African American Studies Commons^™

Toward Christian-Identity Response Theory : Exploring Identity, Spirituality, And Response To Adversity Among African American Males Placed At Risk, Charity Hannah Garcia

Charity Garcia

Problem: A lack of research integrating spiritual development as a central component of human development does not reflect an understanding of the whole person across multiple contexts throughout the life span. Such a limited-capacity view of African American males disproportionately disadvantaged, both historically and currently, has been detrimental. A theoretical model for how a relational journey with Christ may offer insights that lead to transformative practice in various educational settings.

Method: Constructivist grounded theory was utilized throughout this research process. Thirty-four African American males in three age groups (13-17; 18-25; 26+) who were placed at risk during adolescence and connected …

The Hegemonic Struggle And Domination In Black Greek-Letter Fraternities., Ricky L. Jones

Ricky L. Jones

Hazing in black Greek-letter fraternities (BGFs) on the campuses of colleges and universities has been attacked by BGF national efforts, the practice persists and shows few signs of subsiding. Problems in studying hazing continue partly because scopes of inquiry are hazing alive are never engaged. One problem is that too little attention is paid to the historical roots of the organizations' initiation rituals (Jones, 1997).

Toward A Cleaner Whiteness: New Racial Identities, David Ingram

David Ingram

The article re-examines racial and ethnic identity within the context of pedagogical attempts to instill a positive white identity in white students who are conscious of the history of white racism and white privilege. The paper draws heavily from whiteness studies and developmental cognitive science in arguing (against Henry Giroux and Stuart Hall) that a positive notion of white identity, however postmodern its construction, is an oxymoron, since whiteness designates less a cultural/ethnic ethos and meaningful way of life than a pathological structure of privilege and narrowminded cognitive habitus.

Mapping The Oratory Of Frederick Douglass, Olivia Macisaac, Peter Harrah, David Lewis, Lynette Taylor, Leann West, Matthew Young

Olivia MacIsaac

This project is a multidisciplinary study of Douglass’s speaking tours throughout his long public career as an abolitionist, human rights advocate, and politician. For this initial phase, our primary aim was data collection for which our research team sampled a single year from each of the six decades from the 1840s to the 1890s. This was the time period in which well-known runaway slave and civil rights leader Frederick Douglass toured the United States and Europe. The purpose of this study is to develop a spatial representation of the itinerary of Douglass’s speaking-related travels. This will not only enable us …

Race Prominent Feature In Coverage Of Trayvon Martin, Erin Willis, Chad Painter

Chad Painter

This textual analysis examines news framing of the shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman. After studying coverage from The Sanford Herald (North Carolina), The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and The Denver Post, the authors conclude national media perpetuated racial stereotypes, thus heightening the issue of race and making the case more emotional than factual. Readers outside of Sanford, N.C., had few details about the physical altercation, the heart of Zimmerman’s self-defense claim.

Foul Ball: Audience-Held Stereotypes Of Baseball Players, Patrick Ferrucci, Edson C. Tandoc Jr., Chad Painter, J. David Wolfgang

Chad Painter

This study experimentally tested whether participants held and/or applied stereotypes of baseball players. Participants were asked to rate white, black, and Latino baseball players based on stereotypes consistently identified in previous literature. Participants saw a photo of a player and an anonymous paragraph from a newspaper that highlighted a particular stereotype. They were then asked to rate the author's credibility. Black players were rated as higher in physical strength and natural ability, consistent with previous literature concerning how athletes were described. However, white and Latin players were not stereotyped. But participants rated white-consistent descriptions as credible and Latin-consistent descriptions as …

Flipping The Script: Newspaper Reporting Of The Trayvon Martin Shooting, Chad Painter, Erin Willis

Chad Painter

The purpose of this chapter is to examine newspaper coverage of the George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin shooting and the frames of race and crime used in the context of newsworthiness. The researchers analyzed 1,177 articles in one local, six statewide, and three national newspapers. The local paper focused on the shooting and the ensuing police investigation instead of social and political issues, and local-interest stories instead of national events. There was virtually no mention of race. Coverage in the six Florida papers was mixed between details of the case and social issues such as Florida's Stand Your Ground law. There were …

