Black Lens Research Articles

New construction of a vacuum doubly rotating black ring by the Ehlers transformation

Using the Ehlers transformation, we derive an exact solution for a doubly rotating black ring in five-dimensional vacuum Einstein theory. It is well known that the vacuum Einstein theory with three commuting Killing vector fields can be reduced to a nonlinear sigma model with SL(3,R) target space symmetry. As shown previously by Giusto and Saxena, the SO(2,1) subgroup in the SL(3,R) can generate a rotating solution from a static solution while preserving asymptotic flatness. This so-called Ehlers transformation actually transforms the five-dimensional Schwarzschild black hole into the five-dimensional Myers-Perry black hole. However, unlike the case with the black hole, applying this method directly to the static black ring or the Emparan-Reall black ring, does not yield a regular rotating black ring due to the emergence of a Dirac-Misner string singularity. To solve this undesirable issue, we use a singular vacuum solution of a rotating black ring/lens that already possesses a Dirac-Misner string singularity as the seed solution for the Ehlers transformation. The resulting solution is regular, indicating the absence of curvature singularities, conical singularities, orbifold singularities, Dirac-Misner string singularities, and closed timelike curves both on and outside the horizon. We show that this solution obtained by the Ehlers transformation coincides precisely with the Pomeransky-Sen’kov solution. We expect that applying this method to other theories may lead to the finding of new exact solutions, such as solutions for black lenses and capped black holes, as well as black ring configurations. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

“Skin Markings: Filtering COVID-19 Through Levitical and Black Lenses”

Kemp proposes a “3Ds of Blackness” theory, arguing that White supremacists have racialized the Genesis 4:15 “mark of Cain” to label Black bodies as dangerous, deviant, and depraved. This article offers Levitical and Black perspectives, extending Kemp’s scholarship and societal markings to include “diseased.” Exploring ancient biblical binaries of pollution/cleanness, profaneness/sanctity, defilement/purity, and comparing COVID-19 and its treatment mechanisms to skin diseases in Mosaic law, this article claims that structural racist modalities in the United States today treat Black skin as leprous and use justificatory devices to further this end through mass incarceration, poverty, healthcare, and education to keep Blacks “outside the camp.” Despite the quotidian of the relentless ferocity of these active forces, Blacks can historically and existentially claim the continuum of God’s “deliverance” as a “D” marked upon the diverse melanin-kissed shades of their skin.

Ending the HIV Epidemic in Black America: Qualitative Insights Following COVID-19.

The disproportionate effects of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and the Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) on Black American communities highlight structural systems rooted in racism and must be addressed with national strategies that improve both biomedicine and social determinants of health. The purpose of this study was to qualitatively examine the experiences and interpretations of experts in the HIV workforce (local, state, and national HIV-related organizations) regarding the state of HIV and COVID-19 among Black Americans. Within key informant interviews and a focus group recorded and transcribed verbatim, fifteen members of the HIV workforce and Black community described their experiences and provided insights to inform ending the negative outcomes resulting from HIV and COVID-19. Data were analyzed using NVivo software, and eight themes emerged to address disease disproportionality through a Black lens. Themes reflected (1) accessing information and care; (2) key potential partners/stakeholders; (3) investing in Black communities; (4) governmental support; (5) increasing engagement and advocacy; (6) HIV-related community conversations; (7) developments since COVID-19; and (8) the Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) trajectory. Themes directly speak to recommendations to adjust education and policy strategies for HIV and COVID-19 prevention and intervention. Such recommendations, (1) amplifying Black voices, (2) investing sustainable dollars into Black communities, and (3) leaning into advocacy, can bolster the foundation for the HIV workforce and Black community to break ineffective response patterns and lead the fight against these systemic issues of inequity.

