Challenging narratives of confinement: diasporic (im)mobilities in Lọlá Ákínmádé Åkerström’s In Every Mirror She’s Black (2021)

Dans le cadre de la hierarchie sociale aux Etats-Unis, prenant en compte les facteurs de classe, d'ethnicite, de race, et de sexe, etude des relations entre femmes blanches ou de couleur et homme blancs, et de l'impact de ces relations sur le mouvement feministe blanc et de couleur

Reviewed by: Moving Beyond Borders: A History of Black Canadian and Caribbean Women in the Diaspora by Karen Flynn Alana Butler Karen Flynn. Moving Beyond Borders: A History of Black Canadian and Caribbean Women in the Diaspora. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011. 301 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $27.95. sc. The title of Karen Flynn’s Moving Beyond Borders: A History of Black Canadian and Caribbean Women in the Diaspora only alludes to some of its rich content. At the time of writing, it is the only historical account of Black Canadian and Black Caribbean nurses in Canada. These Black female nurses were all trained in hospital-based nursing schools and spent their professional lives in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Caribbean. In Canada, these migrant nurses played an integral role in relieving the nursing shortage in Canada following World War II. Flynn draws on post-colonial feminist and diasporic Black studies for her theoretical analysis of the narratives of the Black female nurses. Flynn examines how Black women’s identities and subjectivities were constituted through early experiences of school, church, and family, and reconstituted post-migration through professional training and their lives as wives, mothers, single women, and community activists. Subjectivity is a term that appears multiple times throughout the book. Flynn defines subjectivity as the “conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions of the individual, her sense of herself and her ways of understanding her relation to the world” (4). Flynn also presents a critical interrogation of dominant discourses that position Canada as a benevolent nation while obfuscating the lived experiences of Black Canadians. [End Page 159] Flynn’s research methodology is a narrative analysis of in-depth interviews conducted with 35 Black female nurses (13 Black Canadian and 22 Black Caribbean) from 1995-2001. Twenty-five of the interviews were completed as part of Flynn’s doctoral dissertation. Key to Flynn’s nuanced analysis is the intersectionality of race, gender, class, and sexuality as forms of oppression, identity, and resistance. The book is divided into two main sections that present chronological narratives organized around eight main themes. The first section focuses on the role of family, church, and school as early agents of socialization. Flynn’s account shows that early family socialization was pivotal for each of these women. The family served as a foundation of their early identity formation and also as a source of resistance against colonial oppression and inequality. The experiences of Black Caribbean women contrasted with those of Black Canadian women because of the different historical and social contexts of colonialism from the 1930s to 1950s. The Black Caribbean women experienced social class status that was mediated by skin color and race. For the Black Canadian-born women, social class was demarcated more saliently along racial lines, regardless of skin tone. Since the women would all later become professional nurses, school was critical to their cognitive and social development. Access was also mediated by class and race in both the Canadian and Caribbean contexts. Racism and classism in school were factors in both contexts as the Black women encountered low teacher expectations and a British-influenced curriculum. Outside of school, the church provided moral education and a sense of community for these Black women. The second part of the book examines the experiences of migration, professional training, and work. The second part also addresses how these experiences have shaped their identities and subjectivities in relation to post-migration family and community life. For many of the Black Caribbean women, migration to Britain was their first step in becoming professional nurses. Throughout their nursing training, the Black women’s mere presence challenged the prevailing gender construction of nursing as the embodiment of white womanhood. Flynn analyzes their experiences by addressing questions of identity, liminality, hybridity, and alienation. An examination of their professional lives as nurses throughout the diaspora illuminates the ways in which these Black women integrated their professional identities with their multiple subject positions. Lastly, Flynn’s analysis reconciles migration with notions of home and belonging in the women’s narratives. Flynn’s contribution to the scholarship in this area is significant. Most studies of Black Canadian working women...

