Researchers have given some attention to women law enforcement officers' experiences and perceptions of sexual harassment. Yet, few studies have determined how the interaction of gender and race affect African American women's perception of this workplace impediment. This article explores one group of women's experiences in a U.S. sheriff's department. Interview data gathered from 65 African American women who are active and former law enforcement officers provide a comprehensive examination of how (...) class='Hi'>African American women in nontraditional criminal justice occupations experience racialized sexual harassment. Differences in degree and frequency of harassment are found among the women in different cohorts based on their job tenure, marital status, and the race of their harassers. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 22 (2002) 234-236 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Dreaming Me: An African American Woman's Spiritual Journey Dreaming Me: An African American Woman's Spiritual Journey. By Jan Willis. New York: Riverhead Books, 2001. 321 pp. This book invites comparison with Diana Eck's Encountering God: A Spiritual Journey from Bozeman to Banaras(Boston: Beacon Press, 1993). Both are by prominent women scholars, both have (...) "spiritual journey" in the subtitle, and both are about Christians who come to terms with a non-Christian religion—Hinduism in Eck's case, Buddhism in Willis's case. But as soon as one gets past the titles, it is the differences that strike one. Where Eck maintains an Olympian poise, hobnobbing with Hindus but remaining a Christian and an objective scholar, interpreting and analyzing as she goes, Willis plunges into Buddhism without rejecting her family's Baptist tradition, becoming a fully participant observer so as to ask how her own history and the history of her fellow African Americans can be healed by an intensely personal internal dialogue. Eck gives us theology. Willis gives us herself. Recognized as "one of the first American scholar-practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism" (294), her students ask her if she practices meditation as well as teaching it. She gives a carefully crafted answer that unifies the practice of Buddhism with the practice of academic teaching as an authentically human activity within the Humanities.The book has the form of a Hindu epic, incidents from Willis's life interrupting the frame story, the dreaming of the title. This dream (whether actual or metaphorical, we are not told) moves with considerable dramatic power from the terror of being pursued by lions to the dreamer's transformation into a lioness who roars the Dharma like Queen Shrimala. Its five parts are called Birth, Odyssey, Choices, Becoming, and Return, taking us from her childhood as a Baptist in Docena, Alabama, to Cornell University, to India and Nepal, and back to Docena, as a self-described Baptist-Buddhist (310).Willis's journey is intimately bound up with her search for self-acceptance as a "white gal"—a noticeably light-complexioned black woman in the Jim Crow South —and for the nobility of African Americans as fully human beings. Her early experiences [End Page 234] were not encouraging. Blacks were not only physically segregated in Docena, they were electronically expunged from television shows by spurious technical difficulties ("trouble along the cable"), and she endured an attack by the Ku Klux Klan on her family's home. The customary but thoroughly illegal suffrage examination administered to her father included such questions as "How many words are there in the U.S. Constitution?" (58, italics in original). He had been specially prepared for such absurdities, and he passed. Midway in her pilgrimage Willis searches for her roots (or "kin," as she says, using the Southern word) in county and federal records, and her initial excitement turns to humiliation as the white historian tells her, with disdainful triumph, that her intelligence must have come from the white slave owner who "everybody says" was her "granddaddy's daddy" (251). A black woman was presumed to be lacking in native intelligence, and Willis's intellectual powers suffered insult not only from whites but from her own mother, who, perhaps having internalized the white folks' contempt, regarded being smart as somehow evil (25). As a student at Cornell, Willis discovered black power and participated in Black Student Alliance (BSA) demonstrations, sometimes involving guns, but she came to believe that direct political action was not for her. She was, she decided, a teacher at heart, and after much soul searching she opted for the "peaceful transformation" (129) that she hoped would come from the study and practice of Buddhism.Although her skin color was a puzzlement to some Indians, who wondered about her caste, her Tibetan teachers in Nepal accepted her as a student who was at least the equal of the white students, and even, perhaps, superior to them. A spot of blonde in her hair was interpreted as the... (shrink)

Womanist Bioethics introduces a practical framework to address health disparities and inequities, arguing that doing justice to Black women's bodies entails understanding health and vulnerability as cultural productions, thus implicating medical, policy-making, economic and religious institutions in the Black women's health crisis.

In a mixed-methods study of the barriers and facilitators to homeownership for African American women with physical disabilities, self-concept emerged among the primary themes. This article discusses how participants in the study perceived themselves and negotiated how they were perceived by others as multiply marginalized women. Using what I call a feminist intersectional disability framework, I suggest that participants’ relationships to care strongly contributed to their self-concept. The “Strong Black Woman” trope and associated expectations had cultural (...) and material relevance for how they interpreted themselves and were interpreted by others as receivers, managers, and providers of care. The material reality of owning or not owning a home did not reveal significant differences in the self-concepts of homeowners versus nonhomeowners. Rather, it was through conversations about homeownership that this data around self-concept in relationship to care was revealed. (shrink)

Background Respect is essential to providing high quality healthcare, particularly for groups that are historically marginalized and stigmatized. While ethical principles taught to health professionals focus on patient autonomy as the object of respect for persons, limited studies explore patients’ views of respect. The purpose of this study was to explore the perspectives of a multiculturally diverse group of low-income women living with HIV (WLH) regarding their experience of respect from their medical physicians. Methods We analyzed 57 semi-structured interviews (...) conducted at HIV case management sites in South Florida as part of a larger qualitative study that explored practices facilitating retention and adherence in care. Women were eligible to participate if they identified as African American (n = 28), Hispanic/Latina (n = 22), or Haitian (n = 7). They were asked to describe instances when they were treated with respect by their medical physicians. Interviews were conducted by a fluent research interviewer in either English, Spanish, or Haitian Creole, depending on participant’s language preference. Transcripts were translated, back-translated and reviewed in entirety for any statements or comments about “respect.” After independent coding by 3 investigators, we used a consensual thematic analysis approach to determine themes. Results Results from this study grouped into two overarching classifications: respect manifested in physicians’ orientation towards the patient (i.e., interpersonal behaviors in interactions) and respect in medical professionalism (i.e., clinic procedures and practices). Four main themes emerged regarding respect in provider’s orientation towards the patient: being treated as a person, treated as an equal, treated without blame or prejudice, and treated with concern/emotional support. Two main themes emerged regarding respect as evidenced in medical professionalism: physician availability and considerations of privacy. Conclusions Findings suggest a more robust conception of what ‘respect for persons’ entails in medical ethics for a diverse group of low-income women living with HIV. Findings have implications for broadening areas of focus of future bioethics education, training, and research to include components of interpersonal relationship development, communication, and clinic procedures. We suggest these areas of training may increase respectful medical care experiences and potentially serve to influence persistent and known social and structural determinants of health through provider interactions and health care delivery. (shrink)

