Black Girl Research Articles

Eye, Ocular Adnexa, and Facial Manifestations of Tetrasomy 18p

Tetrasomy 18p is often the result of an additional isochromosome for the short arm of chromosome 18. Although many organ systems are affected phenotypically, the ocular manifestations associated with tetrasomy 18p have not been well characterized in the literature. This case report presents the ocular and facial features associated with tetrasomy 18p in a 4-year-old Black girl, along with a review of clinical presentations previously reported in the literature. A systematic review of the literature in PubMed was conducted to summarize the reported eye, ocular adnexa, and distinctive facial features in individuals with confirmed tetrasomy 18p. Searching “Tetrasomy 18p” generated 65 article results, of which 28 articles had sufficient eye and facial descriptions. Including the patient in this report, 90 patients had confirmed tetrasomy 18p. The most common features noted in these 90 patients, with a roughly equal male-to-female ratio of impact (7:8), were as follows: microcephaly (57%), triangular facies (18%), anomalous palpebral fissures (31%), strabismus (48%), low-set ears (52%), hearing loss to some extent (16%), depressed or flat nasal bridge (18%), smooth philtrum (41%), thin upper lip (27%), and highly arched palate (21%). Additionally, many were noted to have feeding difficulties (28%), developmental delay (58%), and abnormal brain findings on imaging (20%). Muscle tone was abnormal in 23% of the patients. This report elucidates the reoccurring eye, ocular adnexa, and distinctive facial features associated with tetrasomy 18p. This knowledge may assist in timely diagnosis and encourage providers to use a multidisciplinary approach for the treatment of affected individuals. [ J Pediatr Ophthalmol Strabismus . 2021;58(6):e44–e48.]

Linear Violaceous Papules in a Child.

A 5-year-old Black girl presented to the dermatology clinic with a stable pruritic eruption on the right leg of 1 month’s duration. Physical examination revealed grouped, flat-topped, violaceous papules coalescing into plaques with overlying lacy white striae along the right lower leg, wrapping around to the right dorsal foot in a blaschkoid distribution.

Disrupting Anti-Blackness in Early Childhood Qualitative Inquiry: Thinking With Black Refusal and Black Futurity

Working with Black feminist concepts of Black futurity and Black refusal, this article seeks to illustrate what is possible when early childhood research does not begin with the anti-Blackness that is pervasiveness in early childhood education. My focus is on the liberatory potential of attending to quotidian relational world-making practices in the places and spaces of Black childhood. Thinking with a photo essay on Black boys and with images of a young Black girl from a place-based research project, I gesture toward the otherwise worlds that are made possible by experimenting with wayward methods as a practice of listening for Black childhood futurity.

Once upon an anti-black time: unpacking the counter fairy tales (CFT) model to support culturally responsive literacy instruction for black girls

PurposeThis paper aims to argue that culturally responsive approaches to literacy instruction are necessary not only to celebrate Black girl literacies but to also expose, challenge and disrupt antiblackness in English education. However, without explicit exemplars to guide classroom practice, this type of instruction will remain elusive. The present paper expands upon the original conceptualization of Counter Fairy Tales (CFT) by further explicating the framework and providing recommendations to inform culturally responsive literacy practices to disrupt antiblackness.Design/methodology/approachThe question that drives this study asks how can the CFT model be applied as a form of culturally responsive literacy instruction to best teach Black girls?FindingsThe CFT framework places value on Black girls’ ways of knowing and gives primacy to their voice and unique experiences through culturally responsive literacy instruction.Research limitations/implicationsThe larger implication of this research is for teachers to begin to create culturally responsive literacy instruction that honors the lived experiences of today’s Black adolescent girls, particularly those in young grades. Inclusive and affirming literary practices must be established, an environment in which Black girls can share their voices and visions as they explore themselves through writing.Originality/valueThis conceptual paper is one of few that specifically focuses on how teachers can use CFTs to facilitate the inclusion of Black girls’ experiential and communal ways of knowing to support culturally responsive literacy instruction in younger grades.

