Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Crime, Drugs, And Race, Wornie L. Reed

Trotter Review

The crime and criminal record statistics of black Americans are frightening; and they keep getting worse. These figures, of course, give us pause. Yet, it must be kept in mind that none of these figures demonstrates that blacks as a race are more prone to crime. Rather, the figures show that the average black person in the United States is more likely than the average white person to be so situated in the social structure that he or she is more likely to be involved in crime, with an even higher likelihood of being arrested, convicted, and imprisoned.

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

Trotter Review

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 …

Trends In Homicide Among African-Americans, Wornie L. Reed

Trotter Review

Homicide is a particularly significant phenomenon for African Americans because it is the leading cause of death for young black men and women. Blacks, who make up some 12% of the population in the country, account for 44% of all murder victims. Thus, reducing homicide deaths among American population groups, particularly among young black males, is a growing public concern. The term homicide refers to any killing of one person by another. In this chapter the phenomenon and the changing trends of homicide among African Americans over the past 30 to 40 years will be examined.

Blacks In Bridge, Wornie L. Reed

Trotter Review

Two events in the spring of 1991 brought to mind the long battle to integrate the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL), which barely beat out the Boston Red Sox in integrating its membership. One was the closing of the famous Cavendish Bridge Club in New York City; the other was a bridge tournament that combined the efforts of ACBL and ABA (American Bridge Association) clubs in the Washington, D.C. area. The ABA is the national association of black bridge players. Both events appear to have been precipitated by a decline in the number of bridge players as the baby boomer …

Social Support For The Black Elderly: Is There A Link Between Informal And Formal Assistance?, Susie A. Spence

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This study explores informal and formal social support among a sample of elderly southern Blacks. The results reveal that all respondents received informal assistance and that while overall formal assistance was low, a number of respondents received support from both sources. The author discusses these findings in relation to the supplement model of elderly social support and their implications for social service providers.

Black Underrepresentation In Science And Technology, Robert C. Johnson

Trotter Review

The United States is experiencing a crisis in the training of scientific and technical personnel. A recent report from the National Science Foundation (NSF) indicates that the number of U.S. citizens earning science and engineering doctorates has decreased nearly 5% since 1980. The National Research Council's study of the adequacy of research support for the mathematical sciences in the United States reveals that not only has the production of Ph.D.s in mathematics declined since 1969-70, but the percentage of U.S. citizens receiving those degrees fell during the last decade from 78% of all mathematics Ph.D.s to only 61% of all …

The School Choice Issue: Remarks Made At The U.S. Department Of Education's Regional Strategy Meeting On Choice In Education, Phyllis Mcclure

Trotter Review

The term choice as it is used by the current administration with regard to education is a cosmetic, simplistic response to the failure of American schools. Choice has become a catch-all term for a whole variety of programs, plans, and theories. We should not let this meeting or the Department of Education delude us into believing that parental choice holds the promise for poor and minority children. The term is being used to describe not only what is happening in District 4 [public school district in New York City], but a plethora of ideas based on the free market. I …

Blacks In Golf, Wornie L. Reed

Trotter Review

From 1961 until the mid-1980s a weekend ritual was repeated by many African Americans who follow golf. For these individuals, each weekend morning included a peek at the standings of the weekly Professional Golf Association (PGA) tournament printed in the newspaper to see how the black golfers were doing and whether any one of them was the tournament leader or was close enough to the lead to win the tournament. As the 1980s came to an end anyone still practicing the old ritual was doing so in vain. No blacks were winning tournaments on the regular PGA Tour, nor were …

Table Of Contents

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Table of contents for Explorations in Sights and Sounds, Number 11, Summer, 1991

[Review Of] Richard D. Alba, Ed. Ethnicity And Race In The U.S.A. Toward The Twenty-First Century, Cortland P. Auser

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Ethnicity and Race in the U.S.A. is a timely collection of essays (earlier published as articles in Ethnic and Racial Studies). Much of the material will interest those involved in studying trends in multiculturalism in the United States. The author's background sections and conclusions are especially significant, backed by clear statistical data in many instances. The collection is well balanced. Alba directs our attention to the main events in ethnic developments since 1950, all of which contribute to a broad view of various "trajectories toward the new century" in matters of race and ethnicity. The spectrum of subjects is commendably …

Explorations In Sights And Sounds

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

No abstract provided.

