Are We Welcome? African American Racial Acceptance in Leisure Activities and the Importance Given to Children's Leisure

Introduction The literature has acknowledged racial differences in leisure preferences and participation for decades. For example, Lee (1972) found that some leisure activities and settings could be assigned the labels Black and White. Schuman and Hatchett (1974) showed that African Americans participated in different leisure activities even in integrated neighborhoods. In a widely cited study, Washburne (1978) found that African Americans were significantly underrepresented in less developed, more natural outdoor recreation areas. More recently, West (1989) showed that African Americans were more likely to use city parks, while less likely to use surrounding regional parks, and that "interracial relations factors do seem to play a role in explaining underrepresentation by minorities in regional parks" (p. 11). From a similar viewpoint, Philipp (1995) found that the appeal of many leisure activities to African Americans, and the comfort felt while doing these activities, might be lessened by feelings of discrimination which were associated with the activities. Much of the discussion in the literature over this extended period has focused on explaining racial differences in leisure behavior using either "marginality" (e.g., income, social class, access) or "ethnicity" (e.g., subcultural values, language, traditions) theories, while at the same time largely ignoring the perceptions and emotions of African Americans in different leisure activities and locations. In addition, most of these investigations have also avoided discussion of the interactive effects of prejudice and discrimination in shaping African American leisure behavior despite the historical significance of racial discrimination in the United States over the last several hundred years and the scholarship that continues to document this discrimination (Bobo, 1987; Schuman, Steeh, & Bobo, 1985). West (1989) refers to this situation as the "cognitive tyranny of the dominant paradigms in leisure research on minorities" (p. 12), and states that the separation of the races in leisure places is staring many investigators in the face, "yet, due in part perhaps to the dominance of the 'subcultural' paradigm . . . -this stark fact goes unnoticed (or at least without comment)" (p. 12). In addition, "a consistent body of evidence in support of either (i.e., marginality or ethnicity) has not emerged" over several decades (Floyd, Shinew, McGuire, & Noe, 1994, p. 159). It appears a different conceptual approach is needed to move the literature beyond the present theoretical boundaries of marginality and ethnicity to provide a more complete understanding of African American leisure behavior and why race matters. Such a conceptual framework would acknowledge the power of racial discrimination in the formation of African American attitudes and behavior, and then address African American perceptions of racial acceptance and discrimination which may be associated with leisure activities and locations. This kind of framework would most likely provide a more complete explanation of African American leisure than investigations which only addressed marginality or ethnicity factors. In addition, a theoretical framework which acknowledged discrimination and the racial acceptance associated with leisure activities would have important consequences for understanding how some leisure preferences are formed in African American children, since the literature suggests that children's behavior has been strongly influenced by parental beliefs and behavior (Sigel, 1985). Barnett and Chick (1986) found that parents subtly communicate "leisure messages" (p. 266) which the child then mirrors in many ways. Parental perceptions of the racial acceptance associated with leisure activities may then have considerable influence upon children's leisure preferences and participation patterns. Another important concern for leisure research concerns the growing importance of the African American middle-class. …