The epidemic of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) has led to many ethical problems. Most studies have focused on the ethical issues faced by nurses who provide care to persons with AIDS (PWA), rather than the ethical issues faced by PWAs themselves. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to explore the ethical issues faced by five HIV/AIDS-infected African-American women. An analysis of interview data revealed that these women deal with four broad (...) categories of ethical issues: diagnosis; disclosure; treatment by, and of, others; and future pregnancies. The results of this study provide an initial description of the ethical issues faced by HIV/AIDS-infected African-American women, and begin to lay the foundation necessary for nurses appropriately to facilitate and support their decisions. (shrink)

Interventions to decrease acquisition and transmission of sexually transmitted diseases among African American women using text messages versus small-group delivery modalities pose distinct research risks and benefits. Determining the relative risk–benefit ratio of studies using these different modalities has relied on the expertise of investigators and their institutional review boards. In this study, African American women participated in focus groups and surveys to elicit and compare risks and benefits inherent in these two intervention delivery (...) modalities, focusing on issues such as convenience, privacy, and stigma of participation. Some risk/benefit variables were implicated in willingness to participate the two intervention modalities. (shrink)

The authors examine the experiences and ideals of African American working-class mothers through 20 intensive interviews. They focus on the women's negotiations with racialized norms of motherhood, represented in the assumptions that legal marriage and an exclusively bonded dyadic relationship with one's children are requisite to good mothering. The authors find, as did earlier phenomenological studies, that the mothers draw from distinct ideals of community-based independence to resist each of these assumptions and carve out alternative scripts based (...) on nonmarital relationships with male partners and shared care of children. (shrink)

This study examines how low-income African American mothers of children with sickle cell disease cope with the reproductive implications of having passed a genetic disease on to their children. Based on in-depth interviews with 29 African American mothers, I found that most mothers knew about SCD prior to having a child with the disease; many knew they were carriers of the sickle cell trait. In explaining why this knowledge did not lead them to alter their reproductive (...) behaviors, mothers invoked a theme of medical mismanagement; that is, they said the genetic screening programs for SCD did not provide them with enough medical knowledge about the disease. The implication that adequate knowledge about SCD would have affected their childbearing choices, however, is contradicted by their subsequent reproductive behaviors. I argue that the SCD diagnosis threatened motherhood, an important cultural value among low-income African American women, and that they protected their reproductive autonomy by obfuscating SCD medical knowledge. (shrink)

A case study concerning a 27-year-old African American female with sickle cell anemia who requests specific medication is presented. Hospital team members should do their best to treat the patient and form their judgments based on her clinical data and medical and social history.

Some of the environmental crises can be avoided, but others come unannounced and the adverse effects affect the communities as a whole with women, children and people with disabilities being affected the most. The world is in constant flux where climate changes are affecting the daily lives of humanity and the ecosystem as a whole. Global efforts towards environmental crises are in place including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Hyogo protocol and Sendai framework among other legislations, safeguarding the environment (...) as a whole. Women have played many roles when responding, preparing and mitigating the adverse effects of environmental crises with some of the roles visible and others invisible and unpaid. Women have been involved in identifying hazards through their indigenous knowledge systems and manoeuvring ways for the continuity of lives in their local communities. This study utilised a qualitative research methodology. A case study of Cyclone Idai in Chipinge was explored. Moser’s triple framework and the African Ecofeminist theory guided the discussions in this article.Contribution: The article concluded by recommending that concerted efforts should be made to emancipate women and pragmatically embrace gender as an essential variable in the environmental crisis. (shrink)

This article explores the contribution of indigenous African women to the growth of Christianity in North Eastern Zambia. Using a socio-historical method, the article shows that the Presbyterian Free Church of Scotland in North Eastern Zambia evangelized mainly through literacy training and preaching. The active involvement of indigenous ministers and teacher-evangelists was indispensable in this process. The article argues that omission of the contribution of indigenous African women who were teacher-evangelists in the standard literature relating to (...) the work of the Presbyterian Free Church of Scotland in North Eastern Zambia exposes a patriarchal bias in mission historiography. In an effort to redress this omission, the article explores and evaluates the contribution and experience of an indigenous African woman, Helen Nyirenda Kaunda. Based on relevant research the article concludes that indigenous African women were among the pioneers of mission work in North Eastern Zambia. (shrink)

A gender revolution allegedly occurred in the British Cape Colony in the nineteenth century. African patriarchs, traditionally pastoralists, took over women's agricultural work, adopted Victorian gender attributes, and became prosperous peasants . Scholars have accepted the plausibility of these seismic shifts in masculinity, postulated in Colin Bundy's classic, The Rise & Fall of the South African Peasantry. I re-examine them, for Bundy's "Case Study" of Herschel, acclaimed as one of the regions that best fits his thesis. (...) This Case Study omits women, who were the typical peasant producers. It marginalizes men failing to conform to bourgeois Victorian gender norms. It misrepresents class formation, causation, periodization, and peasant well-being. It misdates proletarianization by at least three decades. The zenith of commodity production is misdated by at least half a century. A labor reservoir characterized by severe subsistence problems is represented as a prosperous peasantry. Bundy postulates that patriarchs "rose" into women's work and colonial masculine scripts in response to favorable conditions; I argue instead that younger men "fell" into these domains in response to disasters. A silent gender bias-towards black Englishmen, against African women-had a marked impact on Bundy's analysis of class formation. The purpose of this article is to interrogate this silence and to show how it has warped a classic text. (shrink)