A Black And White Game: Racial Stereotypes In Baseball, Patrick Ferrucci, Edson C. Tandoc Jr., Chad Painter, Glenn Leshner

Chad Painter

The current study experimentally tested stereotypes and credibility of messages associated with athletes. Participants were asked to rate photos of black and white baseball players based on stereotypes identified in previous literature. They were then given an anonymous paragraph from a newspaper that featured either a stereotype consistent or inconsistent message and asked to rate the author's credibility. Black players were rated significantly higher in physical strength and natural ability, which is consistent with previous literature. However, inconsistent with previous literature, white players were not rated significantly higher in intelligence and leadership. Despite these results, when measuring credibility, this study …

Implementing A Community-Based Intervention For African American Mothers And Daughters, Teri Aronowitz, Nandini Sengupta

Teri Aronowitz

Adolescents represent one of the fastest growing risk groups for HIV. Inner-city, minority youth are at highest risk because of concentration of HIV in inner-city areas, higher rates of STDs, and early sexual initiation. Mothers are the primary sex educator of daughters, and girls state their relationship with their mother was an important influence on their delaying sexual activity. With 70% of adolescent HIV seroconversions occurring among African American (AA) females, studies are urgently needed to enhance mother-daughter sexual communication. The purpose of this poster is to offer insights on the logistics of carrying out a manualized program.

Ua1b2/1 A Commemoration Of Wku's Integration: 1956-2006, Howard Bailey, Monica G. Burke, John Hardin, Sherese Martin, Maxine Ray, C. J. Woods

Monica Burke

A publication that chronicles the history of WKU's desegregation efforts. This commemorative publication is also an historical document that highlights the prolific accomplishments of WKU African American graduates. The impact of Western's spirit on countless African American graduates and the Bowling Green community unfolds in the pages that follow. The joy of having access to an education, the struggles of transforming an institutional climate, the kindness of WKU faculty, staff, and students and the rewards of walking across the stage in Diddle arena are chronicled by those who experienced it firsthand.

The Black Church : Responding To The Drug-Related Mass Incarceration Of Young Black Males : "If You Had Been Here My Brother Would Not Have Died!", Sharon E. Moore, A. Christson Adedoyin, Michael A. Robinson, Daniel A. Boamah

Sharon E. Moore

The mass incarceration of young Black males for drug-related offences is a social issue that has broad implications. Some scholars have described this as a new form of racism that needs to be addressed through the concerted effort of various institutions, including the Black Church. In this paper the authors will elucidate the past and current roles of the Black Church, discuss the utilization of the social work Theory of Empowerment and Black Church theology to address the disproportionality of drug-related mass incarceration of young Black males, focus on initiatives undertaken by the Black Church to address this issue and …

Surprise, Sensemaking, And Success In The First College Year: Black Undergraduate Men’S Academic Adjustment Experiences, Shaun R. Harper, Ph.D., Christopher B. Newman

Shaun R. Harper, Ph.D.

African-Americans And The Administration Of Justice, E. Yvonne Moss, Roy Austin, Nolan Jones, Barry Krisberg, Hubert Locke, Michael Radelet, Susan Welch

Barry A Krisberg

The status of African Americans in relationship to the administration of justice has improved since the 1940s. Significantly, however, researchers continue to find racial discrimination and racial disadvantage operating in various aspects of the criminal justice process in numerous jurisdictions. Such findings are unacceptable in a society that claims to honor equal justice under law.

This article is reprinted from Summary, Volume 1 of the Assessment of the Status of African-Americans series, published in 1990 by the William Monroe Trotter Institute, University of Massachusetts at Boston, and edited by Wornie L. Reed. Materials included in the article were adapted …

A Narrative Inquiry Of Successful Black Male College Students, Malou Chantal Harrison

Malou Chantal Harrison

Despite a growing enrollment of Black males in colleges and universities in the U.S., the nationwide college degree completion rate for Black males remains at disproportionately low numbers as compared to other ethnicities and to that of Black females. The purpose of this narrative inquiry study was to evoke and promote the voices of successful Black male students and to understand their perspectives on factors that contributed to their college success. Findings from this research provide insight into college experiences and interventions that have positive implications for Black male college student success. Valencia's (2010) work on educational attainment served as …

