@article{bailey-hall_estrada_2022, title={Private Immigration Detention without the Immigrants: The Subtle Use of Controlling Images in the Contemporary Era}, ISSN={["1552-3381"]}, DOI={10.1177/00027642221083537}, abstractNote={ Scholars have well-established the socio-political and legal history of immigrant detention as a form of racialized social control in the United States. In recent years, private prison companies have benefited financially from this system, amassing sizeable profits in spite of vast criticisms and concerns. For this project, we focus on how private immigration detention—as a modern-day form of racialized social control—is normalized. Using the theoretical concept of controlling images, we examine how private prison companies frame the people they detain. Results from our analysis of 143 press releases indicate that private prisons rarely talk about the people they detain. Instead, the companies make vague and indirect references using inanimate objects which dehumanizes them. When the companies do reference migrants, they often characterize them as wards of the state, and in doing so, private prison companies are infantilizing people in lockup in subtle ways. Companies also engage in a significant amount of rhetoric that champions their organizations as they bolster their business amidst scandals and allegations. We conclude that these controlling images, while appearing race neutral, are quite effective in contributing to the invisibility of these groups and maintenance of the status quo. These actions further their exploitable quality by reproducing the oppression of racial others and simultaneously function to legitimize the business practices of private prison companies. }, journal={AMERICAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST}, author={Bailey-Hall, Miara L. and Estrada, Emily P.}, year={2022}, month={Mar} }
 @article{curington_bailey-hall_2021, title={Global gendered anti-Black belonging and racial ideology}, ISSN={["1751-9020"]}, DOI={10.1111/soc4.12927}, abstractNote={Abstract}, journal={SOCIOLOGY COMPASS}, author={Curington, Celeste Vaughan and Bailey-Hall, Miara}, year={2021}, month={Sep} }
 @article{bailey-hall_2021, title={Thick: And Other Essays}, volume={7}, ISSN={["2332-6505"]}, DOI={10.1177/2332649221990013}, abstractNote={What does it mean to be a problem for Black women and girls in a color-blind and “post-racial” society? Public sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom’s tour de force, Thick: And Other Essays, is a prism through which we can understand social issues that plague Black women and children today. The metaphor, Thick, unpacks the heterogeneity in Blackness and ethnicity which are often pathologized or neglected in the literature. By taking on a Black feminist “outsider within” stance, she makes a bridge between her experience and academic research by situating herself as the subject of interrogation. We learn in Thick how Black women from various class backgrounds experience and counteract racism. Cottom articulates how oppression is understood and interpreted differently. Thick exemplifies how first-person experience can be a rich source for data analysis and empirical research. The book discusses at length how Black women use impression management, code switching, and emotion work to secure their future. In what presents as a memoir, Cottom deconstructs controlling images of Black femininity as she deftly illustrates how Black women are still considered “social issues to be solved, and economic problems to be balanced (p. 10).” Although the text is not meant to be a complete representation of the Black experience, the reader gets a bird’s eye view into the complexities of systemic racism, sexism, colorism, body politics, and inequality. In Chapter 2, Cottom elucidates beauty’s many lures and traps—framing her critique through a popular culture reference. Explicitly, she writes “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled is convincing us that he does not exist (p. 59).” Her statement embodies beauty’s undemocratic nature, which is tacitly tied to commodification and capitalism. The closer we get to it, like a game of cat and mouse, the further away from us it goes. However, if we continue to believe that beauty is equitable, then its power becomes even more insidious. Cottom argues that, much in the same way that meritocracy is an illusion, women of color remain at a distance from idealized beauty. Thus, beauty, like meritocracy, functions as a means of legitimizing systems of oppression. If we believe that everyone can achieve success, be beautiful, and “make it,” it prevents us from overturning the system and seeking change. Chapter 3, Dying to be Competent, artfully illustrates and contextualizes how controlling images operate in maternal health. Controlling images are enduring characterizations of slavery that attempt to subvert the oppression Black people experience. Images of the Angry Black Woman, Jezebel, and Mammy typecast Black women through paternalistic notions as superhuman, unruly, and incompetent. As a result, credentials, capital, and status, such as celebrity, have only marginal effects on health outcomes. Personal stories like Cottom’s own and Serena Williams’ help frame and contextualize how Black women become overrepresented in the statistics for maternal mortality rates. Research shows that Black women are more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications. However, the disparities literature often invokes individual explanations, which obscure the systemic origins of the problem. Cottom’s finding calls into question the utility of such arguments as they reinforce respectability politics. It seems that playing by all the rules marginally affects the structural and political effects of racism for Black women. Amid narrating her struggles as a dark-skinned Black woman in predominantly White spaces, Cottom finds that society defines Blackness in more rigid terms. She illustrates the irreconcilable dilemma in which Black people find themselves as they attempt to live well and counter the stereotypes 990013 SREXXX10.1177/2332649221990013Sociology of Race and EthnicityBook Reviews research-article2021}, number={1}, journal={SOCIOLOGY OF RACE AND ETHNICITY}, author={Bailey-Hall, Miara}, year={2021}, month={Jan}, pages={141–U6} }