A study was conducted in order to examine the unique experiences of African-American, Hispanic, and Asian-American women in business careers. A multi-phase research design included: a survey of professional and managerial women of color in 30 companies with 1735 survey responses; an analysis of national census data; qualitative analyses from 59 focus groups and 83 individual interviews; and diversity policy analyses at 15 companies. The study found that retention of women of color was positively (...) correlated with supportive behaviors of supervisors. The authors argue that the financial business case for diversity, e.g., the cost of turnover, is necessary but not sufficient for developing and sustaining supportive relationships between supervisors and their women of color direct reports. (shrink)

The black women's club movement is frequently seen as definitive of "first-wave" African American feminism. However, this six-volume collection from the History of Feminism series draws together key documents that show the varied political work African American feminists were undertaking well before the turn into the 20th century. African American Feminisms brings together writings that document distinctly African American feminist organizing from as early as the late 1820s through female benevolent and (...) literary societies, as well as writings that document African American feminist participation in black political concerns such as emigration and colonization, discrimination in public transportation, and anti-lynching. African American women also negotiated competing demands within interracial reform movements like abolition, woman's rights, temperance and suffrage, as well as within organizations like the black church, making documents that offer insight into those unique demands key to understanding black feminist arguments and rhetoric. Pursuing a varied feminist rhetoric that ranged from advocating domestic and maternal feminism to defending black womanhood, African American feminists focused on larger social reforms as well as agitating for material changes in the lives of African American women and girls. African American feminists were also keenly attuned to opening useful venues to black feminist voices, from the pulpit to the press, and urged the women that followed them to continue this work. This collection, which includes a variety of genres from the spiritual autobiography to the platform speech and the pamphlet, goes beyond the more common focus on the "greats" of black feminism to include lesser known black feminists and some unidentified women who contributed to black feminist debate on a variety of topics. _African American Feminisms, _edited and with an introduction by Teresa Zackodnik, is destined to be welcomed by those interested in women's studies, feminism, and African American history as an invaluable reference resource. (shrink)

BackgroundPositive psychosocial factors can play an important role in the development of cardiovascular disease. Among them, psychological resilience is defined as the capacity of responding positively to stressful events. Our aim was to assess whether PR is associated with CVD or metabolic disturbances through a systematic review.MethodsWe gathered articles from PubMed, Web of Science, PsycInfo, and Google Scholar up to October 28, 2021. We included articles that were in English, were observational, and had PR examined as exposure. The CVD outcomes (...) were either clinical or metabolic outcomes.ResultsOur literature search identified 3,800 studies, of which 17 met the inclusion criteria. Of them, seven were longitudinal and 10 cross-sectional, and 13 were on adults and four on children. The exposure assessment was heterogeneous, i.e., 12 studies used different kinds of self-administered questionnaires and five used interviews with a psychologist. Regarding outcomes, five studies investigated CVD, seven obesity, one metabolic syndrome, two hypertension, four dyslipidemia, and four diabetes. In longitudinal studies, PR was found to have an inverse association with included outcomes in five studies from the Swedish military conscription cohort but had no association with CVD in a study on African-American women and was associated with slower progression of diabetes in a general population. The cross-sectional studies showed that the prevalence of disease was not associated with PR in many cases but the progression of disease was associated with PR.ConclusionPR seems to have a possibly favorable association with CVD and metabolic disturbances that differs according to the type of outcome and population. Our study limitations are given by the small number of studies available and the heterogeneity in PR measurement.Systematic Review Registration[https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/display_record.php?RecordID=237109], identifier [CRD42021237109]. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist Resources for Womanist ReflectionMelanie L. HarrisA Buddhist understanding of unconditional love in dialogue with Christian social ethics addresses the utter disappointment in humanity when racism is exposed. This focus offers us yet another way into the dialogue of engaged Buddhism and Christian liberation theologies, and directly points to Buddhism as a resource for thinking about and healing from racism and other forms of oppression. My presentation today is (...) descriptive in nature, and as a Womanist scholar, I will lean toward the constructive—but I will leave room for our collective and communal discussion to help show us the signs of what a new vision of justice might look like as we learn to live together on planet Earth.womanist theology and the hard work of loveMuch of my work as a Womanist scholar and much of the field grounds itself inside of the nitty-gritty wrestling moments with Christian norms and concepts that disregard analysis that honors the complex subjectivities of women, including issues of race, class, gender, and sexual justice. Taking the call for social justice and the everyday lives and experiences of African and African American women seriously, Womanist theology and ethics are in fact forms of liberation theology. What makes Womanist perspectives unique is that they challenge Christian thought and all religious thinking to more fully engage the principles of love and justice. In the case of Christianity, Womanist scholars demand that those walking in the faith “practice what they preach” and respond to some of the following questions:• How are women of color treated in your religious tradition? Is gender equity normative in your tradition?• What is life-affirming in your religious tradition that honors the unique theological perspectives and voices of women of color?• How are women’s bodies honored, their sexualities spoken about, and their bodily choices and reproductive rights discussed?• How are women of color’s racial and ethnic identities and complex subjectivities honored by or embody the “touch of Jesus” or the “healing gaze of the Buddha” or the “prayers of Muhammad” or “the breath of Krishna”?• What are women of color’s unique perspectives on Earth justice? [End Page 107]• Finally, how are the stories of women of color whose bodies have been historically ravaged by rape and violence finding solidarity with stories of environmental degradation in which the sister/mother body of Earth suffers similar disembodiment and oppression?Looking into the hearts of Christian, Buddhist, and other religious perspectives and traditions Womanism offers a lens through which to examine understandings of God and the divine differently. It honors the perspectives of women of color, whose voices have been historically marginalized in normative religious thought and who have often experienced being dehumanized in society. In spite of this, many women who identify with the term “Womanist” have found faith, religious value, and restoration through an emphasis on divine embodiment, self-worth, and self-love.Over the course of the first and second waves of Womanism, scholars have raised important questions of how communal love points toward a moral imperative for Earth justice. However, more recently, third-wave Womanist activists and scholars are focusing on Earth justice and other social justice issues from a religiously pluralistic perspective. Third-wave Womanist scholars like myself have taken the term beyond the halls of Union “into the streets” as activists, have witnessed Womanist ideas transformed into political activism, and have experienced Womanist solidarity with women across various global contexts. Many of us are returning “home” to the conversation wiser and are more courageous than ever before and expanding the discourse by engaging religious pluralism, interfaith dialogue, and interreligious realities in hopes of finding new ways to confront multilayered oppressions.1buddhist resources for womanist reflectionIn 2009, Charles Hallisey of Harvard Divinity School and I received a grant from the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard to do something imaginative and creative. We invited several renowned Womanist and Buddhist scholars to Harvard to read Buddhist texts together in community and discuss whether there was anything inherent in both traditions that would expand Buddhist studies and broaden inter-religious dialogue in Womanist thought.There were some theoretical challenges and... (shrink)

