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Articles 1 - 16 of 16

Full-Text Articles in African American Studies

Shaking The Closet: Analyzing Johnny Mathis’S Sexual Elusiveness, 1956-1982, Vincent L. Stephens Nov 2010

Shaking The Closet: Analyzing Johnny Mathis’S Sexual Elusiveness, 1956-1982, Vincent L. Stephens

Vincent L Stephens

Though pop crooner Johnny Mathis inadvertently revealed his homosexuality in a 1982 “off-the-record” interview his sexuality had long been an open secret prior to this disclosure. “Shaking the Closet” argues that the notion of “the closet” is insufficient for understanding Mathis’s career and those of many other seemingly “closeted” queer public figures. The presentation suggests that the non-threatening sexual image Mathis presented in the 1950s was an overt commercial strategy intended to appease white audiences and adhere to an imperative for public respectability, an enduring theme within African-American cultural politics. Despite these seeming compromises close critical attention to his musical …


Spiritually Integrative Archetypal Energies And Glimpes Into Soul Consciousness, Carroy U. Ferguson Oct 2010

Spiritually Integrative Archetypal Energies And Glimpes Into Soul Consciousness, Carroy U. Ferguson

Carroy U "Cuf" Ferguson, Ph.D.

In other writings I have described Archetypal Energies as Higher Vibrational Energies that have their own transcendent value, purpose, quality, and “voice” unique to the individual that operate deep within our psyches, at both individual and collective levels. We tend to experience them as “creative urges” to move us toward our Highest Good or Optimal Realities. I use easily recognized terms to evoke a common sense of these Archetypal Energies (e.g., Love, Acceptance, Inclusion, Harmony, Peace). Here, I want to discuss Spiritually Integrative Archetypal Energies and how they can assist us in gaining glimpses into the nature of our unique …


“Race And The Liberal Imagination: The Representation Of African Americans In To Kill A Mockingbird.”, Sundiata K. Cha-Jua Jul 2010

“Race And The Liberal Imagination: The Representation Of African Americans In To Kill A Mockingbird.”, Sundiata K. Cha-Jua

Sundiata K Cha-Jua

Written during the summer of 1959 and published fifty years ago day, To Kill a Mockingbird is perhaps the most insightful and prescient work of fiction on race in America—Black and white--written by a white author at its time. It is part of what cultural critics describe as the racial liberalism of the 1950s. Though uneven in its depiction of African Americans and the Black community and perhaps not fully cognizant of the thread of resistance that though tattered runs throughout the African American sociohistorical experience, it nonetheless offers a humanistic portrayal of Black people. In my remarks, I will …


Should Writers Use They Own English, Vershawn A. Young Jun 2010

Should Writers Use They Own English, Vershawn A. Young

Vershawn A Young

This paper argues against critic Stanley Fish's assertion that students should not use dialect in academic writing.


Nah, We Straight: An Argument Against Code-Switching, Vershawn A. Young Jun 2010

Nah, We Straight: An Argument Against Code-Switching, Vershawn A. Young

Vershawn A Young

Although linguists have traditionally viewed code-switching as the simultaneous use of two language varieties in a single context, scholars and teachers of English have appropriated the term to argue for teaching minority students to monitor their languages and dialects according to context. For advocates of code-switching, teaching students to distinguish between “home language” and “school language” offers a solution to the tug-of-war between standard and nonstandard Englishes. This paper argues that this kind of code-switching may actually facilitate the illiteracy and academic failure that educators seek to eliminate and can promote resistance to Standard English rather than encouraging its use


Athletic Voices And Academic Victories: African American Male Student-Athlete Experiences In The Pac-Ten, Keith Harrison May 2010

Athletic Voices And Academic Victories: African American Male Student-Athlete Experiences In The Pac-Ten, Keith Harrison

Dr. C. Keith Harrison

The purpose of this study was to explore participants’ academic experiences and confidence about their academic achievement. Participants (N = 27) consisted of high-achieving African American male student—athletes from four academically rigorous American universities in the Pac-Ten conference. Most of the participants competed in revenue-generating sports and were interviewed to obtain a deeper understanding of their successful academic experiences. Utilizing a phenomenological approach four major themes emerged: “I Had to Prove I’m Worthy,” “I’m a Perceived Threat to Society,” “It’s About Time Management,” and “It’s About Pride and Hard Work.” Stereotype threat and stereotype reactance are investigated in relation to …


Lincoln: Yesterday And Today, Sundiata K. Cha-Jua Apr 2010

Lincoln: Yesterday And Today, Sundiata K. Cha-Jua

Sundiata K Cha-Jua

No abstract provided.


Can You Really See Through A Squint? Theoretical Underpinnings In The 'Our Sister Killjoy', Cheryl Sterling Mar 2010

Can You Really See Through A Squint? Theoretical Underpinnings In The 'Our Sister Killjoy', Cheryl Sterling

Cheryl Sterling

Ama Ata Aidoo’s Our Sister Killjoy is read as an inversion of the colonial travel narrative, addressing the continued asymmetrical power relations between Europe and Africa. The paper posits Sissie, its focal character, as a site of theoretical transformations, engaging with issues of racial subjectivity, sexuality and political positionality in relation to the neo-colonial African state. It further argues that Aidoo situates a performative self in the text through an interrogatory narrative voice that succeeds in both deforming the novelistic pattern and participating in the critique of Western subjectivity and hegemonic feminist positioning, while inserting a resistant feminist ideology into …


Introduction To The Special Issue Defending Ethnic Studies In Arizona: Obama, The Rise Of The Hard Right, Arizona And Texas And The Attack On Racialized Communities Studies, Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua Feb 2010

