African American adolescents have become more active users of digital media, which may increasingly expose them to direct online discrimination based on their racial and gender identities. Despite well-documented impacts of offline discrimination, our understanding of if and how direct online discrimination affects African American adolescents similarly remains limited. Guided by intersectional and ecological frameworks, we examined the association between direct online discrimination and internalized computing stereotypes in African American adolescents. Further, we explored the moderating effects of (...) systemic and individual factors – vicarious online discrimination, parental technological attitudes, and racial identity centrality – on this association by adolescent gender. Utilizing data from 1041 African American parent-adolescent dyads, we found a positive association between adolescents’ direct online discrimination and internalized computing stereotypes. Surprisingly, greater vicarious online discrimination mitigated this association for both male and female adolescents. Further, parental technological attitudes and racial identity centrality mitigated this association only for female but not male adolescents. Our findings highlight the importance of understanding the impact of media on adolescents’ online experiences from intersectional and systemic perspectives. We discuss the implications for prospective research and educational programs focused on African American adolescents’ digital media use and online experiences. (shrink)

: This paper reviews current and suggested policies designed to increase organ donation in the United States and indicates the problems inherent to these approaches for increasing organ donation by African Americans. Data from a population-based study assessing attitudes and beliefs about organ donation among white and African-American respondents are presented and discussed. We pose the question of whether it is reasonable to maintain the existing system or whether we should institute a system that uses policies based (...) on the attitudes and beliefs of a minority group that is in greater need than the majority. In light of the discussion, we suggest that the current policies guiding the organ procurement system are not adequate to address existing concerns within the African-American community and that a different set of assumptions may be needed to drive organ procurement policy. (shrink)

Research on the intersection of race and gender suggests that, for African Americans, racial inequality is more salient than gender inequality. However, theoretical perspectives on the multiplicative effects of status positions and “outsider within” models suggest that minority group membership can be a catalyst for the development of feminist attitudes. This article examines three issues central to feminism: recognition and critique of gender inequality, egalitarian gender roles, and political activism for the rights of women. The authors found that (...) support for feminist ideology was common for both African American women and men, although the level of support varied depending on the issue and by gender. Factors predicting the endorsement of feminist ideology also varied depending on the issue and by gender. The authors found partial support for the race saliency hypothesis, but there was also evidence of the multiplicative effects of status positions on African Americans' feminist attitudes. (shrink)

Introduction Biobank-based research is growing in importance. A major controversy exists about the return of aggregate and individual research results. Methods The authors used a mixed-method approach in order to study parents' attitudes towards the return of research results regarding themselves and their children. Participants attended four 2-h, deliberative-engagement sessions held on two consecutive Saturdays. Each session consisted of an educational presentation followed by focus-group discussions with structured questions and prompts. This manuscript examines discussions from the second Saturday which focused (...) on the benefits and risks of returning aggregate and individual research results regarding both adults (morning session) and children (afternoon session). Attitudes were assessed in pre-engagement and post-engagement surveys. Results The authors recruited 45 African-American adults whose children received medical care at two healthcare facilities on the South Side of Chicago that serve different socioeconomic communities. Three dominant themes were identified. First, most participants stated that they would enrol themselves and their children in a biobank, although there was a vocal minority opposed to enrolling children, particularly children unable to participate in the consent process. Second, participants did not distinguish between the results they wanted to receive regarding themselves and their children. Supplemental survey data found no attitudinal changes pre-engagement and post-engagement. Third, participants believed that children should be allowed access to their health information, but they wanted to be involved in deciding when and how the information was shared. Discussion Participant attitudes are in tension with current biobank policies. An intensive educational effort had no effect on their attitudes. (shrink)

The use of African American as a new denomination for a group previously referred to as Black has rapidly become standard practice in American society. This paper analyzes how the introduction of African American in our ordinary language marks the elaboration of a new social reality. As the concept becomes part of our social life, it is transformed into a real “phenomenon” of social representation that formalizes behaviour and orients communication. Such a transformation requires that the new term (...) infiltrates people's everyday lives sufficiently to concretize it into a common reality. The analysis presented here outlines three key processes in the emergence and formation of the social representation of African American. The first one is anchoring which familiarizes the new object by linking it with preexisting categories in our minds. The second process is objectification which assures the crystallization of the object. A figurative core is created to allow the projection of images. At this point people can talk about the object, and through communication the object takes on meaning. This naturalization is the third process to conclude the transformation of the object into a social reality. These steps have allowed African American to become the carrier for a modification of cognitions and broadening of attitudes concerning the group. (shrink)

Shrinking enrollments in the agricultural programs of the 1890 schools can be partly explained by negative attitudes of Blacks toward agriculture. This attitude has roots in the historical experiences of African Americans and has negative implications for the agricultural programs of the 1890 schools. A collection of data from a sample of Black Louisiana Farmers lends credence to the claim that Black Farmers are not encouraging their children to go into farming. To counter the impact on the 1890 (...) schools, an active recruiting program should be undertaken, partly to show Black students that career openings in various agricultural fields offer excellent opportunities for Black students. These fields extend beyond the traditional farmgate. (shrink)

The literature on gender and health typically addresses behavioral patterns when discussing men’s attitudes to health. Few of these studies explore men’s anxieties or presentations of self in relation to health problems, particularly for stigmatizing conditions such as sexually transmitted infections. Through direct observation and focus group interviews of health workers, clients, and students, this study explores African American men’s attitudes toward attending STI clinics in the Deep South. The men’s concerns about STI clinics center on realistic health or (...) stigma-related concerns. Using a gender-relational analysis, three main sources of fear are identified in relation to attending the clinics: Gender anxiety, social anxiety, and racial anxiety. These fears present a barrier to STI care for African American men. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to attend to a certain attitude towards philosophy at Spellman College and to offer an account of its occurrence. This paper also offers recommendations on pedagogical methods and curricular models to attract African American students to philosophy. The author uses examples from personal experience teaching ethics seminars and articulates guiding principles for engaging students on a personal level while cultivating their interest in the discipline.

A focus group study using four groups of food shoppers provides insights into consumers’ knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors regarding organic foods. Two focus groups consisted of shoppers who regularly bought organic foods and two focus groups of shoppers who predominantly purchased conventional foods. Participants in one of the conventional groups were all Caucasian; in the other they were all African-American. While familiarity with organic foods was much lower in the African-American group, its members were more receptive and positive (...) towards organic foods. Likewise, the African-American shoppers were more accepting of price premiums for organics foods. In comparing the two organic shopper groups with the two conventional shopper groups, it was found that the former were generally more knowledgeable about organic foods. They were also more likely to follow a special diet than conventional Caucasian shoppers. However, the behavior of organic shoppers varied widely. The research supports examining social justice and access as motivations for changing policies to support organic agriculture. (shrink)

This study uses the ATBEQ, as published by J.F. Preble and A. Reichel (1988) to measure attitudes towards ethical business attitudes held by final year South African Bachelor of Commerce students at Rhodes University. Three samples of students were assessed over three consecutive years of 1989, 1990 and 1991, and results are compared with samples (1988) of American and Israeli students and a sample (1991) of Western Australian students. A significant difference in attitudes was found to exist between the (...) Israeli and South African samples. A factor analysis of the questionnaire identified eleven factors of which seven are theoretically labelled. A revised version of the ATBEQ is suggested which excludes the poorly performing questions. (shrink)

