..
- "Violent Police-Citizen Encounters: An Analysis of Major Newspaper Accounts," Critical Sociology 22 : 29–49
- "Racism in the Post-Colonial World," International Policy Review 6 : 30–40
- "White Racism: Bibliographic Essay," Choice 33 : 903–914
- "Affirmative Action and African Americans: Rhetoric and Practice," Humboldt Journal of Social Relations 21 : 81–104
- "Superior Intellect?: Sincere Fictions of the White Self," Journal of Negro Education 64 : 296–306
- "Rethinking White-Black Relations in the United States: Toward a Theory of Racism as Sacrificial Waste," Journal of Contemporary Sociology 31 : 162–182
- "Reparations for Catastrophic Waste," Poverty and Race 3 : 4
- "The Continuing Significance of Race: Antiblack Discrimination in Public Places," American Sociological Review'' 56 :101–116.
Recent public contributions
Professional experience
Previous positions
- Graduate Research Professor, University of Florida, 1990–2004
- Professor of Sociology, University of Texas, 1975–1990
- Scholar-in-Residence, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1974–1975
- Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Texas, 1970–1974
- Assistant Professor, University of California, 1966–1970
Affiliations
- American Sociological Association
- Sociologists for Women in Society
- Association of Black Sociologists
- Sociologists without Borders
Awards and honors
- Nomination for Pulitzer Prize
- Scholar-in-Residence, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1974–1975.
- Sociological Research Association, 1986–present.
- Phi Beta Kappa Alumni Scholar
- Gustavus Myers Center Outstanding Human Rights Book Award, 1995
- Gustavus Myers Center Outstanding Human Rights Book Award, 1996
- American Sociological Association, Oliver C. Cox Book Award, 1996
- University of Florida Research Foundation Professor, 1997–1999
- Honorary Life Member, Phi Kappa Phi honor society, 1999
- Robert and Helen Lynd Award for Lifetime Contribution to Community and Urban Sociology, 2000
- Special Award, Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities, for Racist America and lifetime of work in racial and ethnic relations, 2002
- Choice award for Liberation Sociology as one of the best books of 2002
- ASA Section’s Distinguished Undergraduate Student Paper Award named for Joe Feagin
- University of Illinois Center on Democracy in a Multiracial Society, Symposium on the Research and Contributions of Joe Feagin.
- Choice award for White Men on Race as one of the best books of 2003.
- Sociologists without Borders Distinguished Professor
- Harvard Alumni Association Rabbi Martin Katzenstein Award
- Sociologists without Borders, the Richard Wright Award
- Center for Healing of Racism Ally Award
- Fellow, Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality, Stanford University, 2006-
- Butler A. Jones lecture, Cleveland State University
- Soka Gakkai International-USA Social Justice Award
- Arthur Fletcher Lifetime Achievement Award, American Association for Affirmative Action
- ASA Section on Racial & Ethnic Minorities' Founder's Award for Scholarship & Service
- “Top Professor” Award, Affordable-Colleges-Online.Org
- W.E.B. Du Bois Career of Distinguished Scholarship Award, American Sociological Association
- Distinguished Professor, Texas A&M University
- Texas NAACP Civil Rights Hero Award
- 16th Charles R. Lawrence II Lecturer, Brooklyn College, CUNY, September 2016
- Festchrift in my honor: Ruth Thompson-Miller and Kimberley Ducey, eds., Systemic Racism: Making Liberty, Justice, and Democracy Real.
- Cox-Johnson-Frazier Scholarship Award
- Excellence in Research Award for Elite White Men Ruling
- Public Understanding of Sociology Award
- Texas A&M University College of Education Legacy of Excellence and Equity Research Award
Administrative and editorial positions
- Vice-President, Society for Study of Social Problems, 1986–87
- Chair, ASA Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities, 1994–1995
- Member of Council, American Sociological Association, 1995–2000
- Editorial Board, Comparative Urban and Community Research
- Editorial Board, Sage Racial and Ethnic Relations Series
- Editorial Board, Race and Society
- Governing Board, Southern Regional Council, 1997–1998
- President, American Sociological Association, 1999–2000
- Editor, Perspectives on a Multiracial America, Rowman & Littlefield, 2003–present
- Editor, New Critical Viewpoints Series, Paradigm Books, 2010–Present