Digital Commons Network^™

'I Can’T Vote If I Don’T Leave My Apartment’: The Problem Of Residential Violence And Its Impact On The Politics Of Black American Women Living Below The Poverty Line, Alex J. Moffett-Bateau

Publications and Research

Prior research examining political behavior outside of the United States, has shown that violence can have a mixed impact on political engagement. Building on that work, this research examines whether violence shapes the political lives of poor Black women within the United States. I argue, neighborhood violence in the United States can and often does, shape the political behavior of Black women living below the poverty line in public housing. I use ethnographic data to parse out a conceptual framework which articulates connections between residential violence experienced by Black women living in poverty and their politics. Ultimately, my analysis shows …

Dreaming Of Home: Youth Researchers Of Color Address Nyc’S Housing Crisis, Samuel Finesurrey, Waleska Cabrera, Meldis Jimenez, Brittiny Ando, Alanna Garcia, Alexander Garcia, Jayden Johnstone, Abdul Mohammed, Sheylany Paulino, Edwin Reed, Emelyn Saavedra, Gisselle Saavedra, Rajendra Singh, Aysia Smith, Marlena Syriaque

Publications and Research

New Yorkers are facing a housing crisis. Long-standing disparities of race and class in New York City have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Coronavirus and the looming eviction crisis threaten working-class communities, immigrant families and youth searching for housing stability throughout the city. This report is a call to action demanding that city and state elected officials, along with civic leaders, address the housing crisis that youth are inheriting. A team of youth housing fellows, housing organizers from the Broadway Housing Communities, and CUNY academics shaped this project around the ethos, “No research about us, without us.” The work …

From Diversity To Inclusion: Challenges And Opportunities At An Urban Community College, Vanessa Marie Bing, Jason Hendrickson, Wendy Nicholson

Publications and Research

Diversity is and has been heralded as a cornerstone among high-impact practices within adult education in the United States. It embodies a larger ethos and culture within a campus, including the demography of the student body, staff, and faculty, as well as institutional memory. Yet, diversity is not enough. Inclusion is undervalued, which goes beyond taking solace in bringing together diverse bodies within the room; rather, inclusion requires an institutional response that ensures that these high-impact practices are fully realized. This paper examines the efforts undertaken at an urban community college where the student body reflects racial and cultural diversity …

"How Mature Are We? The Enduring Legacy Of Martin Luther King, Jr.'S 'Beyond Vietnam' Speech", Kristopher B. Burrell

Publications and Research

This speech was given by Dr. Kristopher Burrell on January 15, 2018 at St. Paul’s Church — National Historic Site, Mount Vernon, NY.

Remotivating The Black Vote: The Effect Of Low-Quality Information On Black Voters In The 2016 Presidential Election And How Librarians Can Intervene, Andrew P. Jackson, Denyvetta Davis, James Kelly Alston

Publications and Research

In a phenomenon that was surprising to many, given the racially charged nature of the 2016 presidential election, black voter turnout was significantly lower than the previous two elections. Donald Trump’s victory is attributable to many factors, one of which was the lower participation of black voters in several swing states. To a lesser extent, black support for third-party candidates also aided Trump’s victory. The lower black turnout itself is attributable to several factors, but one factor specifically in the LIS realm was the prevalence of low-quality information and rhetoric and a susceptibility that some black voters had to this …

Learning To Disclose: A Post Colonial Autoethnography Of Transracial Adoption, Joni Schwartz, Rebecca Schwartz

Publications and Research

This autoethnographic research project examines the transformational learning of a transracial adoptive adult mother and daughter through the lens of postcolonialism. As collaborative researchers, adult adoptee and adoptive mother, examine this lifelong learning experience through critical self-reflection, qualitative meta-analysis, and autoethnographic research methods within the overarching historical and sociopolitical context of Haiti. The findings address the lived complexities of increasingly hybrid families, particularly around the contentious boundaries of race, nationality, and colonial history, as they impact transformational learning. Color blindness and racial identity development for both mother and daughter within their relationship are explored. Implications for adult educators around the …

Study: Students Often Perceived Differently By Race., Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

In past columns, I have reported on more than one study that shows that expectations for “brilliance” for women in higher education were much higher than that for males. For example, when a research paper is co-authored by a male and a female the assumption by many is that the male did “the real work.”

Now comes a study showing that there is a similar bias when it comes to students – only this time the differences are based on race.

From Porto Alegre To New York City: Participatory Budgeting And Democracy, Celina Su

Publications and Research

Because of its popularity, there is now a large literature examining how participatory budgeting (PB) deepens participation by the poor and redistributes resources. Closer examinations of recent cases of PB can help us to better understand the political configurations in which these new participatory democratic spaces are embedded, and articulate the conditions that might lead to more meaningful outcomes. Who participates? For whose benefit? The articles in this symposium, on participatory budgeting in New York City (PBNYC), highlight both strengths and challenges of the largest American PB process. They focus less on redistribution, more on the dimensions of the process …

Toward The Anthropology Of White Nationalist Postracialism: Comments Inspired By Hall, Goldstein, And Ingram’S “The Hands Of Donald Trump”, Jeff Maskovsky

Publications and Research

This article explains Donald Trump’s brutal political effectiveness in terms of his white nationalist appeal. It locates the intellectual, popular, and policy imperatives of Trumpism in a new form of racial politics that I am calling white nationalist postracialism. This is a paradoxical politics of twenty-first-century white racial resentment whose proponents seek to do two contradictory things: to reclaim the nation for white Americans while also denying an ideological investment in white supremacy. The article shows how Trump’s excoriation of political correctness, his nostalgia for the post–WWII industrial economy, his use of hand gestures, and his public speaking about race …

Reclaiming The Streets: Black Urban Insurgency And Antisocial Security In Twenty-First-Century Philadelphia, Jeff Maskovsky

Publications and Research

This article focuses on the emergence of a new pattern of black urban insurgency emerging in major US metropolitan areas such as Philadelphia. I locate this pattern in the context of a new securitization regime that I call “antisocial security.” This regime works by establishing a decentered system of high-tech forms of surveillance and monitory techniques. I highlight the dialectic between the extension of antisocial security apparatuses and techniques into new political and social domains on the one hand and the adoption of these same techniques by those contesting racialized exclusions from urban public space on the other. I end …

A Conceptual Content Analysis Of 75 Years Of Diversity Research In Public Administration, Meghna Sabharwal, Helisse Levine, Maria J. D’Agostino

Publications and Research

Diversity is an important facet of public administration, thus it is important to take stock and examine how the discipline has evolved in response to questions of representative democracy, social equity, and diversity. This article assesses the state-of-the-field by addressing the following question: How has research on diversity in the field of public administration progressed over time? Specifically, we seek to examine how the focus of diversity has transformed over time and the way the field has responded to half a century of legislation and policies aimed at both promoting equality and embracing difference. We utilize a conceptual content analysis …

Low Income Lgbtgnc (Gender Nonconforming) Struggles Over Shelters As Public Space, Michelle Billies

Publications and Research

As a focal point of neoliberalism in the US, New York City has been made the advance guard of both welfare reform and order maintenance policing, making the 2008 recession all the more destabilizing among low-income LGBTGNC (gender nonconforming) residents. At the same time, expanding gay rights have accompanied this neoliberal turn, defining while masking new intersectionalities of oppression, policing some raced and classed sexualities and genders while protecting others, producing an urban landscape conducive to neoliberal aims (Ferguson, 2004; Puar, 2007). In the process of attracting capital, homonormative discourses and practices have increasingly bolstered white and multicultural classprivileged gay …