Why are some racial disparities harder to interpret than others?

By definition, every racial disparity entails an ordering of racial groups, with one positioned higher and another lower. Cultural frameworks typically interpret disparities by emphasizing higher outcome positions as desirable, while implicitly casting lower positions as requiring improvement. Structural frameworks, by contrast, interpret disparities by treating higher outcome positions as structurally advantaged and therefore as the locus of critique. This article proposes that each framework contains an implicit evaluative contrast that problematizes one side of the disparity either as "deficient" or as "advantaged." We introduce the concept of "normative interpretive strain" to describe the tension that emerges when empirical orderings place particular racial groups into positions carrying difficult or negative evaluative meanings. Using Asian, Black, and White comparisons in the U.S. context, we argue that, within cultural frameworks, normative interpretive strain emerges primarily when Black Americans occupy lower outcome positions associated with deficiency-oriented interpretations. Within structural frameworks, normative interpretive strain emerges when minority groups occupy positions associated with structural advantage and when White Americans no longer consistently occupy advantaged positions. The analysis proceeds in two stages. Part 1 examines dyadic comparisons, showing that Black-White disparities generate normative interpretive strain for cultural explanations while White-Asian disparities generate normative interpretive strain for structural explanations. Both frameworks encounter normative interpretive strain in Black-Asian comparisons. Part 2 extends the analysis to triadic comparison by examining outcome rankings among Asian, Black, and White populations across socioeconomic and health domains. Normative interpretive strain becomes more visibly apparent once multiple contrasts involving the same groups must be accommodated simultaneously. The analysis further shows how heterogeneity, selectivity, and multiplicity arguments operate as partial "repair" strategies for managing normative interpretive strain. By shifting attention from causal explanation to a priori meaning assignment to group rankings, the article maintains that normative interpretive strain is not an artifact of anomalous data or selective outcomes. Rather, it is an inherent feature of how racial disparities are rendered sociologically intelligible.