BLACK GIRL TRIES KOREAN MAKEUP: RACE, GENDER, AND TRANSNATIONAL PLATFORM

This study aims to theorize how YouTube fundamentally capitalizes the racial and gender identity of women of color and local culture in a way it facilitates inter-racial and inter-cultural conflicts. I specifically focus on so-called K-beauty (Korean beauty), a catchy trend on YouTube which encompasses aesthetics, cosmetic products, and beauty ideals from South Korea, characterized by pursuing glowing, dewy, and light skin tone featuring a variety of skincare products. K-beauty is now being adopted by non-Koreans in North America including Black women influencers on the borderless platform of YouTube, who created the Black Girl Tries Korean Makeup video series. By using a Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis approach, I examined YouTube videos, comments, as well as the module titled “Building a Global Channel” to analyze not only the contents and discourses around that but also the platform that might have shaped this intercultural flow on YouTube. Black women YouTubers actively critiqued the light skin preference, as well as anti-Blackness reflected in K-beauty brands through the Black Girls, Tries Korean Makeup video series. Korean viewers, on the other hand, strongly rejected these accusations of the anti-Black aspect of K-beauty, explaining distinctive Korean racial dynamic as a one-ethnic country where the light skin preference is not translated to the anti-Blackness. I argue that this inter-cultural and inter-racial conflict arguably has been shaped by YouTube’s digital infrastructure that prioritizes short, trendy, how-to-style videos, that do not require a lengthy contextualization of each culture’s beauty practices, and history of oppressions.

Witnessing Wonderland: Research with Black girls imagining freer futures

PurposeThis paper aims to contribute to a growing body of work (re)imagining the future for Black girls by calling Western notions of time into question. At its core, this paper argues that all Black girls are imaginative beings and that it is essential that Black girlhood imagination as a mode of future-making praxis be considered an integral component in the pursuit of Black liberation. To do such the author engages Black feminist futurity Campt (2017) and Black Quantum Futurity Phillips (2015) to illuminate ways a reconceptualization of time provides us with an analytical tool to amplify Black girls’ liberatory fantasies.Design/methodology/approachA literature review was conducted to synthesize Black girls’ freedom dreams (Kelley, 2002) across time in an effort to demonstrate that Black girls, despite their conditions, are experts in self-defining their dreams of the future. It also highlights methods that researchers use to elucidate the freedom dreams of Black girls years past.FindingsThis paper underscores the urgency in applying future-oriented research practices in the attempt to create a new world for Black girls. It also demonstrates that Black girls have always been and always be, imaginative beings that engaged in future-making dreaming.Research limitations/implicationsThe author offers a conceptual framework for researchers committed to witnessing Black girl imaginations and in an effort to work in concert with Black girls to get them freer, faster.Originality/valueThis paper makes the argument that studying the imaginations and freedom dreams of Black girls requires the employment of future-oriented theories that have a racial, gender and age-based analysis.

Acne vulgaris.

THE COMPARISONA. A 27-year-old Hispanic woman with comedonal and inflammatory acne. Erythema is prominent around the inflammatory lesions. Note the pustule on the cheek surrounded by pink color.B. A teenaged Black boy with acne papules and pustules on the face. There are comedones, hyperpigmented macules, and pustules on the cheek.C. A teenaged Black girl with pomade acne. The patient used various hair care products, which obstructed the pilosebaceous units on the forehead.

“Make Sure You See This”: Counternarratives of Multilingual Black Girls’ Language and Literacy Practices

Critical scholarship in bilingualism and bilingual education has documented multiple ways that the rich language and literacy practices of Black children participating in bilingual education programs are often erased in favor of dominant narratives about the literacy practices of their White Mainstream English–speaking peers. Utilizing Black girl literacies, raciolinguistics, and translanguaging as theoretical orientations, and counternarratives as an analytical tool, this article presents a cross-case analysis of two ethnographic case studies that explored how multilingual Black American girls enrolled in an elementary dual-language bilingual education program employed their literacies to navigate their social worlds by challenging raciolinguistic ideologies and hegemonic systems of oppression in their daily lives. It also presents the nuanced nature of multilingual Black girls’ literacies and the various roles that they serve, which are often ignored in multilingual spaces. The need to learn from multilingual Black girls’ counternarratives is emphasized by engaging in a deeper sociopolitical understanding of the complex issues that Black girls face on a regular basis, which are often extended in bilingual spaces. Specifically, we call for educators to create critical translanguaging spaces that honor multidimensional counternarratives and intimately connect with the unique epistemologies and literacies that Black girls in bilingual programs bring to the table.

Co‐brand partnerships making space for the next black girl: Backlash in social justice branding

AbstractViral influence of consumer reviews can change the strategic intent of co‐branding relationships between minority entrepreneurial startups and established corporations. When social justice positioning is involved, the intent is often to support minority businesses. We acknowledge this strategy as social justice branding. However, such alliances can trigger vitriolic responses. This backlash is an expression of free speech, and social media provides an obscure facilitative environment. The challenges of social justice branding are complex. We examine consumer online reviews of The Honey Pot and Target Corporation partnership, to understand the implications of social justice branding in practice. Using Leximancer analysis, we find that social justice branding elicits multiple emotions that empower action. Some consumers accepted the collaboration while others resisted. Analyzing the basis of the resistance revealed some consumers expressed racist and shameful behaviors displaying disagreement. Backlash reflected willful ignorance releasing pent up prejudices and disseminating viral‐like negative information as weapons of retaliation against brands and marginalized communities. We contribute a conceptual model integrating theoretical frames of social justice, social marketing, brand activism and free speech elucidating the impact of consumer response to social justice branding. The findings and model add a lens to further explore race in the marketplace.