The recent revival of Du Boisian sociological scholarship has resituated W.E.B. Du Bois as a foundational innovator of empirically grounded sociology who theoretically and methodologically shaped the development of multiple subfields. At the same time, this emerging body of work leaves unclear how Du Boisian sociology should be understood in relation to theorizing on the intersections of race and gender. Following Black feminist and critical approaches to antiblackness, gender, and the afterlife of slavery, I analyze the insights and limitations of Du Bois’s writings at the intersections of race and gender by examining Du Bois’s theorizations on women’s suffrage and Black people’s rebellion against slavery. While Du Bois begins to identify Black women’s intersecting oppressions, he is limited in how he theorizes on womanhood, obscuring how antiblackness operates through this gendered and racialized category for Black women. Additionally, in his writings on Black emancipation, Du Bois undertheorizes how Black women’s political agency was central to dismantling the plantocracy. Considering these insights and limitations, I demonstrate how critical Black feminist approaches to antiblackness and gender can advance the emancipatory aims of Du Boisian sociological scholarship on racialized modernity.

Meditations from a Black Woman Chair: Social Justice Values and a New Normal in Academic Administration

Help Black College Women Reconcile Hip‐Hop's Misogyny

Preface Ch 1. Introduction The Millennium and Two Essential Ingredients Unique Structures Suggestions for Using the Book Outline of the Chapters PART I: A PRACTITIONER'S AWARENESS OF HER OWN WORLDVIEW Ch 2. Intrapersonal Communication (Inner Dialogue) Intrapersonal Communication and Values, Beliefs, and Biases Intrapersonal Communication and Ethnocentrism Ch 3. Assessment of a Practitioner's Values, Beliefs, and Biases Barriers to an Individual's Self-Assessment of Her Own Values, Beliefs, and Biases Awareness of Inner Experience Self-Assessment of Values, Beliefs, and Biases The Impact of a Practitioner's Values, Beliefs, and Biases on Assessing and Treating Clients PART II: A PRACTITIONER'S AWARENESS OF SYSTEMATIC OPRESSION/PRIVILEGE AND INTERNALIZED OPPRESSION/PRIVILEGE Ch 4: Racism Race and Racism Social Categorization Theory Variations Within and Among Races Racism and Racial Prejudice and Inappropriate Thinking Styles/Patterns Strategies for and Benefits of Dismantling Racism and Racial Prejudice for Whites A Practitioner's Assessment of Self in Relation to White Oppression/Privilege Ch 5. Sexism Difference Among Sex, Gender, and Sexism Social Construction of Gender Social Comparison Theory Systematic Oppression/Privilege and Internalized Oppression/Privilege The Intersection of Gender and Race Variations Among Men, Among Women, and Between Men and Women Sexism and Inappropriate Thinking Styles/Patterns Strategies for and Benefits of Dismantling Sexism A Practitioner's Assessment of Self in Relation to Sexism, Systematic Oppression/Privilege and Internalized Oppression/Privilege Ch 6. Heterosexism Difference Among Sexual Orientation, Homophobia, and Heterosexism Social Construction of Heterosexism Intersections of Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation Systematic Oppression/Privilege and Internalized Privilege/Oppression Intersections of Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation Systematic Oppression/Privilege and Internalized Oppression/Privilege Variations Within and Among Nonheterosexuals Heterosexism or Homophobia and