On 25 May 2020, Officer Derek Chauvin asphyxiated George Floyd in Minneapolis — a murder that was captured in a confronting nine-minute bystander video that set off a firestorm of activity on online social networks, in the streets of the United States, and even worldwide. These protests captured the collective rage, dissatisfaction, and resentment personally and vicariously experienced towards the widespread systematic injustice and mistreatment of African Americans by police and vigilantes. The scale of these protests, both online (...) and in the streets, has been estimated to have far exceeded the civil rights marches of the 1960s (Buchanan et al. 2020). Considering the widespread extent of these protests, our research aims to analyse conflictual intergroup moral dynamics in terms of the reactive attitudes expressed by distinct online communities on Twitter. This paper examines the extent to which the Strawsonian (1962) reactive attitudes framework is applicable to the Twitter discourse around the Black Lives Matter protests reignited by the murder of George Floyd. In particular, we argue that the Strawsonian framework is inadequate to understand a range of prevalent attitudes expressed in this discourse — attitudes that we call reactionary as opposed to merely reactive. Reactionary attitudes include counter-indignation on behalf of the accused rather than Strawsonian indignation on behalf of the victim of a moral wrong. We document the expression of such attitudes among the right-wing participants in the online discourse about the Black Lives Matter movement. (shrink)

The use of algorithms and automated systems, especially those leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), has been exploding in the public sector, but their use has been controversial. Ethicists, public advocates, and legal scholars have debated whether biases in AI systems should bar their use or if the potential net benefits, especially toward traditionally disadvantaged groups, justify even greater expansion. While this debate has become voluminous, no scholars of which we are aware have conducted experiments with the groups affected by these policies (...) about how they view the trade-offs. We conduct a set of two conjoint experiments with a high-quality sample of 973 Americans who identify as Black or African American in which we randomize the levels of inter-group disparity in outcomes and the net effect on such adverse outcomes in two highly controversial contexts: pre-trial detention and traffic camera ticketing. The results suggest that respondents are willing to tolerate some level of disparity in outcomes in exchange for certain net improvements for their community. These results turn this debate from an abstract ethical argument into an evaluation of political feasibility and policy design based on empirics. (shrink)

Using the Implicit Association Test, recent experiments have demonstrated a strong and automatic positive evaluation of White Americans and a relatively negative evaluation of African Americans. Interpretations of this finding as revealing pro-White attitudes rest critically on tests of alternative interpretations, the most obvious one being perceivers’ greater familiarity with stimuli representing White Americans. The reported experiment demonstrated that positive attributes were more strongly associated with White than Black Americans even when pictures of equally unfamiliar (...) Black and White individuals were used as stimuli and differences in stimulus familiarity were statistically controlled. This experiment indicates that automatic race associations captured by the IAT are not compromised by stimulus familiarity, which in turn strengthens the conclusion that the IAT measures automatic evaluative associations. © 2000 Academic Press. (shrink)

Using a purposive sample with an even distribution of 299 non-Hispanic Whites, 294 African Americans, 292 Asian Americans and 295 Hispanics, we test a moderated mediation model that examines the relationship between self-reported news media consumption (e.g., non-conservative and conservative) and environmental behavioural intentions. Our study found evidence supporting the mainstreaming hypothesis (converging attitudes) across key variables within the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). Our results also reveal non-conservative outlets to be associated with more favourable environmental attitudes, (...) subjective norms and perceived behavioural control, while conservative outlets are associated with less favourable levels for two of these three variables. Results also indicate conditional indirect relationships between non-conservative news use on behavioural intentions through our TPB variables, which vary by race/ethnicity. (shrink)

Using the Implicit Association Test (IAT), recent experiments have demonstrated a strong and automatic positive evaluation of White Americans and a relatively negative evaluation of African Americans. Interpretations of this finding as revealing pro-White attitudes rest critically on tests of alternative interpretations, the most obvious one being perceivers’ greater familiarity with stimuli representing White Americans. The reported experiment demonstrated that positive attributes were more strongly associated with White than Black Americans even when (a) pictures of (...) equally unfamiliar Black and White individuals were used as stimuli and (b) differences in stimulus familiarity were statistically controlled. This experiment indicates that automatic race associations captured by the IAT are not compromised by stimulus familiarity, which in turn strengthens the conclusion that the IAT measures automatic evaluative associations. © 2000 Academic Press.. (shrink)

Little is known about the lives of the never married. Demographic data show that rates of nonmarriage have increased significantly across racial and ethnic groups. Among women, African Americans have the highest rates of nonmarriage, followed by Asian Americans and European Americans. This research used in-depth interviews with native- and foreign-born Chinese American and Japanese American never married women to explore why these women are delaying or rejecting heterosexual marriage. Respondents were asked a series of open- (...) and closed-ended questions about their attitudes, experiences, and decisions concerning marriage and family life. Questions also focused on how their family backgrounds and occupational plans affected their decisions to marry. Preliminary findings reveal that Chinese American and Japanese American women express a number of reasons for being never married. The four most consistent factors were their parents' marriages, their status as the eldest or only daughter, their educational goals, and the perceived lack of suitors. (shrink)

This article builds on my recent engagement with James Cone’s binary view of Africanness and Christianity which focused on his Western locus of enunciation and the criticism he received from his African American colleagues. I believe that analogical questions regarding Christian theology’s attitude towards Africanness in general and African religiosity in particular present themselves to us who live in and try to make sense of South African reality today, including white people like myself. I start by introducing (...) a decolonial perspective as it manifests itself through the recent #MustFall student movements. In this context, I offer three theses regarding the decolonial perspective on African religiosity, each of which constitutes a more or less direct critique of Cone’s ambivalent attitude towards Africanness, and African Traditional Religions in particular. The first thesis concerns the distinction between postcoloniality and decoloniality; the second thesis concerns engaging African religiosity as a requirement for decolonising Christian theology; and the third thesis concerns problematising the relationship between the categories of blackness and Africanness. (shrink)

This controversial book is an impassioned African response to the racial stereotyping of African people and people of African descent by prominent white scholars. It highlights how the media contributes to the growth of racist ideas, particularly in reporting current events in Africa, and demonstrates how some of America’s most revered intellectuals cloak racist ideologies in ostensibly egalitarian discourses. The author seeks to rewrite the image of 'race' in order to show the damage racism can cause serious (...) scholarship. (shrink)