This article discusses the hitherto little-studied question of women workers’ empowerment through access to labor rights in the east African export horticultural sector. It is based on the work carried out by Women Working Worldwide and its east African partners, drawing on primary research on cut-flower farms in Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda. The focus in discussions of women’s empowerment has tended to be on individual actors rather than collective strategies. We argue that strategies such as (...) action research, education, organization and advocacy focusing on labor rights are effective in gendered empowerment and can bring positive change to women’s working lives on African farms, and beyond. (shrink)

This anthology brings together a selection of historical and contemporary writings on topics in African-American Philosophy. Questions regarding a wide range of issues--including slavery and freedom, social progress, self-respect, alienation, sexuality, cultural identity, nationalism, feminism, Marxism and violence--are critically examined from different perspectives by well-known philosophers and by non-philosophers from many disciplines. It emphasizes the historical significance of the philosophical arguments within very specific social and political contexts. Features substantial extracts, and in some cases complete works by important (...) 19th- and 20th-century social and political thinkers--organized under sections on Antebellem Critical Thought, Emigrationist and Diaspora Thought, Assimilation and Social Uplift, Contemporary Black Feminist Thought, Civil Rights and Civil Disobedience, Marxism and Social Progress, Rebellion and Radical Thought, Social Activism Reconsidered, Black Women Writers on Rape, and Alienation and Self-Respect. For anyone interested in the African-American experience and American history. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:230 Feminist Studies 47, no. 1. © 2021 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Nneka D. Dennie The State and Future of Black Women’s Studies: The Black Women’s Studies Association and the National Women’s Studies Association in Conversation On February 25, 2021, the Black Women’s Studies Association (BWSA) and National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) partnered for one of NWSA’s Kitchen Table Talks—a new initiative spearheaded by (...) NWSA President Kaye Wise Whitehead to foster dialogue between NWSA and other organizations. The event, titled “Space Making: State/Future of Black Women’s Studies,” featured three panelists and was moderated by Whitehead. The featured speakers were Stephanie Andrea Allen (BWSA conference chair), Jacinta R. Saffold (BWSA co-founder and treasurer), and Erica L. Williams (member of the NWSA Governing Council). Allen is a Black lesbian writer and publisher whose scholarship examines how lesbian literature and film responds to and resists the heteropatriarchal systems that invisibilize Black lesbians; she is a postdoctoral fellow and visiting assistant professor of gender studies at Indiana University. Saffold is an assistant professor of English at the University of New Orleans who researches twentieth- and twenty-first-century African American literature, hip hop studies, and digital humanities. Williams is an associate professor of anthropology at Spelman College, whose work has examined sex tourism and Black feminist activism in Brazil. Together, Whitehead, Allen, Saffold, and Williams explored their hopes for Black Women’s Studies and illuminated the challenges and joys of advancing the field. News and Views 231 The collaboration between BWSA and NWSA is a testament to how far Black Women’s Studies has come over the past fifty years and a promise of where it may continue to go in the future. NWSA was founded in 1977 and has since served as a hub for researchers, educators, and practitioners who interrogate questions of women and gender in their work. For decades, NWSA has been central to the nationwide US institutionalization of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. By contrast, BWSA is a young organization that is continuing to grow. In 2018, Saffold and I co-founded BWSA in order to provide a community for scholars working in the field of Black Women’s Studies. BWSA is the only professional association specifically designed to bring scholars from a variety of disciplines into conversation about research that centers Black women. We launched BWSA with the goal of ensuring that future generations of scholars can readily access networks and mentorship from researchers who encounter a common question: when your work is simultaneously “too Black” and “too woman” for your field, department, or institution, what do you do? Drawing inspiration from well-established organizations in which we frequently participated, such as NWSA, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), the Association of Black Women Historians (ABWH), and the African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS), Saffold and I sought to build a space that cultivated a Black feminist ethic of care for both the research and the researchers. In that spirit, BWSA provides resources to help scholars do their best work, including a mentorship program, a virtual writing community, a calls-for-papers list for publications, and article as well as graduate student paper prizes. It was an honor to join an organization as trusted and respected as NWSA for a dialogue about our shared visions for Black Women’s Studies. Three key themes emerged from the panelists’ conversation with each other. They repeatedly returned to the importance of making financial commitments to Black Women’s Studies, creating conditions to support Black women’s intellectual labor, and practicing self-care. Speakers explored the interplay between the responsibilities that institutions, communities, and individuals have to Black Women’s Studies and Black feminist scholars. They observed that in order for departments and universities to foster interdisciplinary work on Black women, they need to move beyond paying lip service to the idea that diversity, equity, and inclusion matter; there needs to be permanent funding for work on race, 232 News and Views gender, class, and sexuality. Panelists also emphasized that Black women being in community with each other and supporting one another have always been central to... (shrink)