Inappropriate Thinking Styles/Patterns Strategies for and Benefits of Dismantling Heterosexism A Practitioner's Assessment of Self in Relation to Heterosexism, Systematic Oppression/Privilege, and Internalized Oppression/Privilege Ch 7. Classism A Definition of Class and Classism Social Construction of Classism Systematic Oppression/Privilege and Internalized Oppression/Privilege Intersections of Race, Gender, Sexual Orientation, and Class Variations Within and Among Classes Classism and Inappropriate Thinking Styles/Patterns Strategies for and Benefits of Dismantling Classism A Practitioner's Assessment of Self in Relation to Classism, Systematic Oppression/Privilege and Internalized Oppression/Privilege Ch 8. Ableism Difference Between Disability and Ableism Social Construction of Ableism Systematic Oppression/Privilege and Internalized Oppression/Privilege Intersections of Impairment/Disability, Race, Gender, Sexual Orientation, and Class Variations Within and Among Individuals With Impairment/Disability Ableism and Inappropriate Thinking Styles/Patterns Strategies for and Benefits of Dismantling Ableism A Practitioner's Assessment of Self in Relation to Ableism, Systematic Oppression/Privilege and Internalized Oppression/Privilege Ch 9. Other Isms Due to Age, Language, Religion, and Region Other Isms Social Construction of Isms Systematic Oppression/Privilege and Internalized Oppression/Privilege Intersections of Race, Gender, Sexual Orientation, Class, Impairment/Disability, and Other Identities Variations Within and Among Age, Language, Religion, and Region Other Isms and Inappropriate Thinking Styles/Patterns Strategies for and Benefits of Dismantling Isms A Practitioner's Assessment of Self in Relation to Other Isms, Systematic Oppression/Privilege, and Internalized Oppression/Privilege Ch 10. Deconstructing Inappropriate Hierarchical, Dichotomous, and Linear Thinking Styles/Patterns Reasons for Change Deconstructing Through Transformative Learning Internalized Oppression/Privilege and Thinking Styles/Patterns Diligent and Mindful Practice Transformation at the Institutional Level PART III: A PRACTITIONER'S AWARENESS OF THE CLIENT'S WORLDVIEW Ch 11. Identity Development Identity Development Models of Identity Development for Nondominant Monoracial Groups Models of Identity Development for Biracial and Multiracial Groups Models of Identity Development for Whites Models of Identity Development for Gays and Lesbians Variations Among and Within Racial Groups Similarities and Differences Between Dominant Group and Nondominant Group Identity Development Ch 12. Multiple Identities Challenges of Assessing Multiple Identities Fluidity of Identity Development Ch 13. Culturally Appropriate Assessment Foundations for Accurate Assessment Assessment in Relation to Race, Gender, Sexual Orientation, Class, Disability/Impairment, Age, Language, Religion, Region, and Their Multiple Intersections Assessment of the Intersections of Multiple Identities (Race, Gender, Class, Sexual Orientation, Impairment/Disability, Age, Language, Religion, and Region) Rating Scales for Thinking Styles, Multiple Identities, Dominant Identities Rating Scale for Acculturation The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR) and Its Appropriateness as an Assessment Tool for Multicultural Populations ACA, APA, and NASW Ethics Codes and Cultural Sensitivity Ch 14. Culturally Appropriate Treatment/Healing Culturally Appropriate Treatment To Be a Multiculturally Competent Practitioner Experiental Learning Through Case Studies About the Author