[Review Of] Rudolfo A. Anaya. Heart Of Aztlan, Glen M. Kraig

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Heart of Aztlan is a novel which portrays life in Barelas, a barrio of Albuquerque, during the post-Korean War period. While the characters within the novel are fictitious, the situations in which they found themselves were only too real. The mood of the novel was one of hope while the characters continually found themselves in a situation of apparent hopelessness. The author's dedication, perhaps better than any other words, summed up this seeming paradox. "This book is dedicated to the good people of Barelas ... and to people everywhere who have struggled for freedom, dignity, and the right to self …

[Review Of] Asian United Women Of California, Ed. Making Waves: An Anthology Of Writings By And About Asian American Women, Ann Rayson

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Making Waves is an impressive collection of writings that includes poetry, fiction, and autobiography and historical, sociological, and political essays about American women who came from China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma, and Thailand. This is quite a feat. While non-Asians tend to stereotype Asians and lump them together, their cultures, traditions, and histories are diverse. Making Waves includes stories of Vietnamese boat refugees, Japanese picture brides, World War II camp detainees, Chinese prostitutes and grandmothers with bound feet, Filipinas looking to escape poverty by marrying American men through the Cherry Blossom network, and the list …

[Review Of] Doris Jean Austin. After The Garden, Linda Wells

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Doris Jean Austin's novel After the Garden unites the tragic themes of patricide and familial fury with the contemporary themes of class struggle within the black community of post-World War II America. At the center of this family saga is Elzina Tompkins, a beautiful young black woman who comes of age in the 1940s urban North. Her grandmother, Rosalie Tompkins, is a powerfully drawn figure whom Austin uses as one side of the equation to show the values of a black woman of some means, a woman who seeks to keep her granddaughter "in the garden." The wayward Jesse James, …

[Review Of] Mariano Azuela. The Underdogs, Silvester J. Brito

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

The Underdogs (Los De Abajo) is a classic novel of the Mexican Revolution. The foreword briefly covers Mexican history, from Spanish Conquest to Independence to Revolution. Its purpose is to focus upon the main sociopolitical and economic problems of the Mexican Revolution.

[Review Of] Silvester J. Brito. The Way Of A Peyote Roadman, D. C. Cole

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

The Way of a Peyote Roadman is a work which is certain to stir controversy in a number of academic circles. Silvester J. Brito holds a Ph.D. in folklore and anthropology from Indiana University. The book begins with a personal affirmation of the author's belief in the power of sorcery, based on his personal experiences culminating in a peyote ritual curing ceremony.

[Review Of] H. David Brumble Iii. American Indian Autobiography, Raymond A. Bucko

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

American Indian Autobiography provides significant insight into the nature and production of Indian autobiographies, past and present. Aware of the heterogeneity of native cultures, H. David Brumble perceptively demonstrates the continuity of these works with both their cultural and literary roots -- oral narrative. He elucidates six genera of oral narrative, convincingly establishing their continuity from the earliest to contemporary works. Stressing the bicultural nature of Indian autobiography, Brumble carefully analyzes both the effect of white editors working within the cultural assumptions of their eras in eliciting and shaping Indian autobiographies and the ramifications of culture contact and adaptation on …

[Review Of] James P. Comer, M. D. Maggie's American Dream: The Life And Times Of A Black Family, Shirley J. Yee

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Maggie's American Dream is a poignant story about the struggles and achievements of the Comer family from the early decades of the twentieth century to the present. Dr. Comer presents his family's history through the use of side-by-side autobiographies, his mother's and his own. The purpose of the book is to capture the vision and personal struggles of Comer's mother, Maggie, and the efforts by her children to fulfill her and her husband Hugh's goal to obtain a college education and pursue professional careers. The book begins with Maggie's oral narrative, a collection of interviews that James had compiled over …

[Review Of] Maryse Conde. A Season In Rihata, Phillipa Kafka

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Born and now residing in Guadaloupe [Guadeloupe], Dr. Conde received the Grand Prix de Litteraire de la Femme from France for her contributions to Caribbean literature (an interesting honor, in view of Conde's perception of France as cynically instrumental in the destruction and dismemberment of African civilization).

[Review Of] Christie Davies. Ethnic Humor Around The World: A Comparative Analysis, Alleen Nilsen, Don Nilsen

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

If you want to know what's in Davies' Ethnic Humor Around the World, you'll need to devote some time and energy to the matter. It's a serious study-not the kind you can read at the bus stop or listen to in bits and pieces on a cassette or read excerpted in a popular magazine. Nevertheless, this is a must-read for anyone who's tempted to make such blanket statements as the one that climaxes a currently popular video tape on cultural diversity: "There is no place in business or academics for ethnic joking."

