Search

The name Jezebel has long been associated with promiscuous and manipulative women since Biblical times. The name is now often associated with Black women and girls. In this paper, the author (1) explored the impact of the Jezebel stereotype on Black girls' sexual victimization, (2) discussed the impact of adverse childhood experiences, and (3) examined how carceral public systems harm Black girls and make them vulnerable to being sex trafficked. The carceral public systems discussed in this paper include educational settings and child welfare and juvenile justice systems. Recommendations to redress race and racism, classism, and sexism in these three settings are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an extension of a study focused on a small, suburban school district approximately 15 miles outside of Chicago, Illinois, situated in a uniquely diverse community with a host of racial, socioeconomic, linguistic identities. Despite the fact that 95% of its 2016–2017 kindergarten class had some form of preschool experience, gaps were observed in kindergarten readiness between Black and White students, leading to achievement gaps in later years. Consequently, the district has directed its focus on enhancing the levels of equity among its students. The original mixed-methods study explored potential factors of this readiness gap, including the types of services rendered by early education providers and access to high-quality early childhood education in the community. This paper narrows its focus to the experience of Black early learners in this district, particularly as it relates to their preschool experiences and special education rates. Qualitative interviews illuminated the following themes: (1) low levels of readiness and disproportionate special education service identification of Black students; (2) minimal socioeconomic and racial diversity in the community's private preschools; (3) few opportunities for special education services or financial support at private preschools; (4) high rates of minority students attending home-based childcare instead of formal preschool; and (5) differing approaches to family engagement and curriculum between the private schools and the district center. More research and community engagement is needed to fully explore the population of Black students with special needs and those who are not receiving formal childcare prior to enrolling in school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This autoethnography explores a fictional character known as "Sarah" who represents the Black woman's leadership experience in the U.S. federal government. Sarah is professional, loyal, and passionate in her pursuit of authentic leadership. Yet, she continues to struggle to find acceptance in her authentic identity and leadership style amongst her peers. Sarah has learned to create a balance of personal harmony and professional success and seeks to pass this wisdom on to the next generation. This paper contributes to the field of qualitative inquiry by providing poetic musings and insight into the work culture, race, and gender barriers that often impact Black women. Black women's voices were silenced during slavery, and they continue to seek a platform from which they can speak, be heard, and be equally included in modern conversations. Sarah's story seeks to provide voice, wisdom, and a unique forum to share four women's leadership journeys, in a palatable manner, to all audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the practical reality and experience of racism from the "internal point of view" of blacks who suffer racism and white racists. It uses this point of view to critically examine Carter's and Corlett's views regarding realism about race and racism. They suggest that theories must inquire about race and racism as categories for understanding the way-things-really-are. I argue that a plausible idea of racism, as a thick concept, must not be subservient to public policy. Rather, public policy must reflect experiential reality of racism. I argue that the views of Corlett and Carter, which tie racism to human agency, have heuristic value. However, they are too narrow; they have problematic implications, and do not sufficiently capture many putative cases and common usage of race and experience of racism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although a significant body of research clearly identifies parents as one of the strongest influences in the student college choice process, researchers have limited information about the interactions between African American students and parents during this process, and about what African American parents value in institutions of higher education. African American parental behavior resonates with the general literature on parental influence and involvement; however, African American college choice criteria also reflect the racialized experiences and identities of African American families in the USA. This paper sheds light on how African American parents navigate the college choice process with their children, and it contributes to a relatively small body of knowledge focused on culturally constructed African American parental influence and school engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to fill an important gap in the literature on BGLOs-how black fraternity men treat women. Analyzing interview and observation data from a 9-month study including 28 black fraternity men, I find that the level of accountability, visibility, and personalization elicited by the small black community at PWIs leads to black fraternity men acting as 'sophisticated practitioners' to strategize about the best ways to romantically and sexually engage women. Three factors-perception of the type of woman being engaged, desired relationship status, and structural conditions-facilitate the strategies (i.e., language usage and 'reverse psychology') they employ. Still, black fraternity men treat women more respectfully than white fraternity men and other black men due to the socialization process that black fraternity