“You Can Really Make the Story Your Own”: Taking Back Candyman

This essay offers a comparative analysis of Bernard Rose’s 1992 Candyman and its 2021 sequel directed by Nia DaCosta. Through an intertextual approach informed by gothic studies, narratology, and critical race theory, the essay shows how DaCosta’s film establishes a transformative relationship with its predecessor. In the 2021 film, Candyman rewrites the story of the original, disrupts its stereotypical representation of Blackness, and appropriates the horror genre to give voice to the peculiar anxieties of contemporary African American life. In so doing, DaCosta’s film also challenges classic gothic tropes of horrific Blackness while at the same time pushing back against dominant narratives on race to reclaim space for a discussion on racial relations in America filtered through a Black lens.

Fluorescence-aided identification technique using a low-cost violet flashlight and rotatory instruments for dental trauma splint removal.

Removing resin composites used for bonding dental trauma splints may result in irreversible damage to the enamel. This in vitro study evaluated the influence of additional violet illumination and different bur types on damage caused to tooth enamel. Fifteen maxillary models with four bovine incisor teeth were prepared. All models were scanned using a laboratory scanning system (s600 ARTI; Zirkonzahn). Six experimental groups (n = 10) were generated by two study factors: lighting type (three levels), (1) low-cost (5-7 US$) violet LED flashlight (LUATEK, LT 408); (2) VALO Cordless light curing unit (Ultradent) with black lens; or (3) without additional illumination; and rotatory instrument (two levels), (1) diamond bur or (2) multifluted tungsten-carbide bur. New scanning was performed after splint removal, and the generated files were superimposed on the initial scans using Cumulus software. The light emitted by both violet light sources was characterized by using integrating sphere and beam profile. A qualitative and quantitative analysis of enamel damage and two-way ANOVA followed by Tukey's post hoc was used at an α = 0.05. The use of low-cost violet flashlight that emitted the violet peak light at 385 nm and VALO Cordless with black lens at 396 nm resulted in significantly lower damage to the enamel surface than those in the groups without additional violet light (p < .001). An interaction between rotatory instruments and lighting was found. When no additional violet lighting was used, the diamond bur presented higher mean and maximum depth values. Fluorescence lighting facilitated the removal of remnant resin composite dental trauma splints, leading to less invasive treatment. The diamond bur resulted in higher enamel damage than that affected by the multifluted bur when no violet lighting was used. A low-cost violet flashlight is a useful fluorescence-aided identification technique for removing resin composite dental trauma splints.

Modern Primitive (2020–Ongoing): Ink and Pencil Crayon on Paper

Modern Primitive (2020–Ongoing)Ink and Pencil Crayon on Paper Abdi Osman (bio) The COVID-19 pandemic represents a period in time in which people all over the globe witnessed the hypervisibility of white supremacist violence, anti-Black racism, and Black activism on a global scale. Inspired by this, Modern Primitive (2020) is a new series of drawings I began in March 2020 that features colorful portraits of individuals who are both known and unknown to us. Using familiar cultural tropes like “Karens/Kevins,” “Anti-Maskers,” and “Anti-Vaxxers” as character studies, which are also invoked in/by each individual work’s title, Modern Primitive offers intimate glimpses of what living together as well as apart looks like and means to/for different people in a/our shared world(s) yet with diverse and distinct realities. Resisting traditional art histories and notions of “primitivism” that are based on Eurocentric, modernist constructions of other cultures as “exotic” and “Other,” these images portray popular subjects in rough figural poses and gestures akin to how “non-white” cultures have been historically misrepresented as less sophisticated and “civilized” than white artists and “modern” cultures. Here, the white gaze and its logics that have for so long defined ethnographic portraiture and visual culture are subverted and replaced with/by a critical, contemporary, queer Black lens and gaze. [End Page 151] Click for larger view View full resolution “Road Trip” (2020), part of the COVID drawings. [End Page 152] Click for larger view View full resolution “Scored Club Vaccine tickets, after waiting for hours” (2021), part of the COVID drawings. [End Page 153] Click for larger view View full resolution “Slaying for the Lord” (2021), part of the COVID drawings. [End Page 154] Click for larger view View full resolution “Self-Portrait” (2020), part of the COVID drawings. [End Page 155] Click for larger view View full resolution “You Better Put Some Respek” (2021), part of the COVID drawings. [End Page 156] Abdi Osman abdi osman is a Somali-Canadian multidisciplinary artist whose work focuses on questions of Black masculinity as it intersects with Muslim and queer identities. He has shown across Canada and internationally, including the 2022 Berlin Berlinale; the Art Museum at the University of Toronto; Gardiner Museum; Art Gallery of Mississauga; Thames Art Gallery; The National Museum of Kenya (Kenya); Goethe Institute, Johannesburg (South Africa); and Iwalewahaus, The Centre for African Contemporary Art and Culture (Germany). Osman was a community leadership resident at the Queer and Trans Research Lab (QTRL) housed at the Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto in 2021–2022. Copyright © 2023 Frontiers Editorial Collective, Inc