While Appiah and Soyinka criticize racial essentializing in Sartre and the Negritude poets, Sartre in Black Orpheus interprets the Negritudinists as employing a phenomenological, anamnestic retrieval of subjective experience. This retrieval uncovers two ethical attitudes: a less exploitative approach toward nature, and a conversion of slavery’s suffering into a stimulus for universal liberation. These attitudes spring from peasant cultural traditions and ethical responses to others’ race-based cruelty, rather than emanating from mystified ‘blackness’. Alfred Schutz’s because-motive analysis, a process of narrative (...) self-constitution, renders plausible these linkages the Negritudinists draw between themselves and peasant or slave ancestors. Such narratives, customarily constructed in common sense by European- and African-Americans, regularly involve mythic elements, serve laudable ethical purposes and require continual theoretical critique by anthropology, genetics and ethics. Theory, though, plays only a critical, corrective role for subjective, anamnestic recoveries of racial and ethnic identity, and it can never replace them. (shrink)

African Americans, compared to Whites, are starkly underrepresented in scientific and technological professions, are especially reluctant to participate as research subjects, and they express attitudes that are skeptical of science and scientific institutions. This article seeks to explain the racial gap in confidence in science (race being socially defined), putting to empirical test explanations suggested by research on human capital, inequality in educational opportunity, and culture. The results show that differential returns to schooling account for about a third (...) of the racial divide, with various cultural mechanisms explaining most of the balance. (shrink)

Black Utopias posits a concept of utopia made possible by black people's exclusion from the human and expressed through the ecstatic practices, community creation, speculative fiction and music. Jayna Brown explores the practices and works of 19th century black women mystics as well as 20th century musicians and speculative fiction writers including mystics Sojourner Truth and Rebecca Cox Jackson, musicians Alice Coltrane and Sun Ra, and writers Samuel Delany and Octavia Butler.

Okolo maintains that the African is identified by his personality which is the attitudinal disposition he designates as ‘beingwith’. He adopts the term ‘being-with’ to represent the African ‘communality’ which is all there is to be truly African. Though maintaining a radical communalistic viewpoint suspending in socio-ontological considerations, Okolo posits that this attitude characteristically defines and symbolically stands for that by which ‘an African’ is identified. However, Okolo’s position inheres some problems that border on one, the (...) question and place of right and freedom of the individual as a community-member in the face of the community-consciousness, two, imposition of the title ‘African’ on even non-Africans as he opines that even an American, for instance, who imbibes by the principle of ‘being-with’ is ‘an African’, among other problems. Nonetheless, this paper defends that there are serious series of challenges/disruptions to this personality of ‘being-with’ which today hinder a satisfactory realization of its practicability/liveability even among Africans. The expectations from the paper include one, an analysis of Okolo’s thoughts, pointing out the loopholes for further academic exercise on African philosophical discourse, two, to reiterate the fact that what is African has substantial potency to sustain Africa, and address African problems hence ‘African solutions to African problems’, and third and finally, to propose an alternative view to ameliorating the radical communalistic positions in Okolo. The paper shall here also adopt philosophical conceptualization, content and contextual analysis and clarifications to critically review Okolo. (shrink)

'The problem of the twentieth-century is the problem of the color-line.' Originally published in 1903, The Souls of Black Folk is a classic study of race, culture, and education at the turn of the twentieth century. With its singular combination of essays, memoir, and fiction, this book vaulted W. E. B. Du Bois to the forefront of American political commentary and civil rights activism. The Souls of Black Folk is an impassioned, at times searing account of the situation of (...) class='Hi'>African Americans in the United States. Du Bois makes a forceful case for the access of African Americans to higher education, memorably extols the achievements of black culture (above all the spirituals or 'sorrow songs'), and advances the provocative and influential argument that due to the inequalities and pressures of the 'race problem', African American identity is characterized by 'double consciousness'. This edition includes a valuable appendix of other writing by Du Bois, which sheds light on his attitudes and intentions. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. (shrink)

Donors to biobanks are typically asked to give blanket consent, allowing their donation to be used in any research authorized by the biobank. This type of consent ignores the evidence that some donors have moral, religious, or cultural concerns about the future uses of their donations – concerns we call “non-welfare interests”. The nature of non-welfare interests and their effect on willingness to donate to a biobank is not well understood. In order to better undersand the influence of non-welfare interests, (...) we surveyed a national sample of the US population using a probability-based internet panel. Logistic regression models assessed the demographic and attitudinal characteristics associated with participants’ willingness to give consent for unspecified future uses of their donation when presented with 7 research scenarios that raised possible non-welfare interest concerns. Most people had non-welfare interests that significantly affect their willingness to donate to a biobank using blanket consent. Some non-welfare interests are associated with subgroups but others are not. A positive attitude toward biomedical research in general was associated with increased willingness to donate, while concerns about privacy and being African American were associated with decreased willingness. Non-welfare interests matter and can diminish willingness to donate to a biobank. Our data suggest that trust in research promotes willingness to donate. Ignoring non-welfare interests could erode this trust. Donors’ non-welfare interests could be accommodated through greater transparency and easier access to information about the uses of donations. (shrink)

“Implicit bias” is a term of art referring to relatively unconscious and relatively automatic features of prejudiced judgment and social behavior. While psychologists in the field of “implicit social cognition” study “implicit attitudes” toward consumer products, self-esteem, food, alcohol, political values, and more, the most striking and well-known research has focused on implicit attitudes toward members of socially stigmatized groups, such as African-Americans, women, and the LGBTQ community.[1] For example, imagine Frank, who explicitly believes that women and men (...) are equally suited for careers outside the home. Despite his explicitly egalitarian belief, Frank might nevertheless implicitly associate women with the home, and this implicit association might lead him to behave in any number of biased ways, from trusting feedback from female co-workers less to hiring equally qualified men over women. Psychological research on implicit bias is relatively recent (§1), but a host of metaphysical (§2), epistemological (§3), and ethical questions (§4) about implicit bias are pressing.[2]. (shrink)

Distributive, procedural, and interactional justice are constructs that are increasingly being recognized as important factors that affect individual perceptions in the workplace environment. This paper presents a theoretical perspective that suggests that justice is perceived through a subjective lens that consists of individualized beliefs and proposes that cultural attributes and demographic characteristics play an integral part in determining the perception of justice. The distinctions between these three constructs are presented in context with the core beliefs of individual employees – affected (...) by a multitude of perceptual and demographic factors that we briefly identify herein. Based on the theoretical perspective, an instrument that measures the constructs of justice as perceived by individuals was developed. With a focus on justice within the business setting, hypotheses about attitudes related to justice were tested. Survey results confirm that the three constructs of justice are distinct but correlated. Significant differences were found in the perceptions of African-American respondents with regard to procedural justice. Although the empirical findings do not support all the hypotheses, this research highlights the need for further development of measures to assess the perception of justice in business settings and at an applied level, underscores the importance of recognizing cultural attributes and demographic characteristics in understanding how justice is perceived. (shrink)

