Issues Of Race Research Articles

Young white children's (not so) innocent wonderings about skin color

Issues of race and racism in early childhood education remain under-researched in Denmark—a country where the ideology of equity is particularly prevalent. However, international research on race and racism has long shown that children as young as three to four years of age can express stereotypes and develop prejudicial attitudes related to race, leading to exclusionary social behaviors. This article presents a microsocial analysis of how skin color becomes a socially constructed site of power and access in children's social processes of differentiation. The article is written from the perspective of childhood sociology and is based on participant observations from critical ethnographic-inspired fieldwork conducted in a Danish kindergarten. The analysis shows how normative whiteness orientates two white five-year-old boys’ interpretations of a four-year-old Black girl's dark-complexioned skin. By extension, the article discusses why young white children's meaning-making wonderings about skin color should not be considered an innocent everyday part of kindergarten life. Finally, the article considers the role of early childhood educators when emphasizing the importance of recognizing early childhood education settings as critical sites in the (re)production and disruption of contemporary issues of race and racism.

Kant's conception of race and modern political science

Racial issues remained for a long time one of the marginal topics in political thought. However, in the last few decades racial questions have become a topic of discussion in political science. Modern debates about race in political science are quite multifaceted and concern both practical and theoretical issues. In this regard, participants in discussions often turn to the of thinkers of the past. Much of this research focuses on the specific issue of Kant's concept of race, which is often used as a pretext to label Kant as a ‘racist’ thinker. Why is it that Kant's concept of race has become so important for contemporary discussions of race in political science? Could the characterizing of Kant as a ‘racist’ have a negative impact on the perception of his political philosophy? Answering these questions is the purpose of this paper.

Performance approaches to whole society resilience

In this article, we reflect on the ways in which arts practices can contribute productively to national resilience strategies. We focus particularly on the UK Government Resilience Framework (2023, UKGRF) which calls for a ‘whole of society’ approach to resilience, echoing established initiatives addressing ‘whole community’ (USA) and ‘total defence’ (Sweden, Switzerland). In this context, we ask what performance research methods offer to understandings of whole society resilience, and how existing artistic practices ‘perform’ resilience in ways that are currently not accounted for. The arts, we argue, are a nuanced means of attending to complex geo-political contexts that allow space for legacies of racism, sexism, poverty, colonialism, and terrorism to be revealed as having (had) important and differing influences in shaping the resilience of varied communities within society. The UKGRF offers a compelling opportunity to think about what whole of society resilience might involve, who might already be engaged in this work, and how we might develop and maintain a robust ‘whole of society’ approach to contemporary resilience challenges. We discuss Through my Window, a community outreach project run by the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow (UK), mural painting in New Orleans (USA) that offers positive, joyful images of individuals in a city that is too often read through narratives of tourism and crisis, and Remembering a Future (London (UK), 2018), a live performance in which Aman Mojadidi addressed issues of race, identity, home and terrorism. In so doing, we argue that artists, arts organisations and arts communities need to be considered vital, strategically important resilience practitioners, and that the arts should be being taken seriously as an engine of societal resilience more broadly.

A negative Asian American theater: Young Jean Lee’s Straight White Men and the aesthetics of “Asianness” on the stage of the new millennium

ABSTRACT This article examines an aesthetic of Asian American theater in the new millennium, focusing on Young Jean Lee’s Straight White Men (2014) as an identity politics play that counterintuitively remaps the predominant understanding of a race critique. Lee’s play emerges in a context in which Asian American theater has gradually de-emphasized racial identity to deconstruct essentialism. Meanwhile, amid the resurgence of post-racialism, some argue for sidelining race issues in discussions, considering it a resolved issue due to certain achievements by non-whites. As a result, race may appear muted in and around Asian American theater. This article’s analysis suggests that Straight White Men complicates this trend in Asian American theater by shifting focus from Asian characters to explore how individuals, particularly a white middle-class male protagonist, grapple with identity categories. Drawing on the methodology of negative epistemology, the article contends that Lee’s critical consciousness in the play introduces a concept of negativity, framing individuals through negation rather than affirmation, thus revealing the ideological environment that fosters “Otherness.” By interpreting Lee’s unique dramaturgy through a lens of negativity, this article offers her aesthetic as a strategic tool for Asian American playwrights and marginalized individuals to confront post-racial challenges and to find inspiration in representing identity in the new millennium.