Environmental Justice And Health: An Analysis Of Persons Of Color Injured At The Work Place, Jennifer Schoenfish-Keita, Glenn Johnson

Glenn S Johnson

Occupational and environmental hazards have a direct impact on people of color lives. People of color are disproportionately employed in the dirtiest and low-paying jobs in the United States. This study investigates workplace safety for persons of color from the analysis of three personal injury cases. These personal injury cases include two African-American females and one African American male who were killed or severely injured as a result of their job or the type of transportation they used trying to get to their place of work. The authors use the Environmental Justice Framework to examine how persons of color are …

Being Black Academic Mothers, Angela Lewis, Sherri Wallace, Clarissa Peterson

Sherri L. Wallace

Women Of African Descent: Persistence In Completing A Doctorate, Vannetta L. Bailey-Iddrisu

Vannetta L. Bailey-Iddrisu

This study examines the educational persistence of women of African descent (WOAD) in pursuit of a doctorate degree at universities in the southeastern United States. WOAD are women of African ancestry born outside the African continent. These women are heirs to an inner dogged determination and spirit to survive despite all odds (Pulliam, 2003, p. 337).This study used Ellis’s (1997) Three Stages for Graduate Student Development as the conceptual framework to examine the persistent strategies used by these women to persist to the completion of their studies.

A. Philip Randolph And Boston's African-American Railroad Worker, James R. Green, Robert C. Hayden

James R. Green

On October 8, 1988, a group of retired Pullman car porters and dining car waiters gathered in Boston's Back Bay Station for the unveiling of a larger-than-life statue of A. Philip Randolph. During the 1920s and 1930s, Randolph was a pioneering black labor leader who led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. He came to be considered the "father of the modern civil rights movement" as a result of his efforts to desegregate World War II defense jobs and the military services. Randolph's importance as a militant leader is highlighted by a quote inscribed on the base of the statue …

Do Historically Black Institutions Of Higher Education Confer Unique Advantages On Black Students? An Initial Analysis, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Donna S. Rothstein

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] Despite the declining relative importance of HBIs in the production of black bachelor's degrees, in recent years they have become the subject of intense public policy debate for two reasons. First, court cases have been filed in a number of southern states that assert that black students continue to be underrepresented at traditionally white public institutions, that discriminatory admissions criteria are used by these institutions to exclude black students (e.g., basing admissions only on test scores and not also on grades), and that per student funding levels, program availability, and library facilities are substantially poorer at public HBIs than …

Beyond Dogma: The Role Of "Evolutionary" Science And The "Embodiment" Of Archetypal Energies, Carroy U. Ferguson

Carroy U "Cuf" Ferguson, Ph.D.

At individual and collective levels (locally, nationally, and globally), humanity is currently entertaining many challenges and opportunities for growth. In my view, these challenges and opportunities are connected to Energy shifts that are taking place on the planet, and the inability of some to move beyond dogma in relating to these Energy shifts. By its pre- and proscriptive nature, dogma fosters limiting beliefs that often interfere with how best to relate to these Energy shifts as vibrational beings in an evolving, vibrational world. Here, I want to briefly identify some of the limiting effects of dogma, and the role of …

Are Black Colleges Producing Today's African-American Lawyers?, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

In past years, almost all of America's black lawyers came from historically black colleges and universities because these schools were the only ones that would admit black students. Today, it appears that black colleges are producing increasingly fewer of the nation's black lawyers.

Two Tales Of A City: Nineteenth-Century Black Philadelphia, Nick Salvatore

Nick Salvatore

[Excerpt] In the tension between Forging Freedom and Roots of Violence certain themes present themselves for further research and thought. Neither volume successfully analyzes the historical roots of the African-American class structure. This is especially evident in each book's treatment of the black middling orders. While neither defines the category with clarity, their basic assumption that small shopkeepers and regularly employed workers were critical to the community's ability to withstand some of the worst shocks of racism is important. The clash between these books also raises questions concerning the role of pre-industrial cultural values in the transition to industrial capitalism. …