Winning Spelling Bee Competition: The Representation of Black Girl in Akeelah and The Bee (2006) Movie

<p class="AbstractText">This research examines the representations of African-American stereotype and the struggle of Black American girl in National Spelling Bee contest in Hollywood movie entitled Akeelah and the Bee (2006). The use of African-American English (AAVE) is one of the stereotype often depicted in Hollywood movie. Race theories are used to examine the relationship between race, racism and power. Meanwhile, Roland Barthes’s theory and semiotic film theory are used to examine the meaning portrayed in the movie. Findings show that the representation of Akeelah as a successful participant in the spelling bee competition challenges the stereotype of African American as academic underclass, and as associated with crime, failure and frustration. Akeelah is represented as a successful African American girl as she assimilates (adopts) American values of change/mobility, time and its importance, action and work orientation. The assimilation is achieved through a mentoring process and support from African American community.</p><p class="AbstractText"> </p><p class="AbstractText"><em>Keywords</em>: African-American, African American Vernacular English (AAVE), Stereotype, Spelling Bee</p>

Huge scalp Morel-Lavall\xe9e lesion with eye involvement in a 3-year-old girl: a case report

BackgroundMorel-Lavallée lesions are posttraumatic, closed degloving injuries in which the skin and subcutaneous tissue are separated abruptly from superficial underlying fascia. This condition leads to an effusion containing hemolymph and necrotic fat. Magnetic resonance imaging, when available, is the modality of choice in the evaluation of Morel-Lavallée lesion. Early diagnosis and management is essential as any delay in diagnosis or missed lesion will lead to the effusion becoming infected or leading to extensive skin necrosis. We present a condition of a Morel-Lavallée lesion involving the scalp and complicated by conjunctival chemosis.Case presentationWe report on a 3-year-old black African girl who presented a fluctuant swelling of entire scalp, extending to upper part of the face on the seventh day after a forehead trauma due to falling on a rock while playing. Skull x-ray revealed soft-tissue swelling, giving an impression of large fluid collection in the deep subcutaneous tissues with no bone fracture. A diagnosis of Morel-Lavallée lesion of the scalp complicated by conjunctival chemosis was made. The patient was managed with percutaneous drainage and compression bandage. The patient improved well and was subsequently discharged without any vision impairment. There was no recurrence of the lesion on follow-up.ConclusionsThe Morel-Lavallée lesion of the scalp complicated with conjunctival chemosis is a rare presentation of this condition. Prompt diagnosis and management are crucial for preventing complications. Image-guided diagnosis and treatment still remain a challenge in the setting of low-resource health facilities.

“I AM A Child!”: A Girl-Child’s Truth and The Lies of Law Enforcement

On January 29, 2021, a police officer with the Rochester, New York, Police Department pepper-sprayed a 9-year old Black girl who had been handcuffed and forced into the back of a police car. In the struggle that proceeded this moment, an officer yelled at the girl with obvious frustration, “You’re acting like a child!” In this essay, I consider how the girl’s quick retort —“I AM a child!”—interjected a truth into the struggle that had been all but ignored by the armed adults on the scene. I consider how the truth embedded in this girl’s call exposes the lies of law enforcement and, in doing so, lay the seeds of abolitionist imaginings—a call for a system, a world, that would treat a Black girl as if she were a child.

Sexual Not Sexualized: Remembering Black Girlhood Using Tactile Motion

Abstract Black girls live at the nexus of anti-Black racism, heteronormative patriarchy, and capitalism. They are placed in binaries of silent/loud, obedient/disruptive, and sexual/asexual. This research intends to nuance these binaries by integrating creative technologies to capture how affect and tactile motion can describe the full complexities of Black girlhood lived reality. This study explores how Black girl youth ages 18-21 in the southeastern United States affectively interpret their sexuality using tactile braiding of plastic lanyard string to remember their girlhood. It is necessary to locate the ways sexual agency and affirmation manifest when examining the aspects that encroach upon Black girls’ understanding of their bodies, personhood, and sexuality. Stretching how research understands and articulates the everyday lives and sexual embodiments of Black girls, this experimental study seeks to affirm and nuance conversation of sexuality through creative methodology to feel, remember, and explore the dimensions of Black girlhood through the sense of touch.