Previous studies suggest that social class, class background, and social mobility have important consequences for family life. Exploring hypotheses derived from these studies, as well as the literature on intergenerational relations, the authors focus on one key aspect of family relations: adult daughters' ties to their mothers. Analyzing data from the National Survey of Families and Households, the authors explore how employed women's relations with their mothers are shaped by race, social class memberships and backgrounds, and family arrangements. Their (...) results suggest that social class and mobility exert powerful effects on women's sense of their relations with their mothers, especially among Whites. In addition, however, it is shown that mother-daughter ties among African American and White women are also influenced by family arrangements that operate somewhat independently of social class and mobility. (shrink)

Focused on preparing educators to teach African American students, this straightforward and teacher-friendly text features a careful balance of published scholarship, a framework for culturally relevant and critical pedagogy, research-based case studies of model teachers, and tested culturally relevant practical strategies and actionable steps teachers can adopt. Its premise is that teachers who understand Black culture as an asset rather than a liability and utilize teaching techniques that have been shown to work can and do have specific (...) positive impacts on the educational experiences of African American children. (shrink)

This essay considers the recuperation of beauty as a productive critical strategy in discussions of African American dance. I argue that black performance in general, and African American concert dance in particular, seeks to create aesthetic sites that allow black Americans to participate in discourses of recognition and appreciation to include concepts of beauty. In this, I suggest that beauty may indeed produce social change for its attendant audiences. I also propose that interrogating the notion of (...) beauty may allow for social change among audiences that include dance theorists and philosophers. Through a case-study consideration of work by three African American choreographers, Donald Byrd (b. 1949), Ulysses Dove (1947 – 1996), and Abdel Salaam (b. 1949), I ultimately hope to suggest critical possibilities aligning dance performance with particular aesthetic theory relevant to its documentation and interpretation. (shrink)

This review essay surveys the contributions of the new edited volume African American Political Thought: A Collected History. The thinker-based approach to the study of African American political thought advanced in the volume highlights the ways in which thinkers reformulate the central political questions of the intellectual tradition and constitute the canon through the citation and invocation of earlier figures. It also draws attention to the rhetorical, strategic, and tactical dimensions of their political thought. The volume (...) sets a new standard for study of African American political thought and makes a persuasive case for the tradition’s important contributions to political theory broadly. However, by tying its significance too closely to its interventions within American political thought, the volume inadvertently minimizes the global resonances of African American political thought. (shrink)

This paper describes a case study of a program called WATCH: Workshop for Actively Thinking Computationally and Historically. The focus of the program and this paper was on using mobile application development to promote historical thinking using a plantation site visit as the focus of inquiry. WATCH was delivered during an academic enrichment youth program at a major research university in the Southeast and served a total of 30 African American and Latino high school students from low (...) socio-economic backgrounds. Through the theoretical framework of historical thinking, this case study provides descriptions of the class sessions, students’ perceptions of and interests in history and students level of historical thinking through their apps. We make suggestions about how the instructional activities could be adapted for classrooms, discuss the tensions of using technology and inquiry pedagogy to support and promote historical learning, and review the program's impact on students’ agency as learners and critical consumers and producers of historical accounts. (shrink)

AI technology is capturing the African imaginations as a gateway to progress and prosperity. There is a growing interest in AI by different actors across the continent including scientists, researchers, humanitarian and aid organizations, academic institutions, tech start-ups, and media organizations. Several African states are looking to adopt AI technology to capture economic growth and development opportunities. On the other hand, African researchers highlight the gap in regulatory frameworks and policies that govern the development of AI in (...) the continent. They argue that this could lead to AI technology exacerbating problems of inequalities and injustice in the continent. However, most of the literature on AI ethics is biased toward Euro-American perspectives and lack the understanding of how AI development is apprehended in the Global South, and particularly Africa. Drawing on the case study of the first African Master’s in Machine Intelligence program, this paper argues for looking beyond the question of ethics in AI and examining AI governance issues through the analytical lens of the raciality of computing and the political economy of technoscience to understand AI development in Africa. By doing so, this paper seeks a different theorization for AI ethics from the South that is based on lived experiences of those in the margins and avoids the framings of technological futures that simplistically pathologize or celebrate Africa. (shrink)

Philosophy of University Education in Ethiopia. Philosophy and the future of African universities : ethics and imagination / Charles C. Verharen -- Some thoughts on the African university / Bekele Gutema -- The challenge and responsibility of universal otherness in African philosophy / Daniel Smith ; Philosophy and culture. Harnessing myth to rationality / Messay Kebede -- The riddles of number nine among the Guji- Oromo culture / Taddesse Berisso -- Sage philosophy, rationality, and science. The (...) class='Hi'>case of Ethiopia / Charles C. Verharen ; Political philosophy. The spirit of Rousseau and Boorana political traditions : an exercise in understanding / Taddesse Lencho ; Philosophy and religion. Encounter of Oromo with evangelical Christianity : a look at the meaning of conversion / Ezekiel Gebissa ; Philosophy and women. Should women love wisdom? evaluating the Ethiopian wisdom tradition / Gail M. Presbey ; Sage philosophy. The concept of peace in the Oromo Gadaa system : its mechanisms and moral dimension / Tenna Dewo -- Comparing Oromo and Ancient Egyptian philosophy / Charles C. Verharen -- Moral economy : an original economic form for the African condition / Teodros Kiros. (shrink)

Much research on women’s religious participation centers on their abilities to act within constricted institutional spaces. Drawing on five years of ethnographic fieldwork, this study analyzes how African American Muslim women use the mosque as a physical space to enact public performances of religious identity. By occupying, protecting, and appropriating spaces in the mosque for meaningfully gender-specific ways of engaging Islam, the women further a project of religious self-making that bonds African American Muslim (...) women together. In their maneuverings of different forms of physical space as a sisterhood, the women enable themselves to resist gender, economic, and racial oppression. This study reveals that even within men-dominated religious organizations with limited symbolic and material spaces for women, women participants successfully exert agency over their own religious experiences. (shrink)