Introduction To The Special Issue Defending Ethnic Studies In Arizona: Obama, The Rise Of The Hard Right, Arizona And Texas And The Attack On Racialized Communities Studies, Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua

Sundiata K Cha-Jua

Arizona’s and Texas’s recent anti-ethnic studies enactments have a long and sordid history; they represent the culmination of Eurocentric, nativist and racist initiatives begun decades ago, though their roots go back nearly two hundred years. Arizona House Bill 2281 represents rightwing responses to the current national socioeconomic crisis and the state’s failing economy. According to Duane Campbell, a progressive political economist, “with little else to offer the unemployed, scapegoating immigrants has become a substitute in Arizona for having a real solution to solving the economic needs of its residents.” Collectively, HB 2281 and the Texas State Board of Education revisions …


Walking In Another’S Skin: Failure Of Empathy In To Kill A Mockingbird, Katie Rose Guest Pryal Jan 2010

Walking In Another’S Skin: Failure Of Empathy In To Kill A Mockingbird, Katie Rose Guest Pryal

Katie Rose Guest Pryal

Empathy — how it is discussed and deployed by both the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird and by the author, Lee — is a useful lens to view the depictions of racial injustice in the novel because empathy is the moral fulcrum on which the narrative turns. In this essay, I argue that To Kill a Mockingbird fails to aptly demonstrate the practice of cross-racial empathy. As a consequence, readers cannot empathize with the (largely silent) black characters of the novel. In order to examine the concept of empathy, I have developed a critical framework derived from rhetorician Kenneth …


“The New Nadir: The Contemporary Black Racial Formation,” In Special Issue, “Black Political Economy.”, Sundiata K. Cha-Jua Jan 2010

“The New Nadir: The Contemporary Black Racial Formation,” In Special Issue, “Black Political Economy.”, Sundiata K. Cha-Jua

Sundiata K Cha-Jua

"THE NEW NADIR: The Political Economy of the Contemporary Black Racial Formation" explores how the transformation to financialized global racial capitalism has structured the lives of contemporary African Americans. My main thesis is that the transformation to a new capitalist accumulation structure has reversed or mitigated most of the socioeco- nomic, but not the political gains achieved by the civil rights and Black Power movements.


Women-Space, Power And The Sacred In Afro-Brazilian Culture, Cheryl Sterling Jan 2010

Women-Space, Power And The Sacred In Afro-Brazilian Culture, Cheryl Sterling

Cheryl Sterling

This article places Afro-Brazilian women in the midst of the discourse of globalization, in light of its impact on marginalizing women of color, economically, politically, and culturally. It extends the concept of globalizing discourses to the history of enslavement and the racialist policies in Brazilian society, as seen in its policy of embranquecimento and the myth of Brazil as a racial democracy. The article then analyzes the historic and present day role of Afro-Brazilian women in the religious tradition of Candomblé, focusing on one public festival in particular, the festa for the Yoruba-based orixá, Obaluaye, in Salvador da Bahia. It …


Black Student Leaders: The Influence Of Social Climate In Student Organizations, Cameron C. Beatty, Antonio A. Bush, Eliza E. Erxleben, Tomika L. Ferguson, Autumn T. Harrell, Wanna K. Sahachartsiri Jan 2010

Black Student Leaders: The Influence Of Social Climate In Student Organizations, Cameron C. Beatty, Antonio A. Bush, Eliza E. Erxleben, Tomika L. Ferguson, Autumn T. Harrell, Wanna K. Sahachartsiri

Cameron C. Beatty, Ph.D.

The social climate of student organizations can alter a student’s perception of their influence upon the organization. This study examines Black student leaders’ perceptions of social climate of campus governing boards at a predominantly White institution (PWI). Black students’ experiences were investigated using Moos’s (1979, 1987) social climate dimensions. Implications and recommendations for student affairs professionals advising Black student leaders are detailed based on three salient themes: mission and direction, relationships, and mutual impact.


Slave Landscapes Of The Carolina Low Country: What The Documents Reveal, Elizabeth Brabec Jan 2010

Slave Landscapes Of The Carolina Low Country: What The Documents Reveal, Elizabeth Brabec

Elizabeth Brabec

Although much has been written about slave life in the antebellum south, comparatively little is understood about the physical setting of slave communities and their day-to-day life. Due to the lack of written documentation and few sketches, paintings or other images, the documentation of the physical setting of slave life is more difficult to compile than that of the plantation owners or even indentured servants. By completing a structured analysis of existing documentary evidence for a specific region of the South, the low country of South Carolina, the myths and realities of slave life in this region can be clarified. …


Scholar-Baller: Student Athlete Socialization, Motivation, And Academic Performance In American Society, Keith Harrison Dec 2009

Scholar-Baller: Student Athlete Socialization, Motivation, And Academic Performance In American Society, Keith Harrison

Dr. C. Keith Harrison

No abstract provided.


A Critical Race Analysis Of The Hiring Process For Head Coaches In Ncaa College Football, Keith Harrison Dec 2009

A Critical Race Analysis Of The Hiring Process For Head Coaches In Ncaa College Football, Keith Harrison

Dr. C. Keith Harrison

In this article, we respond to Singer’s (2005) challenge to sport management scholars to consider race-based epistemologies in conducting certain kinds of research in the field, as we use critical race theory (CRT) as a framework to analyze the Black Coaches & Administrators (BCA) Hiring Report Card (HRC) (Harrison & Yee, 2009). The BCA HRC was created as a result of the access discrimination that has historically taken place in college sport (Brooks & Althouse, 2000; Cunningham & Sagas, 2005), which has consequently contributed to the underrepresentation of racial minorities in the head coach position in college football. The HRC …