men normally undergo to be members of their organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Race, Wrongful Conviction & Exoneration is a sociological examination of the 'sociology of punishment' that is a major problem in criminological research but almost entirely ignored by sociologists who study and research issues related to crime. We argue that although legal scholars have done the bulk of research on exoneration they have not addressed the relationship of race to exoneration. This paper examines the risk that race produces for wrongful conviction and ultimately for exoneration. Additionally, we note the importance of the racial composition of the crime -African American men accused of raping White women - on wrongful convictions and exonerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the negotiations of race in The Princess and the Frog within the dual contexts of its setting and release. Central to these negotiations are Tiana's racial identity and her passing as a frog, as well as the film's attempt to pass as an African American princess narrative. In the process of excavating the film's racial contexts, this paper also addresses its reception by American critics, as well as how Disney, in its hypersensitivity to racial issues and its desire to fulfill so many competing agendas, has paradoxically created an animated feature which generally elides race, even as it redeploys multiple racial stereotypes. This paper concludes by (re)considering the implications of a black Disney princess who spends more time onscreen in green and embraces a hyper-ethos of hard work, as well as how the simulated selves on display renegotiate notions of racial identity in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organized in 1905, the Niagara Movement opposed racial discrimination in the U.S.A. and promoted its goals and means for racial uplift. During its second meeting in 1906 at Harpers Ferry, W.E.B. Du Bois wrote the “Address to the Country,” which set forth a series of demands for political and civil rights, and also called for Congressional intervention to secure those rights. This paper explores the critical spatiality of race, politics, and rights that inheres within the “Address” so that one can better understand the nationalizing strategy advocated by the Niagara Movement. Such a strategy implicated spatiality both as an end goal that supported civil and political rights via dismantling segregation and other discriminatory spatial structures, and also as a means—a politics of scale—that expanded the scope of political struggles to national arenas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent scholarship that suggests the continuity of assaults on the Black body is often articulated from academic spaces. This should neither surprise nor comfort us. Whereas the academy has been an intellectual space which has been complicit in the physical and intellectual justifications of nonwhite inferiority, it has also emerged as the space where it is now en vogue to question the normative valuations of whiteness. But, has anything changed? Are there any contradictions in such an ordering of knowledge? This paper examines how the original understandings of Blackness have been filtered into the ways of approaching and understanding African-descended people in the contemporary, neoliberal academy. Whether through the constructions of ethnic studies, the opening of the social sciences and humanities, or the development of liberal approaches to race within university administrative practices, it questions whether or not the academy has abdicated its role as a third pillar of racial capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper constitutes a reply to some concerns raised about my philosophical analyses of the concepts of race, ethnicity, and racism. My reply exposes some important misconceptions about my analyses and clarifies my views in order to move forward in the philosophical path that I have sought to articulate and for which I have argued. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a critical examination of the representations and code words for race and gender used in coverage of the Democratic primary between January 2008 and June 9, 2008. This analysis included all coverage in the New York Times and two cable television news channels (CNN, MSNBC). With an election pitting a black man against a white woman, media has been forced to go behind the colorblind curtain that typically ignores all but the most obvious references to race. Evidence illustrates how the mainstream media, in creating a story that resonates with commonsense understandings of race, gender and power, reworks representations of the candidates in a way that does not challenge white, masculine hegemony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we argue that both traditional psychology-based group identity theories related to race and sexuality and perspectives on the politics of difference obtained from poststructuralist queer theory underdetermine identity as it is experienced by a distinct subset of individuals, emblematized by non-traditional, non-conforming, and transgressive Black queers. We offer a new explanatory model for these emerging identities that is rooted in metaphysical explanations of human experience. To support our model, we draw historical and contemporary illustrations from African American popular culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sports cards may seem to be of little interest to social scientists, but sports cards and card collecting can be a rich and unique source of data for examining the social world. They reveal information not only about those who collect them, but about the society and social conditions under which they are produced. This paper examines a very unique numbering system developed by the Topps Chewing Gum Company (Topps) to differentiate status among the players appearing on the cards in its annual football sets. The system Topps developed assigned a number to each card that designated a player’s placement in a set, while simultaneously creating a hierarchical ordering among the players, purportedly based on their performance. Was the ranking of players in the numbering system truly based on performance or on other criteria, such as race? The findings of this study suggest that player position, and to a lesser degree his on-the-field performance, not race, was the main determinant of where he was located in the card set. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This quantitative study explores factors associated with the persistence rates of African American students aspiring to major in STEM subjects and who ultimately complete undergraduate STEM degrees. The primary data source for this study is the Cooperative Institutional Research Program's 2009 The Freshman Survey (TFS) and the 2013 College Senior Survey (CSS). The sample included 379 African American students who indicated on TFS that they intended to declare STEM as their major. The findings reveal that African American undergraduates are significantly more likely to persist in STEM majors with increased levels of faculty mentor engagement. The findings demonstrate the need for institutions to implement curricula that encourage meaningful faculty engagement to contribute to the creation of more inclusive academic environments for African American students in STEM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various programs and policies have been implemented to deal with concentrated poverty, especially in public housing developments located in urban centers across the nation (Goetz, 2003). The programs aim to move public housing residents to lower-poverty areas or to bring in higher-income individuals when the developments are redeveloped into mixed-income communities. Numerous studies that assess poverty deconcentration initiatives are critical of the programs (Joseph 2006; Imbroscio, 2012a, b; DeFilippis & Fraser, 2010). Most of these studies were done prior to the proliferation of contemporary racial justice movements, like the BlacksLivesMatter movement, and focus on issues of class. Using ethnographic data and semi-structured interviews, this research explores the discourse people use in their efforts to deconcentrate poverty in the city of Chicago and how public housing residents and organizers contest these views. This research finds that politicians, developers, and Chicago Housing Authority officials regularly use implicit and explicit narratives about race in their development and implementation of poverty deconcentration initiatives, despite broader dialog about racial disparities because of the BlackLivesMatters movement. The findings indicate that racialized discourse about the deficient behavior of residents and the spaces where they live is still foundational in the redevelopment of their communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Race may be a real entity when defined taxonomically without hierarchy as variation below the species level among groups within said species capable of interbreeding even though genetically distinct. This contradicts prevailing thinking about race as not real, only socially constructed. The phylogenetic tree is the lynchpin as it outlines the appearances of genetically distinct human groups—99% shared genomic template notwithstanding. Among the sapiens the de-pigmentation mutation from black Grimaldi to white Cro-Magnon as occurred in phylogeny as an explanation for race trumps ancestry/genetic population groups as an argument against race when so defined. Foundational facts of this argument along with major ramifications for social living—including indigeneity as a concept—should be taught age appropriately at all grade levels up through post-graduate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to a political comment from NBA superstar LeBron James, a Fox News commentator suggested he "shut up and dribble." James and many others considered the comment racist. Defenders suggested the comment was driven by political ideology rather than race. Interestingly, both perspectives could find support in existing research, as some studies depict race as a central factor in responses to political athletes, while other studies dismiss the role of race and find that political ideology and nationalistic sentiments drive how people see activist athletes. Using responses to a large national survey asking whether respondents find athlete political activism "acceptable," here I find strong evidence that both ideology and race shape attitudes on the subject. The picture that emerges reveals that party and ideology matter, but even after controlling for them, the race and racial views of the respondent help shape their perspective on political athletes. Establishing the importance of race and racial views here helps illuminate why the intersection of sports and politics generates such fierce responses including unvarnished vitriol from some political figures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racial stereotyping implies a form of racist thought which finds its justification in certain biological and phenotypical characteristics. Insults and slurs are indexical of the racism embedded in the characters' interactions. Various insinuations and expressions are loaded with racist import. Plays such as Dutchman and The Slave show how racial stereotyping in Baraka's plays undercuts images of the sambo and the brute, and concentrates on the utmost obvious physical characteristics and skin color. Racism and racialism are both components of the racial attitudes of Baraka's characters. Racism assumes that members of each race possess qualities specific to that race, so as to distinguish it as superior or inferior to another race. Racism draws a detailed map of differences in terms of physical, moral, and mental properties. In Baraka's drama, racism has two main forms: one is propositional and the other is dispositional. Propositional (extrinsic) racism conveys fierce racist behavior. Dispositional (intrinsic) racism is the expression of loyalty to the ethnic group and belonging to the community. Propositional racism