Proactive policing strategies produce a range of harms to African Americans in poor urban communities. We know little, however, about how aggressive policing is experienced across gender by adolescents in these neighborhoods. The authors argue that important insights can be gained by examining the perspectives of African American youths and draw from in-depth interviews with youths in St. Louis, Missouri, to investigate how gender shapes interactions with the police. The comparative analysis reveals important gendered facets of (...) class='Hi'>African American adolescents' experiences with and expectations of law enforcement. Young men described being treated routinely as suspects regardless of their involvement in delinquency and also reported police violence. Young women typically described being stopped for curfew violations but also expressed concerns about police sexual misconduct. This study highlights the differential harms of urban policing for African American young women and men and highlights the need for systematic attention to the intersections of race and gender in research on criminal justice practices. (shrink)

In citing some qualitative case studies and in building on analytical-survey research design, this article explores the place of African women in warding off the pandemics, with particular reference to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in its initial stages (March 2020). With Africa being the most religious continent in the 21st century, African women who led the onslaught against COVID-19 (refer to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf [EJS], Graca Machel, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Vera Songwe, Maria Ramos, Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings, Yvonne (...) Aki-Sawyerr and Blen Sahilu, among others), were largely informed by a religio-cultural concern for the ‘other’ (ubuntu). In demonstrating their sociocultural role of standing out as the bulwark against threats to familyhood, African women met in Monrovia-Liberia on 08 March 2020 during the inauguration of Amujae Leadership Forum that cropped up as a barricade against further COVID-19 spread. In a nutshell, the article draws from Sirleaf’s approach in combating the 2014–2016 Ebola pandemic and samples other leading African women’s contributors who played a pivotal role in responding to the initial stages of the pandemic, a phenomenon that traces its roots from the African heritage.Contribution: This article foregrounds the interface between African women, religious inspiration and health-related matters; and indeed enriches HTS Journal and the academic world. As by-products of a religiously inclined continent, African women’s initial response to the pandemic in March 2020 is well-rooted in their religio-cultural backcloth. (shrink)

Nancy Gardner Prince began writing and self-publishing A Narrative of the Life and Travels of Mrs. Nancy Prince in the 1850s, at a time when few African American women had the ability to do so. Her story tells of diaspora and of the systematic economic, cultural, and political oppression of free African Americans in the antebellum North. Raised by a mother unable to cope with the economic and emotional burden of raising eight children on her own, (...) Prince spends much of her youth working as a domestic servant in white households. After a long, mostly unsuccessful struggle to maintain family unity, Prince makes the decision to improve her circumstances, marrying sailor Nero Prince after a brief courtship and .. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Petrification of Cleopatra in Nineteenth Century Art MARGARET MALAMUD MARTHA MALAMUD What did Cleopatra look like? Was she a Roman, a Ptolemaic Greek, an Egyptian, an African? Was she a precocious child, a devastatingly beautiful seductress, an astute practitioner of imperial politics, a murderess, a longnosed blue-stocking? [Figure 1] Cleopatra is dead, but “Cleopatra ” exists in the eye of the beholder. What other human being has (...) been portrayed in such “infinite variety”? In her life, and even more in her afterlife, the protean queen of the Nile has, like a shaft of sunlight focused through a magnifying glass, clarified and set ablaze underlying ideologies and overt assertions of race and gender, manifested differently in disparate times and places. Here we consider two case studies of nineteenth century representations of Cleopatra in stone: William Wetmore Story’s Cleopatra (1860) and Edmonia Lewis’s The Death of Cleopatra (1876). [Figarion 28.1 spring/summer 2020 Figure 1: Bust of Cleopatra VII, 40–30 bce, Altes Museum, Berlin. 32 the petrification of cleopatra ure 2] Story, a wealthy and well-connected white expatriate living in Rome, gave the famous queen features that deviated from classicizing portrayals of the queen and struck critics as startling and original. American artist Edmonia Lewis, of Black West Indies / Ojibwa Native American descent, lived and worked in Rome, but as a poor, racially-mixed female artist she moved in quite different social circles than Story. Her decision to sculpt the Egyptian queen as a white woman Figure 2: William Wetmore Story, Cleopatra, 1858; this carving 1869, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Margaret Malamud, Martha Malamud 33 dying in agony during the last moments of her suicide shocked and fascinated critics. Both works display a very different understanding of women, the Orient, the Classical past, and the exotic Black other. We understand and contextualize these strikingly different representations of Cleopatra by looking at the comments of contemporary writers and critics. Lewis and her Death of Cleopatra inspired the twenty-first century Black poet Tyehimba Jess, with whose poetic evocation of Lewis and her work we conclude. In the middle of the nineteenth century, when most portrayals were of Cleopatra as a classical Greek beauty, William Wetmore Story boldly gave the famous queen African features. Story, an American emigré artist and “cultural influencer,” was living in Rome on the eve of the American Civil War. While there, he sculpted Cleopatra, which he began in 1858, completed in 1860, and exhibited to great acclaim at the 1862 World Exposition in London. Story was from Boston, where abolitionist sentiments were prominent, and was well aware of racial politics in the United States. Concerned by British support for the American South, he wrote a series of letters from Rome to the British Daily News in December of 1861 in which he denounced the institution of slavery, explained why he was devoted to the Union, and urged British neutrality in the Civil War. His Cleopatra was a provocative abolitionist statement. From the late eighteenth century on, free African Americans faced two pressing tasks: to refute charges that they were racially inferior to white people and to insert themselves into the historical record. ManyAfrican Americans and their supporters argued that there was a clear connection between ancient Africa (Ethiopia and Egypt) and the classical world based on their reading of classical texts and late eighteenth and early nineteenth century world histories. Educated African Americans documented the debt of Greece and Rome to Egyptian civilization, and repeatedly pointed out that Egypt was a major source of the cultural achievements of Greco-Roman an- 34 the petrification of cleopatra tiquity.It was conventional wisdom that Egyptian civilization influenced Greece. What was new and controversial was the assertion of a racial connection between ancient Egyptians and modern African Americans. Abolitionists used this constructed racial history to argue that the magnificent civilization of ancient Egypt and its influences on Greek and Roman culture were proof that African Americans were not racially inferior and therefore fully worthy to be citizens with equal rights in the American Republic.1 By the 1860s it had become a commonplace in American abolitionist circles that antiquity ’s most famous queen was... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"Yes, We're Buddhists Too!"Jan WillisOn occasion, people have said to me, "Oh, I didn't know that there were African American Buddhists!" Mostly my reaction is demure, but I sometimes want to respond with the question, "Why shouldn't there be?" After all, African Americans are human beings who think and breathe and experience suffering just as other human beings do. More than 2,500 years ago, at the (...) very end of his life, the Buddha declared, "In all these years, I have taught only two things: suffering and its cessation." What a marvelous statement! And, given the end of the declaration, pretty good news.Who, having heard and reflected upon such teachings, would not wish to undertake and practice them? As the Dalai Lama often says today, "All beings wish to have happiness and to avoid suffering. In this regard, we are all exactly alike, exactly the same." It should come as no surprise, then, that at this historic time in Buddhist history— when almost all the world's traditions of Buddhism are found together in one geographic space, the United States—that African Americans too would find Buddhist teachings attractive.Many African Americans of my generation who later inclined toward Buddhism had already heard similar teachings in the words of Martin Luther King Jr. Striving to move this country closer to being a more just society, King and others had built the nonviolent Civil Rights Movement around the principles of love, forgiveness, and interdependence. Hearing these same principles and practices extolled in Buddhist teachings was like coming home.When we learned the details of the Buddha's life, he became even more of an inspiration. Here was a man who actually, in practice, rejected the systemic oppression of his country's people by denouncing the caste, or varna, system of the Aryans (originally founded on color discrimination) and allowing all castes and women to enter his community of practitioners. Both actions were extremely radical—even revolutionary— for his time. Because of the Buddha's teachings and because of his own life example, many African American children of the Civil Rights Movement have been finding their way to Buddhism.Yet, as has so often been the case, we have been doing this without much fanfare or even recognition, once again being made almost invisible. Why is this the case? And, why is it important? We should, it seems to me, explore these issues.According to a number of recent essays and reports, Buddhism is now one of the [End Page 39] fastest-growing religions in the United States. In terms of adherents, it is said to rank either third or fourth behind Christianity, Judaism, and the "nonreligious," and has grown at a rate of 170 percent since 2000. The Pew Forum U.S. Religious Landscape Survey1 published in 2008 said that people in the United States who say they are Buddhist account for about 0.7 percent of the total population (which translates into around two million followers), but a study by Wuthnow and Cadge suggests that at least 12 percent of the U.S. population—some 25 to 30 million people—have "been impacted or influenced in their spirituality by Buddhism or Buddhist ideas."2 Clearly, Buddhist ideas have affected many Americans, and some of them are African Americans.In many ways, the history of Buddhism in America is a distorted and racialized one, with one group of people being extolled while other groups are disparaged or ignored. When we trace the roots of Buddhism's introduction to the United States only to the 1893 World Parliament of Religions, we ignore the fact that there were Chinese and Japanese Buddhists in this country decades before that event. The first groups of Buddhists were actually the Chinese who came to the West Coast as menial laborers in the mines and on the railroads. In 1860, the California census showed that one in ten California residents was Chinese. Around this time Japanese also came to Hawai'i and other West Coast states, bringing with them their respective forms of Buddhism. While these different forms caught the attention of some Euro-Americans, the Chinese and Japanese Buddhists... (shrink)