[Review Of] Troy Duster. Backdoor To Eugenics, Steven J. Gold

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

During the first decades of this century, the theory of eugenics, which applied social Darwinism to human beings, was an influential movement. Its major contention was that Northern Europeans were genetically superior to other groups-Southern and Eastern Europeans, Asians, blacks and Jews. Therefore, the presence of these "inferior" groups in the U.S. should be limited, both by constraining the growth of their populations and by restricting their entry into the nation. Rooted in "science," eugenics was embraced by prominent intellectuals of the era, including Harvard psychologist William McDougall and University of Wisconsin sociologist E. A. Ross. The power of this …

[Review Of] A. Roy Eckardt. Black, Woman, Jew: Three Wars For Human Liberation, Suzanne Stutman

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

In this book, A. Roy Eckardt uses his anger against oppression in its various forms and his extensive knowledge of the literatures in the field to craft a work of the first magnitude. He views oppression, as he explains, from the perspective of a "white, male gentile ... a privileged minority: the nonoppressed of the world." Yet his honesty and compassion for the oppressed represented in this study take him into the center of the battle which he wages: the battle for human liberation. His new book is, he explains, a sequel to For Righteousness' Sake: Contemporary Moral Philosophies, published …

[Review Of] F. Chris Garcia, Ed. Latinos And The Political System, Jesse M. Vazquez

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Latinos and the Political System, carefully compiled by F. Chris Garcia, represents a significant contribution to the field of political analysis as well as to the study of the complexities and subtleties of the politics of the Latino community in the United States. While the book's focus is clearly on the emerging place of the Latino community on the American political landscape, Garcia and his collaborators amply demonstrate that as needs and wants are converted into specific policies, the implementation of these will have significant "ramifications for the rest of the system as well as for Latino politics specifically." This …

[Review Of] Nasario Garcia. Recuerdos De Los Viejitos, Tales Of The Rio Puerco, Glen M. Kraig

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

The editor indicated in his foreword that he had several purposes for collecting and assembling the sixty-four stories that comprise this book. First, he had noted that little had been written concerning the history of the Rio Puerco region of New Mexico, and the little that had been written had not included the actual first person narratives of the people who had lived there. These, the collector believed, the "... vibrant oral history and literature from a previously unrecorded area can now further enrich the age old cultural heritage of Hispanic New Mexico."

[Review Of] Marjorie Harness Goodwin. He-Said-She-Said: Talk As Social Organization Among Black Children, Maryln Zupicich

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

The author, acting both as ethnographer and sociolinguist, recorded conversations of black children in a working-class neighborhood of Philadelphia over a period of one-and-a-half years. She acted as observer of children's games and talk as they interacted with their peers in their after school surroundings. Goodwin argues that peer setting provides the best opportunity to observe children as they develop social organization, and she challenges the traditional view of anthropology that perceives children as being in the process of internalizing adult values in order to integrate into the social world.

[Review Of] Charles Green And Basil Wilson. The Struggle For Black Empowerment In New York City, Otis L. Scott

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

This book by Charles Green and Basil Wilson is most informative. The authors, a sociologist and a political scientist respectively, draw upon the research and reporting methods of their disciplines in bringing forth a comprehensive interdisciplinary social science examination of the melodrama that is politics in New York City.

[Review Of] Lance Henson. Selected Poems, 1970-1983, Abby H. Werlock

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

A previously published Native American poet, Lance Henson, a Cheyenne, evokes traditional Native American characters, customs, and beliefs and demonstrates the tension between the new and the old, attempting to reconcile a traditional closeness to the land and to the past with apparently incongruent modern phenomena.

[Review Of] Oscar Hijuelos. The Mamba Kings Play Songs Of Love, Cortland P. Auser

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Hijuelos' novel, a Pulitzer Prize winner, earns it laurels through the author's craftsmanship. Its unusual flashback structure, its characterizations of the two Castillo brothers, and its many pages of lyrical prose are praiseworthy. Many readers will enjoy this story of the rise and fall in the careers of two Cuban musicians who flourished in the "Desi Arnaz era."

[Review Of] Darlene Clark Hine. Black Women In White,, Celia J. Wintz

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

In recent years nursing history has taken on a new focus. The nursing histories of the first half of the twentieth century chronicled the steady growth and development of the profession and glorified the white nursing leaders who promoted the scientific basis and professionalization of nursing. These early histories, however, ignored or glossed over the many problems of the emerging profession: poorly educated nursing students, nursing school curriculums which were controlled by service administrators rather than educators, the substandard working and living conditions of both student nurses and graduate nurses, the subservience of nurses to physicians which did not serve …

[Review Of] Joseph E. Holloway, Ed. Africanisms In American Culture, Harriet Ottenheimer

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Part of the Indiana University series on Blacks in the Diaspora, this book brings together ten essays on the impact of African roots on African American cultural patterns. Two of the essays are general in nature, the other eight focus on specific cultural domains such as religion, music, folklore, and art.