Black lens in a bubble of nothing

Applying the inverse scattering method to static and biaxisymmetric Einstein equations, we construct a nonrotating black lens inside a bubble of nothing whose horizon is topologically lens space, $L(n,1)={S}^{3}/{\mathbb{Z}}_{n}$. Using this solution, we discuss whether a static black lens can be in equilibrium by the force balance between the expansion and gravitational attraction.

On the uniqueness of supersymmetric AdS(5) black holes with toric symmetry

We consider the classification of supersymmetric AdS5 black hole solutions to minimal gauged supergravity that admit a torus symmetry. This problem reduces to finding a class of toric Kähler metrics on the base space, which in symplectic coordinates are determined by a symplectic potential. We derive the general form of the symplectic potential near any component of the horizon or axis of symmetry, which determines its singular part for any black hole solution in this class, including possible new solutions such as black lenses and multi-black holes. We find that the most general known black hole solution in this context, found by Chong, Cvetic, Lü and Pope (CCLP), is described by a remarkably simple symplectic potential. We prove that any supersymmetric and toric solution that is timelike outside a smooth horizon, with a Kähler base metric of Calabi type, must be the CCLP black hole solution or its near-horizon geometry.

Theorizing justice from the margins: Black feminist insights on political (protest) behavior

ABSTRACT Variations in perceptions of and attitudes towards justice animate how different people decide to engage in politics. In the US, political attitudes typically vary across salient identity markers such as race, gender, and socio-economic class. Drawing on insights from the Black Lives Matter movement, this research note advances a theoretical framework for understanding justice and political protests through a transnational Black feminist lens. Here, I consider political behavior through the Black feminist frame of interlocking identities and the notion of “the personal being political.” I examine the diverse ways in which Black feminism provides novel insights for better understanding justice and political behavior in terms of theory, methodology, and praxis.

Five-dimensional electrostatic black holes in a background field

We consider five-dimensional electrostatic solutions to Einstein–Maxwell gravity with two commuting spacelike Killing fields. Taking two distinct reductions from five dimensions to a three-dimensional base space, we write the Einstein–Maxwell equations using some axially symmetric functions on . These equations can be viewed as arising from a harmonic map coupled to three-dimensional gravity with the isometries of the target space of this map revealing a hidden symmetry of this sector of the theory. Depending on the choice of reduction this symmetry then gives rise to two different one-parameter families of transformations corresponding to either charging a black hole or immersing it in a background electric field. We use these transformations to charge a static black Saturn and a static L(n, 1) black lens spacetime and by tuning the strength of the external field, we cure the conical singularities to give new regular solutions. Notably the electrified black lens generated is the first example of a regular black lens in Einstein–Maxwell gravity with topologically trivial asymptotics.

Exploring differences in Black heterosexual and queer women’s sexual experiences through a Black queer feminist lens

The purpose of this study was to expand the empirical research on Black women’s sexualities by exploring differences in heterosexual and queer Black women’s sexual experiences including sexual pleasure, orgasms, masturbation, number of sex partners, and sexual desire through a Black queer feminist lens. This study used survey data from n = 295 Black cisgender women from phase one of the triphasic Big Sex Study. Results showed that Black queer women had more sexual partners and reported masturbating at earlier ages compared to heterosexual women. Black queer women also reported higher pleasure ratings in sexual activities, sexual intimacy, and sexual intercourse. Finally, there were differences in correlates of sexual desire between heterosexual and queer women; however, no factors were correlated with desire to engage in sexual intercourse for power and control for both groups of women. Implications for advancing sex positive research on sexually diverse Black women are included.