Sittin’ Up in My Room: Exploring Black Girl Interiority in the Work of Scheherazade Tillet and Nydia Blas

Abstract What do we learn when Black girls have the right to their own pleasures … the right to sit … and be still? Given the ways this world seeks to steal moments of joy and self-satisfaction from Black girls everywhere, what is the power of capturing the moments in which Black girls are allowed to be, to exist? To answer these questions, I reflect upon the act of “sitting” and its use in facilitating moments of interiority for Black girlhood in documentation photography. Mobilizing Tina Campt’s and Kevin Quashie’s notions of quiet to contend with documentary portraits of Black girls by Scheherazade Tillet and Nydia Blas, I meditate on their use of gesture in order to formulate an experimental and conceptual archive of Black girl interiority. This piece considers the act and moment of “sitting” in visual art and what it conveys about the process of subject-making in the lives of Black girls.

2323BlackLuna

Abstract 2323BlackLuna is an experimental moving image, embodied portal, honoring meditation with/in darkness, dark space. In this project, darkness serves as creative in/sight for the practice and spiritual processing of Black girl eroticism and love through dance and movement. 2323BlackLuna inundates the goings and magic of process, centering play within concepts of corporeality, liminality, and time-traveling. Alice Walker and Audre Lorde challenge, guide, and support the portal between the spiritual and the political, shaping the meditation of “love at its deepest meaning.” This work leans into Black girl imagination, contributing to Black girlhood studies, spirituality, performance, and visual arts epistemology. It is an ode to solitude; love as pleasure, a journey of the now, Black girl healing.

The Harms of Structural Whiteness on Weapon Carrying, Policing, and Child Health.

The Harms of Structural Whiteness on Weapon Carrying, Policing, and Child Health.

Note from the Editors

Note from the Editors

Tacit curriculum of Black intellectual ineptitude: Black girls' perspectives on Texas school desegregation implementation in the 1970s

PurposeThis paper uses former Black girl students' experiential knowledge as a lens to examine Black students' experiences with formal and informal curriculum; it looks to the 1970s during Waco Independent School District's desegregation implementation process.Design/methodology/approachGuided by critical race theory, I used historical and oral history methods to address the question: In newly desegregated schools, what does Black females' experiential knowledge of the academic and social curriculum reveal about Black students' experiences within school desegregation implementation process? Specifically, I drew on oral history interviews with former Black girl students, local newspapers, school board minutes, legal correspondence, memoranda, yearbooks, and brochures.FindingsBlack girls' holistic perspectives, which characterized Black students' experiences more generally, indicate Waco Independent School District's implementation of school desegregation promoted a tacit curriculum of Black intellectual ineptitude.OriginalityMy main contribution is the concept of tacit curriculum, which I identified through the lens of former Black girl students, whose experiences spoke to Black students' experiences more widely. It also offers Black females' firsthand perspectives of the school desegregation implementation process in Texas, a perspective, a process, and a place heretofore underexamined in history of education scholarship.

‘I was involved as an equal member of the community’: how pedagogical partnership can foster a sense of belonging in Black, female students

ABSTRACT Research suggests that a sense of belonging is fundamental to students’ engagement, persistence and success in postsecondary education, and that racism systematically works against Black students experiencing these. Participating in student–staff pedagogical partnership can foster a sense of belonging, contribute to culturally sustaining pedagogy, and redress harms experienced by minoritised postsecondary students. Using a conceptual framework informed by research on belonging, critical race theory and intersectionality and a methodology informed by a Black-Feminist and Womanist Research Paradigm, Black Girl Cartography and counterstorying, the authors analyse responses to an ethics-board-approved survey completed by 12 Black, female students at three US colleges. They situate that analysis by presenting their conceptual framework, defining pedagogical partnership, and describing the pedagogical partnership programmes. They focus on how the students who responded to their survey describe perceiving, feeling and engaging differently as a result of participating in pedagogical partnership. They conclude with recommendations for practice.

Black Girls Swim

During the early part of the twentieth century, Black girls in the United States attended Young Women’s Christian Associations (YWCAs) where they received instruction in sports and physical activity. Using archival research, in this article I examine the role of swimming in Black girls’ sports and physical activity practices in Northern YWCAs. With a focus on the construction of Black girlhood, health, and embodiment, I trace how girls navigated spatial segregation, beauty ideals, and athleticism. I highlight the experiences of Black girl swimmers—subjects who have often been rendered invisible in the historical and contemporary sporting landscape.