Black Youth Nonemployment: Duration And Job Search: Comment, Ronald Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] Holzer's paper has a number of attributes that I find very appealing. It focuses on an important topic and uses two different data bases to test the robustness of its findings. It uses alternative specifications of the variable of interest (reservation wages), examines the sensitivity of the results to alternative sets of control variables, uses a variety of statistical methods to confront a number of statistical issues, and honestly reports cases in which any of the above leads to differences in results. Finally, the paper does not claim more than the evidence warrants—a feature not present in enough academic …

In Appreciation Of Birago I. Diop: A Subtle Advocate Of Négritude, Winston E. Langley

Winston E. Langley

The closing weeks of the last decade brought with them the death of three distinguished world figures: Samuel Beckett, the Irish-French playwright, novelist, and poet; Andrei D. Sakharov, the Soviet nuclear physicist, human rights advocate, and leader in the international disarmament movement; and Birago I. Diop, the Senegalese poet, storyteller, and statesman. In the case of the former two, leading U.S. newspapers and other media paid merited tribute in the amplest of proportions; in case of the last, however, it was as if he had either never lived or had gained no standing of importance worthy of much attention. Diop …

Finger Lickin’ Good: An Analytical Investigation Into The Urban Diet, Jennifer T.R. Tomlinson

Jennifer T.R. Tomlinson

In this analysis, the origins, customs and implications of fast-food culture will be explored with important focus on the customs of fast-food urban eating. Research indicates that lower-income urban areas are more likely to consume fast-food. The high consumption of fast-food subsequently results in the development of social and economical implications, which include health implications, economic dilemmas, a disconnection between consumers and their consumption and issues of social classification. This analysis also explores the customs of fast-food culture of Pine Hills, Florida with added emphasis on Pine Hills’ cultural uniqueness.

New Orleans Unveiled: Fanon And A Reconceptualization Of The Performative, Lynnell Thomas

Lynnell Thomas

This article examines Frantz Fanon's "Algeria Unveiled" as a reconceptualization of J. L. Austin's theory of the performative. Austin, whose examples of the performative all assume an equal, if not harmonious, relationship, overlooks instances of incompatibility and inequality. Fanon's post-colonial framework, in contrast, illustrates the markedly different types of intentions, uptake, and conventions which inform the speech act in cases of extreme inequality. In these cases, the powerless and seemingly voiceless use tacitly agreed upon conventions inappropriately to attain what they would not be able to have otherwise. Fanon's notion of the performative is used to explore the performative resistance …

A People's History Of Baseball, Mitchell J. Nathanson

Mitchell J Nathanson

Baseball is much more than the national pastime. It has become an emblem of America itself. From its initial popularity in the mid-nineteenth century, the game has reflected national values and beliefs and promoted what it means to be an American. Stories abound that illustrate baseball's significance in eradicating racial barriers, bringing neighborhoods together, building civic pride, and creating on the field of play an instructive civics lesson for immigrants on the national character. In A People's History of Baseball, Mitchell Nathanson probes the less well-known but no less meaningful other side of baseball: episodes not involving equality, patriotism, heroism, …

Book Review: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration In The Age Of Colorblindness, Nick J. Sciullo

Nick J. Sciullo

Many in the legal academy have heard of Michelle Alexander’s new book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness. It has been making waves. One need only attend any number of legal conferences in the past year or so, or read through the footnotes in recent law review articles. Furthermore, this book has been reviewed in journals from a number of academic fields, suggesting Alexander has provided a text with profound insights across the university and public spheres. While I will briefly talk about the book as a book, I will spend the majority of this …

Nostalgia For The Liberal Hour: Talkin' 'Bout The Horizons Of Norman Jewison's Generation, Daniel Mcneil

Daniel McNeil

Critical Race Theory As Theoretical Framework And Analysis Tool For Population Health Research, Louis Graham, Shelly Brown-Jeffy, Robert Aronson, Charles Stephens

Louis F Graham

In population health research, it is important to consider socioecological perspectives that include cultural attitudes and beliefs which permeate all levels (intrapersonal, interpersonal, institutional/community, and structural/ policy). Given the specificity of target populations centered on identity – ethnic and others – it is appropriate and warranted to centralize cultural studies theories into health determinant investigations. Cultural studies, which focus explicitly on identity exploration and impacts, have much to contribute to health research. In accordance with the transdisciplinary nature of population health and bearing in mind the significant role of ethnic identity in health outcomes, it is beneficial to utilize critical …