“Dead honky”—against technologies of (white) violence

In 1975, Saturday Night Live, a long-running sketch comedy television series, aired a sketch featuring Richard Pryor, a Black man, and Chevy Chase, a white man. During the sketch, several racial epithets were used for both Black people and white people, including the n-word. In this paper, I parallel the emotionalities displayed in that sketch to assert that as whiteness pretends to be innocent, flustered, and terrified, it nonetheless creates terror and violence. Critical whiteness studies (CWS) in the field of higher education fails to account for these technologies of violence that characterize whiteness and which whiteness employs. I bring a Black consciousness lens that asserts a critical narrative grounded in my own and in the intellectual, cultural, and psychic experiences of Blackness. From that space, I theorize technologies of (white) violence as enactments of: (1) malicious white terror; (2) rhetorical white innocence, mobilized through white contempt and white transmission; and, (3) pacifying white concession. Ultimately, I call for CWS to take up an analysis of technologies of (white) violence in its interrogation of the ways that whiteness operates in postsecondary education, but more so to commit to realizing the death of whiteness, taking up Pryor’s verbal effigy “dead honky.”

Sequined Styles, Intersectional Moves: Economic Geography, Let’s Dress Up!

abstract In this article, we build on the vital insights of feminist thought in economic geography, extending this body of work via a global Black feminist geographic lens. To do so, we center two moments of the Ugandan bridal industry: the international trade of imported dresses and their design and refashioning there. Via the journeys of these dresses, we make visible how connected racial-gendered and classed power relations structure, drive, and manifest global trade networks. We provide geographically contextualized accounts of the gendered-racialization of economies, while always tracing the ties between varied forms of that racialization across place and through history. And we demonstrate the agency and crucial economic worldmaking of African women who labor within and fashion economic geographies. More broadly, we use dress, and the act of dressing up, in two ways. First, via a global Black feminist lens, we show how dress can be a deeply instructive material object that tells us much about the geographies of economies. Second, we use dress as a metaphor for urgent and playful connection, helping us to refashion the subfield of economic geography as feminist, antiracist, and critically transformative.

How is the life without unicorns? A within-individual study on the relationship between uncertainty and mental health indicators: The moderating role of neuroticism

The pandemic crisis of COVID-19 led to higher levels of uncertainty for individuals. Mental health has been outlined as a major key research priority to support and inform interventions. This study aimed to examine whether uncertainty influenced negative affect which in turn, resulted in worst levels of mental health, during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, and test if neuroticism moderated the negative effect of uncertainty on mental health, via negative affect. To capture changes in daily uncertainty, negative affect and mental health, a daily design was adopted to test our model. We collected data through five consecutive days (N = 320), in the early “lockdown” stage of the pandemic. The multilevel results showed a significant mediation effect from daily uncertainty to daily mental health via daily negative affect. In addition, neuroticism moderated the mediated relationship, in such a way that the relationship between daily uncertainty on daily mental health, via daily negative affect was strengthened when neuroticism was higher. In sum, living without unicorns, or see the world though a black lens, is a factor that enhances the blackness of uncertainty.

Not “falling for the okey-doke”: #BlackLivesMatter as resistance to disinformation in online communities

ABSTRACT Black lives have continually been subject to historical and contemporary harassment campaigns attempting to disrupt and usurp Black engagement in a multitude of institutional arenas. Black folks have resisted these attempts to re-establish control and containment that are rooted in white and/or masculine anxieties, anger, and fear. Black women in particular have been at the forefront of these resistance campaigns, reminding us not to fall for the “okey-doke” of the mis/disinformation levied upon our communities. This paper explores disinformation and fake news trends through a Black cyberfeminist lens. New patterns and methods of disinformation (while old) are (re)emerging alongside new and evolving information and digital technologies. This paper argues that #BlackLivesMatter can be understood as resistance to disinformation in online communities through the continued innovation of Black women’s digital praxis. It further argues that despite the attempts of the most recent information war to render Black perspectives invisible, Black women’s digital praxis has proved worthy to combat the harmful effects of disinformation campaigns levied against the Black community.