“Change, continuity and crisis in the legal profession: the role of gender”

ABSTRACT This paper discusses a theoretical framework for understanding gender in the legal profession, and in legal professionalism, over the past thirty years. Although women's subordinated position in legal professions across the globe seems well understood, the project of assessing the extent and the dynamics is ongoing in many jurisdictions and intersects with issues of race, gender in intricate and complex ways. The theoretical framework in this paper that aims to account for the multi-dimensional, multi-level and processual nature of change in the gendered profession draws on three main sources: Glucksmann's accounts of changing formations of labour, which provides a framework for understanding the exogenous and endogenous forces working on the profession; Fraser's concept of recognition and its relation to participation in the public sphere, and Bourdieu's conceptual vocabulary of field, capital and habitus, which facilitates understanding of the transactional processes which frame women's choices and which work to determine their position within the profession and organizations. The relevance of the framework will be illustrated through reference to a series of studies of gender and the profession, conducted since 1990.

Call to Action: Responding to COVID-19, Racism, and Student Mental Health on University Campuses

ABSTRACT The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic initiated a cascade of stressors that occurred concurrently with increasing issues of racism and racial injustice events. These compounded healthcare and societal stressors significantly impacted the mental health of individuals worldwide, including university students. To address the needs of students, a survey was administered to undergraduate, graduate, and professional students at a large public university in the southeastern United States. Qualitative data were collected regarding student mental health, recommendations for institutional resources, and support needs therein. Thematic analysis of qualitative responses from 1050 university students indicated six areas students stated they wanted the university to address to support their mental health needs: (1) Communication, (2) Academic Concerns, (3) Mental Health Resources and Connections, (4) COVID-19 Safety, (5) Social Injustice, and (6) Financial Concerns. To address these areas, we propose a set of evidence-based recommendations within the Social-Ecological Framework for colleges and universities to adopt to support student mental health considering all races, backgrounds, and experiences. Additionally, we propose strategies for university and college counseling centers to provide an essential leadership role on campuses to move these recommendations forward and positively impact the mental health of students.

Canadian Muslim Excellence: A Time to Celebrate, Educate, and Reflect

This study redresses the limited presence of stories of Muslims in Canadian archival history and curriculum, drawing attention to the racial issues as an antidote, so that public awareness of anti-Islamophobia strategy can be made known. The authors searched, preserved, and distributed the diverse and inclusive stories of Muslim Canadians by employing a comprehensive, multidisciplinary strategy to map the political, ideological, institutional, and economic contributions of Canadian Muslims who are working for a better Canada. The authors made these stories readily available and accessible as an open educational resource under a Creative Commons’ license, by creating and constructing a digital archive. This research also works towards developing resources and connections for a range of audiences to develop learning aids to teach Muslim Canadians history. The fabric of this country would not be the same, if it were not for diversity. Muslim Canadians are valued contributors to the Canadian climate, and deserve to be celebrated, rather than mistreated. Sharing the stories of Muslim Canadians who have had a positive impact on this country is intended to increase the positive messaging surrounding some of the wonderful contributions Muslim Canadians have accomplished.