Publication date: 30 March 2017 Source: Author: Faeze Rezazade, Esmaeil Zohdi Racial prejudice, injustice, and discrimination against people of colored skin, especially African Americans, has become a global issue since the twenty century. Blacks are deprived of their rights regardless of their human natures and are disenfranchised from White’s societies due to their skin color which has put them as inferior and clownish creatures in White’s point of view. Although many anti-racist effort and speeches has done to solve (...) racist issues and eliminate racism and its circumstances, still racism is alive and Blacks are suffering from it. Although, many White individuals accept themselves as anti-racist characters that color of skin does not matter to them, they still show prejudice and discrimination towards Blacks and cannot consider them as equal as themselves. A reason to such Whites’ thought and behavior is that they have faced this issue since their childhood and therefore they cannot change it because this attitude is entangled with their personality and is deeply ingrained in them. Thus, a way to stop and eliminate discrimination, prejudice, and injustice is to train children, the next generation, as anti-racist and color-blind characters. In this regard, it has been tried to investigate the role of children training in the elimination of social and racial discrimination in Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, which is sequel novel to her masterpiece To Kill a Mockingbird. Moreover, Jean Piaget’s theory of Children’s Cognitive Development has been used for a better understanding of this investigation. (shrink)

On November 18, 1994, academic, activist, and philosopher Cornel West addressed the National Alliance of Black School Educators at a conference in the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles, California. Dr. West’s speech, captured in this video recording, focuses on the experience of African Americans in America, a culture that, according to West, is steeped in the “pernicious and vicious” influence of white supremacy. West argues that 1994 is one of the “more frightening and terrifying moments” in the (...) history of the United States, and he laments the election of Newt Gingrich as well as the leadership positions of such figures as Strom Thurmond and Orrin Hatch. He urges the audience to adopt an approach to democratizing American politics by not only resisting white supremacy but also male supremacy, heterosexual supremacy, and any other attitude that dehumanizes other people. West also deplores the decline of “non-market values” such as kindness, community, and love, contending that “market culture” leads to “market morality,” in which every part of human life is commodified. (shrink)

Sugar, pork, beer, corn, cider, scrapple, and hoppin' John all became staples in the diet of colonial America. The ways Americans cultivated and prepared food and the values they attributed to it played an important role in shaping the identity of the newborn nation. In A Revolution in Eating, James E. McWilliams presents a colorful and spirited tour of culinary attitudes, tastes, and techniques throughout colonial America. Confronted by strange new animals, plants, and landscapes, settlers in the colonies and (...) West Indies found new ways to produce food. Integrating their British and European tastes with the demands and bounty of the rugged American environment, early Americans developed a range of regional cuisines. From the kitchen tables of typical Puritan families to Iroquois longhouses in the backcountry and slave kitchens on southern plantations, McWilliams portrays the grand variety and inventiveness that characterized colonial cuisine. As colonial America grew, so did its palate, as interactions among European settlers, Native Americans, and African slaves created new dishes and attitudes about food. McWilliams considers how Indian corn, once thought by the colonists as "fit for swine," became a fixture in the colonial diet. He also examines the ways in which African slaves influenced West Indian and American southern cuisine. While a mania for all things British was a unifying feature of eighteenth-century cuisine, the colonies discovered a national beverage in domestically brewed beer, which came to symbolize solidarity and loyalty to the patriotic cause in the Revolutionary era. The beer and alcohol industry also instigated unprecedented trade among the colonies and further integrated colonial habits and tastes. Victory in the American Revolution initiated a "culinary declaration of independence," prompting the antimonarchical habits of simplicity, frugality, and frontier ruggedness to define American cuisine. McWilliams demonstrates that this was a shift not so much in new ingredients or cooking methods, as in the way Americans imbued food and cuisine with values that continue to shape American attitudes to this day. (shrink)

Combating homophobia, racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination and violence in our society requires more than just focusing on the overt acts of prejudiced and abusive individuals. The very intelligibility of such acts, in fact, depends upon a background of shared beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors that together form the context of social practices in which these acts come to have the meaning they do. This book, inspired by Wittgenstein as well as feminist and critical race theory, shines a critical (...) light on this background in order to show that we all share more responsibility for the persistence of oppressive social practices than we commonly suppose—or than traditional moral theories that connect responsibility just with the actions, rights, and liberties of individuals would lead us to believe. First sketching a nonessentialist view of rationality, and emphasizing the role of power relations, Peg O’Connor then examines in subsequent chapters the relationship between a variety of "foreground" actions and "background" practices: burnings of African American churches, hate speech, child sexual abuse, coming out as a gay or lesbian teenager, and racial integration of public and private spaces. These examples serve to illuminate when our "language games" reinforce oppression and when they allow possibilities for resistance. Attending to the background, O’Connor argues, can give us insight into ways of transforming the nature and meaning of foreground actions. (shrink)

In this chapter I explore the phenomenon of dehumanization in relation to public policy. Using two examples of spectacle lynchings of African Americans, I articulate a conception of dehumanization as the attitude of conceiving of others as subhuman creatures and explain the psychological basis for this phenomenon. I suggest that dehumanization is pertinent to policies concerning hate speech. I address objections to my conception of dehumanization: that dehumanizers implicitly or explicitly acknowledge the humanity of their victims and that (...) dehumanizers regard their victims not merely as animals but also as demons and monsters. I explain how these objections can be met. (shrink)

BackgroundFinancial compensation of research participants has been standard practice for centuries, however, there is an ongoing debate among researchers and ethicists regarding the ethical nature of this practice. While these debates develop ethical arguments and theories, they fail to incorporate input from those most affected by financial compensation: potential research participants.MethodsTo identify attitudes surrounding clinical research, participants of a long-standing cohort completed a one-time interview. Open-ended questions stimulated a participant-driven discussion surrounding medical research. Following a grounded theory methodology, 58 semistructured (...) interview transcripts were coded, focusing on attitudes surrounding financial compensation of research participants.ResultsOf the interviews coded, the majority of participants identified as Black/African American and were women. Five major themes emerged. In support of financial compensation, participants felt that study participants should be compensated for time, effort and risk. However, participants were concerned that compensation may differentially impact low-income populations and entice them to hide potentially harmful side effects. Participants also mentioned that financial compensation may invalidate study results if participants knowingly provide false information to subvert inclusion/exclusion criteria.ConclusionThe emergence of both positive and negative themes reiterates the complicated issue of providing financial compensation for study participation. While compensation as a motivator for research participation raises ethical concerns, participants discussed weighing the benefits with the risks in order to make an informed decision. To avoid paternalistic behaviours, research staff must allow potential research participants to review the available information and make the decision that best reflects their wishes. (shrink)

African-American Philosophers brings into conversation seventeen of the foremost thinkers of color to discuss issues such as Black existentialism, racism, Black women philosophers within the academy, affirmative action and the conceptual parameters of African-American philosophy.