supposes the salience of the racial character and essence. The belief in a racial essence steers toward racial differentiation, and fosters expansive racialization and classification. The objective of this article is to address the construct of propositional racism and delineate its manifestations. It will also tackle the concept of dispositional racism, and highlight how dispositional racism is connected to principles germane to morality and relevant to community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the gentrification of Fort Greene, which is located in the western part of black Brooklyn, one of the largest contiguous black urban areas in the USA. Between the late 1960s and 2003, gentrification in Fort Greene followed the patterns discovered by scholars of black neighborhoods; the gentrifying agents were almost exclusively black and gentrification as a process was largely bottom-up because entities interested in the production of space were mostly not involved. Since 2003, this has changed. Whites have been moving to Fort Greene in large numbers and will soon represent the numerical majority. Public and private interventions in and around Fort Greene have created a new top-down version of gentrification, which is facilitating this white influx. Existing black residential and commercial tenants are replaced and displaced in the name of urban economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article re-examines Nella Larsen's Quicksand (1928), a major Harlem Renaissance and African-American literary canon novel, against the tendency to focus on it as a tragic mulatta story. Instead, I argue that Larsen-like African-American authors dating back to Charles W. Chesnutt and Pauline Hopkins of the turn-of-the-century-challenged the trans-Atlantic racial exceptionalism by using a far more expansive critical lens that recognized a different mode of being. This being, defined by the literary category of the grotesque (popular in the 1920s and 1930s), recognizes ancient (African) times and a biomorphic mode in which humans, animals, and nature overlapped ontologically. The unique aspect of this article is that it reveals how Larsen also taps Danish literature as part of her critique of normative modern modes of thought, esthetics, politics, and spirituality. Ultimately, Larsen uses Quicksand to expose Western myths, including the stork myth, as deleterious to the more ancient myths that she excavates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the past 40 years, research studies have largely focused on sex equity issues. However, within the last few years, gender equity issues have become a hotly debated area of research. One may contend that sex is biologically determined maleness and femaleness; whereas, gender is influenced by cultural, social, and historical factors. Although, there has been much emphasis on the unfair treatment or exclusion of girls from science, the focus was mainly on White, middle class girls with little focus placed on Black girls. Thus, this has fueled the debate for the promotion of the 'Black Girl Turn' in research on gender, race, and science education, as over the centuries Blacks and girls have been denied their turn in science due to cultural and historical-biological reasons. This literature review concludes with a call for more student-based inquiry approaches that can explore and seek to understand Black females' experiences in science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resulting from the 2008 election (and 2012 re-election) of the first African-American President of the USA and the overrepresentation of African-American male athletes in American football and basketball today, it is possible that many Americans buy into the notion of a postracial society. Utilizing critical race theory as a lens, we interviewed five employees of an NBA franchise to better understand their perspectives on the topic of race and racism in American sport and society as a whole and, more specifically, how it has impacted African-American male professional athletes. This was a departure from the majority of the literature on this topic, which tends to focus on African-American male athletes in college sport. Our analysis of the data revealed three major themes: (1) the theme race matters, illustrated how race and racism persist in the NBA and broader society; (2) the theme moving forward concerned the participants' thoughts on how to go about dealing with race and racism in the future; and (3) the theme, LeBron James, was in reference to the backlash LeBron James received after deciding to play for the Miami Heat. Implications for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What, if any, changes have occurred in the nation's police departments 21 years after the Rodney King beating? To answer this question, this study examined findings provided by the National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project (NPMSRP). An additional goal of this study was to examine how the public generally perceive police and how race and racism shape this discourse. To answer this secondary question, we examined narratives provided by 36 contributors to the NPMSRP site. The following two questions were foundational to this study: (1) What do findings from the NPMSRP suggest about the rate of police brutality in America? (2) How do individuals perceive the police department, and what implications do these perceptions hold for Black men in America? In general, fatalities at the hands of police are higher than they are for the general public. Grounded theory analysis of the data revealed that individuals perceive members of law enforcement in the following ways: (a) contempt for law enforcement, (b) suspicion of law enforcement, (c) law enforcement as agents of brutality, and (d) respect for law enforcement. Supporting qualitative data are presented in connection with each of the aforementioned themes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Work on homicide has increasingly moved to cultural analysis that reframes basic sociological concepts like