Afro Love: counter-literacies in Brazilian natural hair communities

ABSTRACT This study explores afro hair as a central component of transnational anti-Black and Black-empowering literacy construction. It argues that Black women in São Paulo City, Brazil, constructed Afro Love Counter-Literacies that were Black-empowering by embracing afro hair. Scholarship on Black feminism, racial literacies, and critical literacies guided the narrative analysis. The findings highlight two interworking mechanisms of Afro-Love Counter-Literacies: (1) alfabetização afro, which refers to languaging, caring for, and styling afro hair; and (2) letramento afro, which describes the development of affirmative beliefs about afro hair. Participants drew upon these literacies to (re)read and (re)write the world through an afro-affirming Black feminist lens.

(Reimagining African Identity through Afrofuturism: A reading of Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti (2015

Afrofuturism is a flourishing contemporary movement in African and African American studies. It has attracted black diasporic writers, artists, musicians, and theorists. Afrofuturism has been described by cultural critics as a way of looking, navigating and imagining future conditions of life through a black lens. Afrofuturists illuminate up-to-date issues by placing them in fantastical contexts; more specifically, they address themes and concerns of the black people that have been otherwise neglected in the western futurist canon. One of the most prominent afrofuturist authors, with a close connection to Africa, is Nnedi Okorafor. Her novella Binti (2015), a space travel adventure through an Afrocentric lens, deftly explores questions about the cultural identity in a futuristic world. Accrodingly, the study aims to explore the theme of the African identity in Okorafor’s novella, focusing on selected visionary references rooted in African culture to signify a new image for the African in a new environment, where blackness is technologically managed. In so doing, the paper highlights the mix between the incredible myths of the Himba people and technoculture, which make it possible for Okorafor to challenge the stereotypical view of the African identity, put a black face on the future, and mark the novella as an African-inspired futuristic work.

Othermothering in Detroit, MI: understanding race and gender inequalities in green stormwater infrastructure labor

ABSTRACT As cities increasingly look towards the promotion of green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) in order to mitigate the effects of combined sewer overflows and stormwater pollution, the role of citizen labor is often expected and required for the success of these projects. Cities in the United States have come to rely upon such contributions from residents, however, very rarely do policies consider the impact of this request of labor. This paper aims to address this gap by employing Patricia Hill Collins’ theoretical framework of Othermothering in order to analyze qualitative data collected in 2017 with a Detroit city sponsored GSI educational program. Combined with ethnographic storytelling, I highlight the work Black Detroit women are putting into improving their city and argue for the application of a Black feminist social reproduction lens in understanding current race and gender divides in volunteer labor within GSI Initiatives. Together, analysis reveals how the labor contributed by Black women continues to be unfairly requested, unpaid, and essential to the success of GSI projects, while also becoming a site of resistance for larger structural inequalities in the surrounding urban landscape.

Literary Afrofuturism in the Twenty-First Century ed. by Isiah Lavender III and Lisa Yaszek (review)