This article discusses the need for more satisfactory implicit measures in consumer psychology and assesses the theoretical foundations, validity, and value of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) as a measure of implicit consumer social cognition. Study 1 demonstrates the IAT’s sensitivity to explicit individual differences in brand attitudes, ownership, and usage frequency, and shows their correlations with IAT-based measures of implicit brand attitudes and brand relationship strength. In Study 2, the contrast between explicit and implicit measures of attitude toward the (...) ad for sportswear advertisements portraying African American (Black) and European American (White) athlete–spokespersons revealed different patterns of responses to explicit and implicit measures in Black and White respondents. These were explained in terms of self-presentation biases and system justification theory. Overall, the results demonstrate that the IAT enhances our understanding of consumer responses, particularly when consumers are either unable or unwilling to identify the sources of influence on their behaviors or opinions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Our Original Barbarism":Man vs. Nature in Thomas Jefferson's Moral ExperienceMaurizio ValsaniaJefferson, perhaps more than any other early democratic theorist, recognized that the development of social institutions and government could not be left to chance or to the "Laws of Nature."1One of the most fundamental fact about Thomas Jefferson—maybe the fundamental fact about Thomas Jefferson—is that he was a white man, and a landholding white man at that. Scholars of (...) ethnicity in the last thirty years have spent an enormous amount of time analyzing what it has meant to be Indian, or African American, or Mexican American, or Asian American, but scholars of "mainstream" history have spent almost no time analyzing what it means to be "white"; whiteness, on the contrary, simply remains the norm by which the difference of the non whites is gauged. We are just beginning our exploration of whiteness, as a culturally and politically constructed phenomenon.2This paper presents Thomas Jefferson's moral attitudes from a particular point of view.3 The thesis I defend can be stated in a very schematic way. (1) In order to secure the new-born Republic the American "leader," according to [End Page 627] Jefferson, must struggle against enemies, against circumstances but mainly against nature. Nature is perhaps the most powerful symbol of the disorder white Americans have to conquer. (2) This struggle against nature reveals a deep ethical commitment. White men are praiseworthy to the extent that they keep fighting against disorder, nature, and circumstances. (3) Jefferson's optimism, or better, "meliorism," was aimed at promoting moral behavior, i.e., to incite his alter egos to struggle against adverse conditions. As to whether or not he was confident about the course of American history, I have staked no claims in this paper.4 (4) Jefferson's case for the struggle against nature is ethically coherent and leads to some interesting reflections on Jefferson's ideas about human nature and white Americans in particular.The notion of "human nature" in this paper refers to white Americans, namely, to the moral character, temperament, and ambitions of those leaders whose main burden, in Jefferson's opinion, should be to construct nineteenth-century America. This examination takes for granted that Jefferson neither worked out a systematic theory of human nature nor elaborated a specific theory of the essence of white Americans.5 Nevertheless, it is too much to say that Jefferson "did not work out his ideas in a logical way."6 His anthropological views were fairly coherent even though very difficult to disentangle. Jefferson, for instance, was neither an optimist nor a pessimist. Furthermore, he was not satisfied with a philosophical, simply "general," and a priori definition of a universal human nature. Jefferson placed human beings outside a metaphysical frame of reference. He placed them "within the sphere of nature, and in so doing [he] was a true exponent of the Enlightenment."7 Humans are merged into geographical, social, religious, economic, in short positive contexts and conditions. They appear as conditioned beings. On the other hand Jefferson was not exclusively involved in the examination of a physical or a posteriori anthropology in which humans are considered solely in the unique particularity of their races and habits.8Thomas Jefferson stood in the middle between the quest for a philosophical theory of human nature and a scientific examination of it. One thing is clear: he was not content with sweeping statements. Merle Curti noted, for example, "Jefferson's feelings about human nature's plasticity."9 This sense of "plasticity" suggests Jefferson's realism and complexity of vision. A philosopher and an [End Page 628] anthropologist, Jefferson was neither satisfied by a general definition nor by an optimistic portrait of human nature. He was against idealization, in particular when white Americans are at stake. Thus, this paper considers the terms in which Jefferson "questioned the cheery view of human nature that some enlightened thinkers celebrated."10 Must white Americans be celebrated? Must nature be celebrated?I. Thomas Jefferson was a strong supporter of social improvement. His involvement in educational, agrarian, commercial, scientific, geographic, and political projects shows several instances of his being an Enlightenment modernizer who... (shrink)

Martha Nussbaum’s work Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice identifies the role that compassion plays in motivating citizens in a just society. I expand on this discussion by considering how attitudes of indifference pose a challenge to the extension of compassion in our society. If we are indifferent to others who are in situations of need, we are not equipped to experience compassion for them. Building on Nussbaum’s account, I develop an analytic framework for the public emotion of Civic (...) Tenderness to combat indifference. Civic tenderness is an orientation of concern that is generated for people and groups that are vulnerable in our society. For example, while we are all vulnerable to having material needs, some people are more vulnerable depending on their personal, social, political, economic, or environmental situations. I focus on two social injustices that largely affect African American and African descended people in America—poverty and the American Criminal Justice System. Whereas compassion responds to suffering, tenderness responds to vulnerability. Since occupying a situation of suffering implies having been vulnerable to suffering, vulnerability is prior to suffering and tenderness is prior to compassion. Civic tenderness is the expansion of tenderness among a society’s members, institutions, or systems. I argue that its expansion is initiated and sustained by a process called tenderization. Tenderization adjusts our perception of situations of vulnerability and motivates us to protect the vulnerable. Additionally, I propose a plan to initiate this process. I suggest that the state’s role will be to increase the recognition of situational vulnerability for groups like the imprisoned and the impoverished. This recognition encourages the society to adopt legislation considerate of the historical circumstances that caused a particular group’s vulnerability. In addition to legislative safety nets, I suggest the state should tenderize its citizens in order to reintegrate vulnerable citizens into society by giving them a sense of self-respect. As an exercise in non-ideal political theory, this research draws on social/political philosophy, moral and social psychology, and political science to provide an interdisciplinary perspective of the problem and possible solutions. (shrink)

In this article, the authors operationalize the intersection of gender and race in survey research. Using quantitative data from the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality, they investigate how gender/racial stereotypes about African Americans affect Whites’ attitudes about two types of affirmative action programs: job training and education and hiring and promotion. The authors find that gender/racial prejudice towards Black women and Black men influences Whites’ opposition to affirmative action at different levels than negative attitudes towards Blacks as a (...) group. Prejudice toward Black women has a larger effect on Whites’ policy preferences than does prejudice toward Black men or Blacks in general. In future research, survey methodologists should develop better intersectional measures to further document these gender/racial attitudes. (shrink)

This essay works to bridge conversations in philosophy of education with decolonial theory. The author considers Margonis’ ( 1999 , 2011a , b ) use of Rousseau ( 1979 ) and Heidegger ( 1962 ) in developing an ontological attitude that counters social hierarchies and promotes anti-colonial relations. While affirming this effort, the essay outlines a coloniality of being at work in Rousseau and Heidegger through thier reliance on the colonial conceptualization of African Americans and Native Americans (...) as savage and primitive. The essay turns to decolonial theory and the work of Maldenado-Torres (Cult Stud 21(2–3):240–270, 2007 , 2009 ) to highlight how a decolonial attitude complicates, yet enriches Margonis’ philosophical framework. (shrink)