structure and value. In addition, symbolic interactionist work has increasingly focused on cultural structures. This study contributes to both efforts, framing homicide as variation in performances for group boundary production, that is, for the social distribution of prestige. Does gender and race identity represent different ways of performing homicide? The study uses Supplementary Homicide Reports, 2009 of the Unified Crime Reports data that the US Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation prepares. The study examines four direct effects of boundary production, namely black male, black female, white male, and white female statuses. It includes five performance regularities, gender and race, age, relationship to victim, condition of the homicide, and weapon used. The cross-classified analyses show cultural boundaries that associate with gender and race statuses. The study tests urban and southern residences of homicidal offenders using enter hierarchical logistic regressions and finds support for the hypothesis that cultural performances produce boundaries for geo-economic and geo-historical identifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important though under-examined novel of the Harlem Renaissance, Rudolph Fisher's The Walls of Jericho () is conversant with its contemporary intellectual and social developments. These include the assault on the racist biology-culture correspondence that was commonplace in anthropology and other sciences, and the political and symbolic gestures toward Africa, like those of the Back to Africa movement. But the novel's poignancy stems from the fact that it portends critical developments in race theory by underscoring the manifold-even fragmented-nature of black social and historical experience. Despite its rejection of biological determinism and its ambivalence about Africa as a referent and a source of identity, Fisher's novel does not relinquish its commitment to black struggle and black political consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research suggests African American male student-athletes tend to overemphasize their athlete role to the detriment of their academic performance (Harrison ). This article extends the literature by examining racial differences in the development of social capital among student-athletes. Results showed racial differences with White student-athletes reporting higher social network totals, trust, and overall social capital. Yet, no significant differences existed amongst student-athletes in either team social networks or team social capital. Results suggest African American athletes have developed a sense of reciprocity at the athletic team level, but this social capital does not extend beyond the sport team setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The black middle class has been the subject of a great deal of scholarly inquiry. Recently, scholars have directed their attention towards understanding how middle class blacks negotiate their racial identity. Some contend that blacks engage in strategic assimilation, working and sometimes living alongside members of the dominant group, while simultaneously maintaining social ties with members of their own racial group. To examine changes in the size and composition of the black middle class in various suburban contexts comparisons were made of selected demographic data from 1990 and 2000. The purpose of the study is to see if middle class blacks are engaging in strategic assimilation. The findings reveal that the size of the black middle class increased between 1990 and 2000 and that demographic differences exist between members of the black middle class based upon whether or not they reside inside or outside of the suburbs. The findings support the contention that middle class blacks are not engaging in strategic assimilation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gap in achievement between minority and non-minority students has become a national priority. To investigate the relationship between school racial composition and the race-based gaps in mathematic achievement, High School Effectiveness Study data on 3,392 students in 177 schools were analyzed. Multilevel analyses revealed that when at least half of the students in a school are Black or Hispanic, all student achievement is lower (for White as well as for ethnic minority students). Asian students’ achievement remains lowered until the percentage of Black and Hispanic students is less than 15%. However, schools that are 30–49% Black and/or Hispanic have more egalitarian achievement between White and Hispanic students. Although there is no one-size-fits-all model, this research does confirm that being in a school with a high a concentration of Black and Hispanic students lessens all students’ chances of academic achievement, even for students who otherwise should excel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although law prohibits de jure race bias in US college fraternities and sororities, racial separation prevails de facto through custom, tradition, and preference. While historically Black Greek Letter Organizations (BGLOs) are typically depicted as racially ‘closed’ and ‘exclusive,’ this article explores the social history and meaning of those instances when non-blacks have crossed that specific racial boundary. If Greek organizations act as a dominating influence upon campus life, the possibility exists that cross-racial Greek membership promotes intimacy, tolerance, and understanding, while also feasibly promoting the continued tokenism of “others” as a theme that earns the host organization multicultural credentials in a politically correct society. Specifically, this study adds nuance to the predominant account of diversity within US college fraternities and sororities by identifying, describing, and constructing a picture of an often-ignored aspect of cross-racial contact. To achieve this goal, qualitative approaches are employed including extant literature review, document gathering, and sociological analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]