Reviewed by: Literary Afrofuturism in the Twenty-First Century ed. by Isiah Lavender III and Lisa Yaszek Fredrick Douglass Dixon Isiah Lavender III and Lisa Yaszek, eds. Literary Afrofuturism in the Twenty-First Century. Ohio State UP, 2020. 264p. Feminist Stand-Point theory continues to gain acceptance in academic circles amidst a burgeoning scholarly movement dedicated to the demands for inclusivity in higher education. This theory is mainly used to analyze inter-subjective discourse. The overarching premise centers on the thought that knowledge is socially situated, and the most marginalized voices are valuable locales of knowledge production. Literary Afrofuturism in the Twenty-First Century parallels the Stand-Point theory in that it solicits the writings of one the most marginalized populations, black science fiction writers, to define and explain Afrofuturism through a critical black lens. Editors Isiah Lavender III and Lisa Yaszek employ a diverse assemblage of black science fiction writers to provide critical analysis of the systematic layered nuances of racism in the genre of Science Fiction (SF). They contend that: “This anthology is designed to introduce readers to Afrofuturism as an aesthetic practice that enables artists to communicate the experience of science, technology, and race across centuries, continents, and cultures” (1). Literary Afrofuturism offers two fundamental objectives: first, a means to widen the current scope of SF actors, accomplices, and allies; and second, a scathing examination of the historical marginalization of black authors’ ideas and accomplishments in SF. To define one’s identity remains a prerequisite for self-determination. Afrofuturism symbolizes the on-ramp for black authors to “reboot the black identity, challenge white supremacy, and imagine a range of futures in full color” (1). Wrought with an imaginative and exacting posture, Literary Afrofuturism takes on the task of re-defining Afrofuturism that challenges its mainstream definition and origin. Many SF consumers and critiques credit Mark Dey, a white cultural critic, with coining the term Afrofuturism in the early 1990s. According to Dey, “Afrofuturism is a process of signification that appropriates images of technology and the prosthetically-enhanced [End Page 121] future to address the concerns people of color face in contemporary culture” (3). This definition stands as the fundamental pillar of how a significant portion of white artists identify with Afrofuturism. The editors remind readers that a ubiquitous phobia exists within the industry’s central zone of power that believes black writers will ruin SF’s enjoyment by critically examining pressing social justice issues. This anthology underlines how Afrofuturism can become a remedy to disrupt the dominant narrative by embracing a more balanced and inclusive focus on black humanity when defined by progressive black artists. Literary Afrofuturism explores distressing concepts of white privilege in SF by taking readers on a comprehensive excursion by black SF writers who make empirical arguments about the lack of depth and veracity concerning Afrofuturism’s definition. From a medley of skillfully written narratives by prominent SF writers, a core group of notable themes emerges: (1) the current definition marginalizes the diverse paradigms, theories, and talents of black SF artists; (2) it is a filter that systematically excludes individuality; and (3) it does not possess the propensity to liberate the dominant pop-culture consciousness from its racist nature. Minister Faust provides an analysis that uncovers the lack of pragmatic utility of the term Afrofuturism, “much of Africentric fantasy is set in the past or the present, not in the future, which makes the term Afrofuturism a failure from the start” (27). Nisi Shawal finds the term a convenient marketing tool, while Nick Wood deems it a conceptual umbrella that encompasses the “African diaspora in North America” (28). Although Afrofuturism finds considerable public criticism from black SF practitioners, it directly holds value for black authors. It widens the customary roster of contributors by giving palpable agency to women writers. Andrea Hariston and others now wear the title “Dangerous Muses” due to their devotion to adding an all-important aesthetic lens that eradicates the traditional boundaries assigned to women SF authors. “They are dangerous to the status quo, destroying the old temple images of the golden past, and are stealthily building the world anew in their own remarkable image” (36). The thread that links the...

The sisters of sport psychology: An examination of the professional black female experience

Historically, the experiences of female practitioners have been overlooked within applied sport psychology literature, and thus, the field continues to be male-dominated. Despite calls for more racially diverse literature and utilization of diverse methodologies within sport psychology, studies pertaining to the female experience draw heavily from a White/Caucasian female narrative, further perpetuating the historical invisibility of women of color within the sport context. Using feminist methodology to inform the research process, the current study explored the professional experiences of women of African descent within applied sport psychology through a Black feminist lens. The results of the study demonstrate the integral influence of race and gender on one’s professional experiences in applied sport psychology, adding greater depth to the extant literature. Emergent themes included the interplay of personal and professional identity, a sense of responsibility to others and a vigilance with White colleagues. Implications and recommendations are provided, as well as directions for future research including increased representation within the larger sport and performance psychology field, a call for greater cultural awareness and humility within practice and research, and greater recognition of service as part of professional practice.