Ice Cube "What's a brother gotta do to get a message through to the Red, White, and Blue?" Ice-T Rap music has emerged as one of the most distinctive and controversial music genres of the past decade. A significant part of hip hop culture, [1] rap articulates the experiences and conditions of African-Americans living in a spectrum of marginalized situations ranging from racial stereotyping and stigmatizing to struggle for survival in violent ghetto conditions. In this cultural context, rap (...) provides a voice to the voiceless, a form of protest to the oppressed, and a mode of alternative cultural style and identity to the marginalized. Rap is thus not only music to dance and party to, but a potent form of cultural identity. It has become a powerful vehicle for cultural political expression, serving as the "CNN of black people", or upping the high-tech ante, as their "satellite communication system". It is an informational medium to tune into, one that describes the rage of African-Americans facing growing oppression, declining opportunities for advancement, changing moods on the streets, and everyday life as a matter of sheer survival. In turn, it has become a cultural virus, circulating its images, sounds, and attitude throughout the culture and body politic. (shrink)

Immigrants now compose approximately 12 of the population of the United States and a sizable proportion of the workforce. Yet in contrast to research on other traditionally under-represented groups (e.g., women, African Americans), there are relatively few studies on issues related to being an immigrant in the U.S. workforce. This study examined English-only workplace policies, focusing on reactions to business justifications – explanations that justify managerial decisions as business necessities – for these policies. We contrasted the reactions of (...) individuals coming from immigrant families, where at least one parent was an immigrant to the U.S., with those of persons from non-immigrant families. Results of an experiment indicated that business justifications were successful in influencing the attitudes of non-immigrants toward the English-only policies, but did not influence the attitudes of individuals from immigrant families. Probing the reasons for this effect, a thought-listing protocol suggested that non-immigrants mentioned more of the business benefits of the English-only policy than did individuals from immigrant families. Further, business justifications for the English-only policy led individuals from immigrant families, but not those from non-immigrant families, to view the organization as being less ethical and less concerned with the welfare of its workers. The implications of messages from management being understood differently by different demographic groups are discussed. (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)

PurposeThis study aims to explore the ethical and social issues of tattoo recognition technology and tattoo similarity detection technology, which are expected to be increasingly used by state and local police departments and law enforcement agencies.Design/methodology/approachThe paper investigates the new ethical concerns raised by tattoo-based biometrics on a comparative basis with face-recognition biometrics.FindingsTRT raises much more ethically sensitive issues than face recognition, because tattoos are meaningful biometric traits, and tattoo identification is tantamount to the identification of many more personal features (...) that normally would have remained invisible. TSDT’s assumption that classifying people in virtue of their visible features is useful to foretell their attitudes and behaviours is dangerously similar to racist thought.Practical implicationsThe findings hope to promote an active debate on the ethical and social aspects of tattoo-based biometrics before it is intensely implemented by law enforcement agencies.Social implicationsTattooed individuals – inasmuch as they are more controlled and monitored – are negatively discriminated in comparison to un-tattooed individuals. As tattooing is not uniformly distributed among population, many demographic groups like African–Americans will be overrepresented in tattoos databases used by TRT and TSDT, thus being affected by disproportionately higher risk to be found as a match for a given suspect.Originality/valueTRT and TSDT represent one of the new frontiers of biometrics. The ethical and social issues raised by TRT and TSDT are currently unexplored. (shrink)

This article examines the responses of two communities to hate crimes in their cities. In particular it explores how community understandings of responsibility shape collective responses to hate crimes. I use the case of Bridesberg, Pennsylvania to explore how anti-racist work is restricted by backward-looking conceptions of moral responsibility (e.g. being responsible). Using recent writings in feminist ethics.(1) I argue for a forward-looking notion that advocates an active view: taking responsibility for attitudes and behaviors that foster climates in which hate (...) crimes are more likely to occur, even when a person's individual actions do not contribute directly to harms. Using the case of Billings, Montana, I explain how recent Not In Our Town campaigns take responsibility for hate crimes in the ways feminist literature suggests. -/- I take as my point of departure hate crimes committed against the family of Bridget Ward, an African American woman, who moved into the suburb of Bridesburg in 1996. When issues of responsibility for racism arose in the local press, most Bridesbergers insisted that their community was not racist; they blamed only the individual vandals. This narrow blame-assigning focus is in keeping with most Anglo-American definitions of responsibility as belonging essentially to individuals and not to communities. Traditionally, moral and legal theory construct responsibility from a perspective that looks downward and back. These perspectives are preoccupied with punishment and reward, praise and blame; they assume justice is done when guilty parties are found and tried. -/- This focus masks deeper community problems. As Elizabeth Spelman remarks, "tolerance is easy if those who are asked to express it need not change a whit." (2) Focus on praise and blame is, in part, a function of race privilege. Bridesberg is 98% white, and part of "the arrogance whitely behavior" is positioning one's self as a judge, expert, and problem solver. (3) The view from this particular subject position limits attention to individuals and their actions, rather than to communities and their practices; it shifts attention away from the fact that Bridesberger's collective practice of distrusting outsiders has lead to hate crimes in the past. Pointing to vandals and claiming "they are racist" does not free one's community of racism. It reinscribes a community spirit that is resistant to change. -/- The second part of this essay explores what communities like Bridesberg might have done to prevent violence. Often there is little individuals alone can do to stop racial violence, but that there is a sense in which community members are obligated to organize themselves. Strategies that focus community responsibility on retribution rather than long-term change, are short lived and ineffective. Anti-racist activism requires a forward-looking view of responsibility: one that aims at inoculating the community against increased risk of violence. This requires taking responsibility for the fact that one's town might foster climates in which hate crimes are more likely to occur. It requires that we begin inquiry in the lives of those harmed. -/- Collective citizen efforts to prevent Aryan groups from gaining a foothold in Billings, Montana offers a clear illustration of how to take responsibility for hate crimes using strategies designed consciously to prevent further hate crimes (e.g., when Black Churches were threatens, all community members attended services there; when a rock was thrown through a window with a menorah, many homes displayed menorahs). The community responses in Billings are a stark contrast to those of Bridesburg, and serve as a powerful example of how forward-looking notions of responsibility can translate into effective political strategy. Although, these strategies are not in and of themselves feminist, they are powerful illustrations of what feminists mean by forward-looking views. The success of resident's collective action and coalition building gave rise to a national Not In Our Town campaign used in about a dozen cities today. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Religious Perspectives on Bioethics, Part 2Laura Jane Bishop (bio) and Mary Carrington Coutts (bio)This is Part Two of a two part Scope Note on Religious Perspectives on Bioethics. Part One was published in the June 1994 issue of this Journal. This Scope Note has been arranged in alphabetical order by the name of the religious tradition.Contents for Parts 1 and 2Part 1I.GeneralVI.HinduismII.African Religious TraditionsVII.IslamIII.Bahá'í FaithVIII.JainismIV.Buddhism and ConfucianismIX.JudaismV.Eastern OrthodoxyPart (...) 2I.Native American ReligiousChristian Scientist TraditionsEpiscopal/AnglicanII.ProtestantismEvangelicalGeneralJehovah's WitnessAnabaptist (Church of theLutheranBrethren, Friends SocietyMethodist/Wesleyan(Quaker), and Mennonite/NazareneAmish/Hutterite)Presbyterian/ReformedAssemblies of GodSeventh-day AdventistBaptistUnitarian UniversalistChurch of Jesus Christ of theUnited Church of Christ Latter-day SaintsIII.Roman CatholicismChristian Church (Disciples of Christ)[End Page 357]IntroductionThe many religions of the world bring diverse, and occasionally divergent attitudes to bioethical issues. These beliefs may guide patients and health care professionals as they seek or provide health care. In an attempt to facilitate understanding of and access to information about these beliefs in our pluralistic and global society, this Scope Note identifies literature by the world's major religious groups on topics relating to bioethics.Topics covered by this Scope Note include general attitudes to health and health care, the physician-patient relationship, treatment refusal, abortion, contraception, sterilization, reproductive technologies, genetics, mental health, human experimentation, organ transplantation and donation, death, euthanasia, suicide, and prolongation of life. Material was not available on all of these topics for each religion.The literature gathered here represents only a small portion of the available writing on religion and medicine for these faith traditions in the United States, and is limited to that which comments explicitly on bioethical issues. Some faiths have a rich tradition of writing on bioethics, for others the literature is more limited. Variation in coverage is not intended to indicate the relative importance of a faith but reflects accessibility and space constraints. Individuals interested in obtaining additional information are encouraged to contact the National Reference Center for Bioethics Literature.It is important to remember that doctrinal and theological differences exist even within the same denomination and that views of individual patients, family members, and health care providers should be sought.Native North American ShamanismAvery, Charlene. Native American Medicine: Traditional Healing. Journal of the American Medical Association 265 (17): 2271, 2273, 1 May 1991. A brief description of the general principles of Southwestern Native American religions is provided. Most tribes believe that health and religious well-being are interconnected.Day, Thomas W. Cross-Cultural Medicine at Home. Minnesota Medicine 75 (3): 15-17, March 1992. The Ojibwe tribe's view of health incorporates spiritual health and emphasizes a holistic approach to health care that encompasses a harmonious balance between the individual, community, and nature, as well as between body, mind, and spirit.Hirschfelder, Arlene B., and Molin, Paulette. The Encyclopedia of Native American Religions. New York: Facts on File, 1992. 367 p. A survey of Native American religions is provided, including tribal histories, descriptions of religious ceremonies, and biographical sketches.Hultkrantz, Åke. Health, Religion, and Medicine in Native North American Traditions. In Healing [End Page 358] and Restoring: Health and Medicine in the World's Religious Traditions, ed. Lawrence Sullivan, pp. 327-58. New York: Macmillan, 1989. Hultkrantz summarizes the Native American attitude toward medicine and health care, explaining that belief in the supernatural and its powers is one of the most important tenets of life. Ailing persons are aided by those who have been trained to act as mediators between the sick individual and the supernatural powers. Attitudes toward health and disease, and the role of the medicine man are demonstrated through the use of examples taken from many tribes.Hultkrantz, Åke. Shamanic Healing and Ritual Drama: Health and Medicine in Native North American Religious Traditions. New York: Crossroad, 1992. 197 p. Hultkrantz surveys the varied traditions of Native North Americans and their outlook on medical care, health, and religion, and emphasizes that Native American medical beliefs... (shrink)