Much research considers group differences in religious belonging, behaving, and/or believing by gender, race, ethnicity, class, or sexuality. This study, however, considers all these factors at once, providing the first comprehensive snapshot of religious belonging, behaving, and believing across and within these axes of inequality in the United States. Leveraging unique data with an exceptionally large sample, I explore religion across 40 unique configurations of intersecting identities (e.g., one is non-Latina Black heterosexual college-educated women). Across all measures considered, Black women are at the top—however, depending on the measure, there are different subsets of Black women at the top. And whereas most sexual minorities are among the least religious Americans, Black sexual minorities—and especially those with a college degree—exhibit high levels of religious belonging, behaving, and believing. In fact, Black sexual minority women with a college degree meditate more frequently than any other group considered. Overall, whereas we see clear divides in how religious people are by factors like gender, education, and sexual orientation among most racial groups, race appears to overpower other factors for Black Americans who are consistently religious regardless of their other characteristics. By presenting levels of religious belonging, behaving, and believing across configurations of gender, race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality in the contemporary United States, this study provides a more complex and complete picture of American religion and spirituality.

Beyond Discontent:

This chapter applies the concept of intersectionality to public administration and politics within the context of social equity. To this extent, the intersectionality of race and gender present barriers that limit access to government and shape the experiences of black women in public and political leadership. The chapter concludes with three formative suggestions of ways to respond to the challenges of social equity posed by the intersection of race and gender. Thus, complexities of intersectionality, for black women, underscore the critical need to understand struggles for social equity across diverse societies.

This Article challenges a relatively universal judicial and societal assumption that employers’ enactment and enforcement of grooming codes are inconsequential to women’s access to, and inclusion in, American workplaces. Specifically, this Article provides a multidimensional analysis of workplace grooming codes, shedding light on the comparable journeys of discrimination that Black and Muslim women experience when their hair and hair coverings are subject to employer regulation. Further, it illustrates that since Black and Muslim women’s identities are not mutually exclusive, Black women who are Muslim may also suffer a double form of discrimination if an employer bans both hijabs and natural hairstyles in the workplace. Thus, for the first time, this Article specifically contemplates the interconnectivity between the socio-politically constructed identity of Black and Muslim women, the socio-political and personal meaning of Black women’s natural hairstyles and Muslim women’s hijabs and resulting discrimination — under the law and in society. In so doing, this Article illuminates how these women, who are racialized as non-white due to their physical appearance and/or their religious faith and observances, share similar experiences as it relates to workplace inclusion and exclusion vis a vis what adorns their heads. This Article also demonstrates that workplace prohibitions against Black women’s natural hairstyles and Muslim women’s donning of a hijab are closely aligned forms of race and gender-based discrimination, triggering parallel actual as well as perceived stigmatization, vulnerability, and exclusion for these women of color, which civil rights constituencies have not fully exposed and addressed. This Article draws upon the works of notable critical race and sexuality theorists in its contention that a “multidimensional” analysis of the discrimination that women of color as a collective experience in the workplace — at the intersection of race, religion, and gender — is vital for a deeper understanding of the civil rights issues at stake, as well as for increased and sustained civil rights advocacy challenging the legality of such grooming codes. Thus, this Article calls for cross-cultural advocacy among civil and workers’ rights constituencies so that antidiscrimination law, doctrine, and advocacy can more meaningfully attend to the deprivation of equal conditions, privileges, dignity, and personhood that Black and Muslim women suffer due to the arbitrary enactment and enforcement of workplace grooming codes banning natural hairstyles and hijabs in the workplace.