This textual analysis is a collective case study of K-12 United States History content standards in light of how they represent the historical experiences of African Americans during the Civil Rights Movement. The study uses a multi-perspective critical conceptual framework to evaluate the standards for nine state-level polities on both the quality of treatment and the orientation of how African Americans are depicted in the standards. Analysis revealed that the reviewed standards tend to discourage rigorous historical thinking (...) in favor of non-conflictual narrative perspectives that accentuate the historical contributions of African Americans within a framework of linear social progress. This curricular approach is ultimately problematic because it encourages teachers and students to rely on convenient historical archetypes to construct a usable past, rather than problematizing the past and present experiences of African Americans. (shrink)

Much philosophical thinking about religion in the Anglophone world has been hampered by the constraints of Eurocentrism, colonialism and orientalism. Addressing such limitations head-on, this exciting collection develops models for exploring global diversity in order to bring philosophical studies of religion into the globalized 21st century. Drawing on a wide range of critical theories and methodologies, and incorporating ethnographic, feminist, computational, New Animist and cognitive science approaches, an international team of contributors outline the methods and aims of global philosophy of (...) religion. From considering the importance of orality in African worldviews to interacting with Native American perspectives on the cosmos and investigating contemplative studies in Hinduism, each chapter demonstrates how expertise in different methods can be applied to various geographical regions, building constructive options for philosophical reflections on religion. Diversifying Philosophy of Religion raises important questions regarding who speaks for and represents religious traditions, setting the agenda for a truly inclusive philosophy of religion that facilitates multiple standpoints. (shrink)

This article seeks to broaden understanding of issues and controversies addressed in social science research on women’s and gender studies by researchers and activists based in English-speaking sub-Saharan Africa. The topics covered were selected from those ratified by African women in the Africa Platform for Action in 1995 as well as from current debates on the politics of identity. The common feminist issues the authors identified were health; gender-based violence; sexuality, education, globalization and work; and politics, the (...) state, and nongovernmental organizations. In addition, the authors address theoretical and methodological trends. All four coauthors are feminist sociologists: One scholar is based in an African academic institution, two are Africans based in U.S. academic institutions, and one is an African American based in a U.S. academic institution. (shrink)