The election of Barack H. Obama as President of the United States was a significant event in the social and political history of the United States. His election as the first non-white male President has been seen as a sign of the changing racial attitudes of white Americans. Nonetheless, the specter of race and racism haunts his presidency. As the first African American president, he has to show the black community that he has their social, political, and economic (...) interests on his public policy agenda. On the other hand, he cannot appear to be to overtly pro-black without bruising white racial sensibilities. In order to walk this fine line, President Obama has taken a colorblind approach to public policies. He claims that his color-blind public policies will help to uplift all citizens regardless of race, creed, or national origin. Important for this discussion is the claim that race need not be a factor in public policies. There are some doubts about this claim given the history of anti-black racism in the United States. It is argued, herein, that color or race conscious policies are needed to address some of the social and economic problems that besiege the black community. This article utilizes a pragmatic account of race to illustrate why colorblindness in public policies takes an ahistorical and decontextualized view of race and in the long term will hurt the social and economic standing of African Americans in the move to a more perfect union. (shrink)

This paper explores the ways in which trust and distrust, especially among relative strangers, are connected to social identities and locations. It begins by sketching an account of interpersonal trust, emphasizing the role that socially salient identities, based in part upon cultural figurations, play in their development. It then contends that these cultural figurations both foster and result from distrust of specific social groups, including African Americans, the poor, and (some) women. Treating social roles and relations as central (...) to moral analysis enables an understanding of the injustice of some forms of social distrust which does not imply that one individual’s distrust of another is culpable in a straightforward way. The paper then develops the claim that one’s social location can affect the moral desirability of trust and distrust, concluding that social distrust can sometimes function as a kind of dissident attitude, a political stance with emancipatory potential. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:MIMETIC VIOLENCE AND NELLA LARSEN'S PASSING: TOWARD A CRITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS OF RACISM Martha Reineke University ofNorthern Iowa In her recent essay, "Working through Racism: Confronting the Strangely Familiar," Patricia Elliot proposes that members of dominant groups who want to contest racism1 not only challenge economic, political, and social processes within society that produce racism, but also address personal claims they make on institutional structures which help to maintain it (...) (63). Sympathetic with an anti-racist strategy that concerns itself not only with racism at the institutional level but also with racism on a more intimate scale, Elliot nevertheless laments that individual complicity in racism is frequently attributed to aproblematic attitude. As a consequence, anti-racist work among members of dominant groups often is arrayed along a narrow spectrum: in workshops or in-service seminars participants attempt to identify and acknowledge biased and discriminatory views. Elliot fears that consciousness-raising efforts ofthis kind are unlikely to effect social change ifthose who participate continue to favor the confessional stance. Urging her readers to develop a "critical consciousness," a concept she takes from bell hooks (hooks 118), Elliot asks that members ofdominant groups who desire to promote social change not only combat institutional racism, but also divest themselves oisubjective investments in racism (63). Only as persons commit 1 Racism "involves the subordination ofpeople ofcolor by white people" (Rothenberg 6). Marked by discrimination and prejudice, racism entails also the exercise ofpower (conscious and unconscious, intentional and unintentional) by which white people maintain positions of privilege over persons ofcolor (Rothenberg 7). Martha Reineke75 themselves to a sophisticated and nuanced analysis of white complicity in structures of domination in order to grapple with racism at multiple levels—includingidentityformation, maintenance, and transformation—can members ofdominant groups actually tackle and begin to dismantle it (Elliot 63). Elliot's call to critical consciousness is laudable, but the goal she sets forth is not easily attained. As 1 struggle to achieve hook's critical consciousness of racism, like Elliot (64), I find difficult the task ofexploring the construction ofmy own identity as a white academic.2 For example, when I discuss issues in women's lives in the classroom or at professional conferences, I not infrequently am challenged by women of color who note that unexamined privilege (race and class) skews my perspective.3 1 also find myselfspeaking for others, assuming their voices, when I should speak only for myself. As a consequence, I regularly have cause to ponder whether, under the guise of contributing to anti-racistwork, I am appropriating others' voices in ways that reinforce racism rather than challenge it. For instance, on what grounds do I, a white woman, in this essay propose to address the problem of racism by reflecting on a novella written by an African-American woman? Does white privilege foreground my choice, precluding me from reading a work of literature in ways that might challenge rather than further racism? Grappling with these issues while reflecting on the theme of a critical consciousness ofracism, I find instructive the Girardian notion of mimesis. The dynamics of mimesis account well for agents of racism who, simultaneously recognizing and denying difference, act in ways that inhibit social and subjective transformation. Were members ofdominant groups to 2 Ofcourse, a professional affiliation is only one facet ofone's identity. I focus on that facet here because, through conversations with students about literature, I seek to contribute to antiracist work. 3Recent publications record similar conversations among women ofcolor and white women about white privilege. In White Women, RaceMatters: The Social Construction ofWhiteness, Ruth Frankenberg offers an ethnographic analysis ofthe dynamics ofprivilege in white women's lives. In The Color ofPrivilege: Three Blasphemies on Race andFeminism, Aída Hurtado offers a reflexive theory ofgender subordination which focuses on unwritten rules, inclusive of daily practices and psychological processes, that maintain power for whites as a group. Contributors to Who Can Speak? Authority and Critical Identity consider the ethics and political legitimacy ofspeaking as someone (e.g., a speaker identifies herselfas white, middleclass, and heterosexual before offering her views) oxfor someone (e.g., a white Canadian author writes first person accounts ofthe lives ofNative Canadian women but stops when a group of... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Redeeming a Prison Society: A Liturgical and Sacramental Response to Mass Incarceration by Amy LevadLloyd SteffenRedeeming a Prison Society: A Liturgical and Sacramental Response to Mass Incarceration Amy Levad minneapolis: fortress press, 2014. 233 pp. $39.00.Amy Levad (University of St. Thomas) has added a theological voice to the national conversation that Michelle Alexander opened with her devastating critique of the American criminal justice system in The New Jim (...) Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Alexander showed how policies grounded in the war on drugs have disproportionately distressed racial and ethnic minorities—African Americans and Latinos—and the poor, destroying lives and communities. Incarceration in the United States is today a system that perpetuates what Alexander called a “caste” system from which escape is, especially among black males, virtually impossible. In this informed and well-presented study, Levad takes up Alexander’s social justice analysis, extending it in new directions, offering a creative theological contribution to the mass incarceration crisis in the world’s first “genuine prison society.”Levad observes that a limitation in the Christian response to mass incarceration is the “lack of Catholic voices” (47), which her book makes an effort to correct. She draws on core insights of Catholic tradition to address conditions that foster crime while also responding “to the ways in which the criminal justice crisis both reflects and sustains social injustices” (48). Her book offers a wonderfully clear analysis of mass incarceration and related issues such as recidivism strategies and policing policies. She advocates “pulling levers,” policing policies that aim at avoiding prison, versus harsh “window-breaking” policies that for deterrence reasons criminalize even minor offences. Levad addresses theories of punishment, proposes ideas for prison reform, and, while acknowledging a limited need for prisons, sets forth constructive suggestions for how best to decarcerate society through restorative justice and rehabilitation practices that reintegrate offenders into society.The study is a provocative interdisciplinary conversation between criminology and theology. Levad’s focus is on liturgy and sacrament, the central resources of Roman Catholic theology, finding in the Eucharist the theological [End Page 204] model for inviting the marginalized and dispossessed into the common fellowship of human dignity. She then argues that penance and reconciliation yield attitudes and behaviors that parallel secular restorative justice efforts. Advocating alternatives to prison while denying the effectiveness of punitive retribution, Levad critiques the approaches of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and other Catholics. She highlights Kathryn Soltis as a Catholic scholar who uses theological resources to affirm the dignity of prisoners, attend to the common good, and seek ways to repair relationships between victims and offenders.Some of Levad’s ideas could be developed further. Pluralism, for instance, is mentioned as a contextual issue for her theological work but never thoroughly developed. Utilitarianism is denied a constructive ethics role, but Levad’s discussion of recidivism appeals to it as a marker of the common good (122). And Levad’s attention to the internal failures of the Church in confronting social justice issues leads one to wonder whether the decarcerated vision of society she desires is practicable.Levad speaks to the heart of the incarceration crisis in America, challenging the willingness of Americans to “throw people away” (198) through imprisonment—especially the young, the poor, and minorities. With her underlying question of “what kind of people we want to be and what we want our communities to be like” (43), Levad presents readers with a distinctive “vision of justice in God’s reign conveyed by liturgy and sacraments” (197). With that, she has accomplished what she set out to do: confront the social injustice of mass incarceration with the best insights of modern criminology but also with a theological perspective that embodies the struggle to realize an engaged Catholic praxis of justice.Lloyd SteffenLehigh UniversityCopyright © 2016 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

The review Tropiques, founded in Martinique by Aimé Césaire and colleagues in 1941, was heavily influenced by French surrealism, both for its emphasis on political liberation and its investment in primitivism and the revalorization of non-European cultures. But Tropiques's attitude to primitivism was far more ambivalent and contradictory than is usually assumed. While the editors and contributors sometimes do indeed claim to have, as Martinican intellectuals, a close identificatory connection to primitivist sensibility, elsewhere their attitude to such supposed examples of (...) primitivism as African-American poetry and Caribbean folklore is extremely distanced and rather patronizing. Moreover, their claims to an ‘authentic’ relation to primitive culture, especially where this is defined as African, are complicated by the fact that they have to rely on European ethnographic sources in order to make these claims; and the writing in Tropiques shows them grappling with this contradiction. (shrink)

Preview: No shortage of bigotry and prejudice can be found around the world. But why race to the bottom and compete for a monopoly on tragedy in human mistreatment? The philosophy of race is an intricate piece to the study of language, art, history, and culture and wants to learn about elsewhere and distant others. How we go about understanding the issues of identity politics and what solidifies a community’s sense of purpose and mythic consciousness hinges upon our attitudes toward (...) cultures and ethno-racial relations. When it comes to the migrant crises, socio-economic conditions aggravating inequalities, or geo-political conflicts, for example, people’s premonitions about race largely inform how they respond to the demands for social justice. Tracing the trajectory from chattel slavery, the trail of tears, Jim Crow laws and lynchings, the civil rights movements, police brutality and profiling, to Black Lives Matter should we be believers or skeptics of racial progress? Our global ethnoscape and diasporic makeup is vast and complex. Due to this, studying race is emerging from the backwaters of academia and becoming an essential mode of inquiry, especially in African American philosophy and philosophy of culture. Similar to the “linguistic turn,” philosophy is undergoing a “racial turn” of sorts. Philosophy’s transdisciplinary nature is well-suited to examine this ethno-racial complexity, but has not lived up to its potential by failing to take more seriously the social disadvantages endured by underrepresented groups. In many ways, philosophy contributed to the dark history of grounding antiblack racism in biology, anthropology, the social sciences, and speculative metaphysics. Hence, it is vital that all practioners in our profession, especially philosophers of culture, work on behalf of reconciliation and atonement for such sins. Furthermore, confronting questions about racism and social justice will “improve philosophy” as Naomi Zack and others have argued. (shrink)