Reviewed by: Limited Choices: Mable Jones, a Black Children’s Nurse in a Northern White Household by Emily K. Abel and Margaret K. Nelson Karen A. Johnson Limited Choices: Mable Jones, a Black Children’s Nurse in a Northern White Household. By Emily K. Abel and Margaret K. Nelson. (Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2021. Pp. xvi, 215. $24.95, ISBN 978-0-8139-4665-8.) In Jim Crow America during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, employment options for African American women with a minimal level of education were limited to domestic labor and agricultural work, especially in the South. As Emily K. Abel and Margaret K. Nelson remind readers in Limited Choices: Mable Jones, a Black Children’s Nurse in a Northern White Household, Black women also constituted the vast majority of domestic servants in southern cities and, to some extent, northern cities during this period. Indeed, the intersections of race, gender, class oppression, and geographical location impacted Black women’s work experiences as domestic servants. This was the case of Mable Jones (1909–1995), the subject of Limited Choices. In 1922, at age thirteen, Jones began a long career in domestic service work that took her to Charlottesville, Virginia, and Larchmont, New York. She worked as a household servant until she was eighty-five, well into an era when many Black women gained entry to occupations beyond domestic labor. In Limited Choices, Abel, a historian, and Nelson, a sociologist, examine Jones’s lived experiences. Abel and Nelson, who are biological sisters, note that they wanted to document Jones’s life because they realized that “although she played a major role in shaping our lives, we knew little about hers” (p. 2). Jones began working for their family as a domestic servant in Washington, D.C., in 1944 and, after World War II, in suburban New York. As they explain, “until 1953, she lived with us for long periods of time doing the cleaning, some of the cooking, and a lot of the childcare” (p. 3). Abel and Nelson, who grew up in a Jewish, upper-middle-class family, note that their research gave them “an opportunity to study the impact of the relational dynamics of race, class, and gender not only in the South but also in an affluent northern suburb, during the 1940s and 1950s” (p. 5). They also argue that their personal stories intertwine [End Page 379] with Jones’s in that her domestic labor allowed them to enjoy a privileged lifestyle, while simultaneously disadvantaging her lifestyle, at the intersections of race, gender, and class. Abel and Nelson draw on primary and secondary sources in order to unpack Jones’s lived experiences as a domestic laborer. They have interviewed her pastor, family members, friends, and acquaintances, read a handful of letters she wrote, examined Black newspapers from Virginia, and watched a 1995 interview with her collected by the Ridge Street Oral History Project. Where appropriate, they also interweave their personal family narrative with Jones’s in an effort to portray her experiences as a domestic worker in the North. Additionally, Abel and Nelson draw from extensive historical and sociological literature on institutionalized racism, classism, and sexism in the United States as a way to reconstruct Jones’s biography in sociohistorical context, thereby revealing a broad and objective understanding of the life that she lived. Jones did not leave behind a diary, a compilation of letters, or other traditional primary sources. I argue that this fact puts major limitations on Abel and Nelson’s understanding of Jones’s own thoughts regarding her experiences with domestic labor and structural oppression. Instead, the reader gets only snippets of Jones’s voice. Despite this limitation, the premise of Limited Choices is unique, and the book makes an important contribution to fields including labor studies, gender studies, African American studies, and American studies, to name a few. Karen A. Johnson University of Utah Copyright © 2023 Southern Historical Association

About the Contributors

Purpose – Recent theoretical analyses examining the intersection of race, class, and gender have resulted in exciting new epistemological frameworks in the social sciences. However, feminist researchers have yet to articulate concrete strategies for capturing this intersectionality empirically.Methodology – On the basis of ethnographic research conducted in Cuba, we build on previous feminist epistemological insights and begin to develop methodological strategies that can be used to capture the intersection of race, class, and gender in the context of cross-cultural research.Findings – The major contribution of our work is the articulation of theoretical insights into methodological guidelines that can guide research both inside the United States, the site where much of this theorizing takes place, and beyond our borders.Research limitations – The primary limitation of our research is the lack of collaboration with Cuban researchers. Given the political rancor between the United States and Cuba, and limitations on their academic freedom, is difficult to work with Cuban scholars without compromising their security. Cuban scholars who are critical of the state are fearful of potential reprisals.Originality – Nonetheless, our work provides a unique analysis of how to capture the intersection of race, class, and gender empirically from a cross-cultural perspective.

Objective: We use feminist standpoint theory to investigate how the intersection of identity influenced wealth loss following the Great Recession among older single adults who benefitted from the social movements and legislative gains of the 1960s and 1970s. Looking back on more than a decade of recession and recovery, this study explores how intersections of race, class, and gender produced different wealth outcomes for the early baby boomer EBB cohort. Method: A sample of older baby boomers from the University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study was selected at two waves, 2004 and 2016. We used a generalized estimation equation with interaction effects to test changes in wealth over time for different race and gender groups. Results: Controlling for income and health, we found that both single Black and white women lost wealth at significantly higher rates than single white men. Poor health was associated with wealth shocks, or substantial wealth loss, for single white women, whereas the intersection of race and gender was associated with wealth loss for single Black women. Black women in this cohort ended the Great Recession with $85,000 less than their peers based on the overlapping identities of race and gender independent of health trouble. Conclusions: The policy history of women’s credit and lending access, as well as predatory targeting during the subprime lending crisis, contextualizes our findings. We discuss policy approaches to prevent future wealth erosion in households headed by Black women.

About the Contributors