The biblical creation of woman in which she was taken from man’s rib is one of the passages that are misinterpreted to solidify the subjection and oppression of women with the two Cameroonian Churches, Presbyterian and Full Gospel Mission (FGM). This implies that the complementarity that existed in pre-colonial leadership was eroded as a result. This article will use the qualitative approach to unmask and analyse the practices of gender inequality within the Presbyterian and FGM of Cameroon and the (...) challenges that they are facing with gender equality issues between males and females. The sampling of 22 participants was used to formulate how the findings that will target to unveil the coordination, managerial and financial positions within these two churches are elected or chosen. The stereotypes that are involved in the elections of people who must hold these offices will be explained, discussed and analysed and even exposed in order to seek ways to avoid the manipulations of biblical texts in justifying the exclusion of females from leading church leading positions. This article argues that the misuse of misinterpretation or misrepresentation of scriptures cannot be condoned to justify the marginalisation of women from leadership within the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon (PCC) and the FGM. As much as women are working hard for the church, they should also be allowed to continue growing the church even from the managerial or leadership positions. Contribution: To work towards gender imbalances in the African context are not only unmasked and exposed, but some meaningful suggestions are made as to how this inhuman practice can be eliminated or even destroyed completely, with a case example of the two churches mentioned, the PCC and FGM in Cameroon. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aesthetics in Feminist PerspectiveJulie Van CampAesthetics in Feminist Perspective, edited by Hilde Hein and Carolyn Korsmeyer; xv & 252 pp. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993, $39.95 cloth, $14.95 paper.Has feminism been hijacked by one lock-step agenda, suppressing all dialogue and debate? Far from it, judging from this collection of seventeen essays on feminist aesthetics. The first such collection in English, it includes eleven essays previously published in Hypatia (...) (1990).This well-organized volume offers both broad theoretical considerations and applications to specific art forms, diverse methodological perspectives, and healthy debate among the contributors. The section on “The Nature of Art: Some Feminist Alternatives” considers feminist perspectives as alternatives to traditional concepts of art, motivated by considerations of the art of women. Skepticism abounds in the section on “Interpretation and Point of View” concerning a “universal” or “paradigmatic” female voice in literature, film, and visual art. “Philosophical and Critical Legacies” reveals diverse feminist readings of Kant, Nietzsche, Cartesian metaphysics, and postmodernism.Co-editor Hilde Hein proposes that aesthetics provides a promising road map for feminist philosophy and indeed philosophy generally. Aesthetics has learned to reject foundationalism and essentialism in favor of pluralism, a necessity in the face of the astonishing diversity and ever-changing landscape in contemporary art. This theoretical transition in aesthetics shows how philosophy could fruitfully shed the false security of essentialism to embrace the sometimes raucous pluralism of methods, races, cultures, and genders assaulting all humanities disciplines in recent decades. As co-editor Carolyn Korsmeyer notes, feminist scholarship challenges “the mask of universality and gender-neutrality” (p. vii). [End Page 178]The myth that feminist scholarship is merely thinly veiled political action, devoid of intellectual integrity, is shattered by this collection. Well-represented is the diversity of analytic and European methodologies that enrich contemporary philosophical dialogue. Many of the articles scrutinize the nature of “feminism” itself, as well as appropriate methodologies and questions. The interdisciplinarity of feminist research also is in welcome evidence, with seven essays by scholars from English, African-American studies, music, and psychology.Should feminist art and aesthetics be “nondominative”? Should it “endorse” female experience? Do proposals for “ideal” feminist artistic expression inadvertently retreat to the essentialism and uniformity that feminists have sought to dispel? Should feminists reject the tradition of “formalism” in favor of an approach that re-integrates art with the community and the concerns of daily life? This perspective is widespread today in postmodern thought, but feminist considerations bolster the case made elsewhere for the fall of the so-called elite object.Are there distinctive features that mark the work of female artists, such as group participation, rather than performances for passive audiences? This feature is pervasive in contemporary art, from the happenings of Andy Warhol in the 1960s to the “Messiah” sing-alongs popular for decades. Is feminist art marked by a melding of aesthetic and erotic elements? Surely that is also a trait of the art of most cultures, by men as well as women.These explorations reveal a paradox in today’s feminism. In highlighting female traits (such as the virtues of being caring and nondominating), are women being celebrated, liberated, and freed? Or are they frozen into roles which not all women consider their most important attributes as persons?Female artists and theorists deserve enormous credit for encouraging a re-thinking of the ways in which art is created and understood, but many other forces drive these developments as well. Indeed, some of the harshest critics of analytic philosophy are analytic philosophers steeped in that tradition, both male and female. It seems a pointless chicken-and-egg exercise to wonder if feminists caused this re-thinking or were one of several groups in a happy confluence of re-examination from various perspectives. Fortunately, the issue need not be resolved for scholars and students to appreciate this outstanding volume.Julie Van CampCalifornia State University, Long BeachCopyright © 1995 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

The earnings of African American women increased throughout the 1960s and 1970s, yet by the 1980s there were signs of a reversal. Using data from the 1980 and 1990 censuses of population, this study examines the deterioration in Black women's earnings across the 1980s. The authors ask what caused the earnings reversal given the improvements in Black women's human capital and industrial locations. The study finds that while the returns to schooling and industrial distribution improved (...) over the decade, these gains were offset by the negative effects of changing family structure, nonmetropolitan residence, and occupational redistribution. Noteworthy is the fact that despite higher returns for public sector employment, work in this sector contributed little to Black women's changing economic status, perhaps because of cutbacks in affirmative action programs. The authors also find evidence of a widening bifurcation among African American women workers, with growing numbers of this group concentrated in the lower end of the earnings distribution. (shrink)

This qualitative study focused on how two women African American teachers understand the purpose of teaching social studies and citizenship. The multiple identities as African American women and teachers along with their knowledge of African American history impacted the way notions of citizenship were understood and taught to students. The teachers drew on tenets of Black Feminist thought to make sense of construct of citizenship. Instead of conveying traditional notions of citizenship that (...) include personal responsibility, patriotism, and membership to the nation state, they rejected these constructs of citizenship and understood their role as social studies teachers to instill notions of community membership and agency as aspects of citizenship. African American teacher's alternative notions of citizenship may provide a framework by which reconceptualized multiple views of American citizenship may be presented. (shrink)

This article focuses on the ways gendered experiences varied by race with regard to women's recruitment and participation in the civil rights movement of Mississippi. The author analyzes 13 interviews with both African American and white women who were connected to the movement. By privileging the voices of movement actors, this study begins to illuminate the ways recruitment and participation varied by race. Three types of women's participation are distinguished: high-risk activism, low-risk institutional, and activist (...) mothering and “women's work.” Explanations for these different forms of participation are found in examining two primary patterns of recruitment. (shrink)