Finland: Political Developments and Data in 2023

AbstractParliamentary elections in 2023 brought in a discourse on debt. Power was passed from the Marin I to the Orpo I government. This was historically the most right‐wing government to date in Finland, whose formation also took historically long but finally united both the populist‐nativist right with the liberal right in the same coalition. The ministerial appointments raised questions among the opposition, and the issue of racism was discussed in connection to the coalition partners. The government's austerity policies sought to limit the power of trade unions, which in turn generated strong reactions. Proposals to limit strike action were faced with opposition. As the three largest parties shifted around, the political centre chose to remain in the opposition and also took issue with the underfunding of social services. The parliamentary polarisation formed a stark contrast to the consensual way in which Finland had approached North Atlantic Treaty Organisation membership, for which a compatible institutional setting was built.

Researching the Job Corps at Acadia National Park

The War on Poverty-era Job Corps conservation centers of the National Park Service offer an important narrative about the contributions of young people of color and poor white people to conservation and the national parks. At a time when the agency is eager to diversify both its staff and visitors, this is an important history for the NPS to research and interpret for the public. The Job Corps and other federal youth conservation programs also offer important lessons for current and future job training and conservation programs. These lessons underscore the need to fully consider issues of race and class in federal programs that seek to address poverty and conservation, and to consider whether federal land agencies such as the National Park Service are equipped to handle this task.

The Quest for Educational Equity in Schools in South Africa

Abstract The quest for educational equity in South Africa takes its impetus from the country's transition to democracy in 1994. The country faced the challenge of overcoming deep systemic inequality-both racial and class-based-caused by three hundred fifty years of colonialism and apartheid. The African National Congress undertook a process to equalize the educational system and expand opportunities for students. Significant progress has been made in addressing issues of race, class, and gender in the thirty years since 1994, but a combination of factors has both reproduced and amplified old inequalities and disparities, particularly those of space and race, and introduced intense new socioeconomic inequalities overlain with challenging cultural and linguistic markers, such as the dominance of English and the loss of indigenous language capacity. Two elements have been pivotal: stubborn legacy effects of apartheid such as poverty in a context of a weakening economy; and complex and contradictory arrangements made at the transition in 1994 that have left privilege, predominantly but no longer only white, largely intact. The COVID-19 pandemic sharpened these inequalities.

Why robot embodiment matters: questions of disability, race and intersectionality in the design of social robots.

A growing minority of those with disabilities are people of color (POC), with, for example, autism diagnosis rates now higher for children of color than for white children in the USA. This trend underscores the need for assistive technologies, especially socially assistive robots, to be designed with intersectional users in mind. Outside of Japan, most robots are designed with white synthetic skin and able-bodied features, failing to reflect the diverse users they are meant to assist. This paper explores the concept of the "engineering imaginary," the historical and cultural influences that shape these designs, and which tend to limit robot embodiment to white, able-bodied forms. Drawing on work from scholars like Lucy Suchman, Jennifer Rhee, Neda Atanasoski and Kalindi Vora, the paper critiques this engineering bias. A key historical moment in the production of the engineered imaginary of artificial humans is provided by Ovid's myth of Pygmalion and its influence on representations across literature, film, and then robotics. Furthermore, the physicality of the robot, and its role in the production of nonverbal communication (NVC) for more inclusive interaction with humans is explored, seeing these as steps toward what some roboticists are calling Artificial Empathy (AE). Through case studies like Bestic, Bina48, and HuggieBot 3.0, the paper explores what I call the poverty of the engineering imaginary, how current robotics design fails to properly address issues of race, gender, and disability. Ultimately, the paper argues for more inclusive robot designs that accommodate diverse bodies and social dynamics, questioning the pervasive norm of white, able-bodied robotic embodiment.

The Price of Prosperity: Annexation, Architecture, and the Late Modernist Development Frenzy in Hawai`i

ABSTRACT Shortly after the former U.S. Territory became the fiftieth state in 1959, the firm of Minoru Yamasaki and Associates (MYA) won a competition to design a new housing project in downtown Honolulu. Queen Emma Gardens, as it came to be known, was an attempt by the Detroit-based firm to assimilate U.S.-based late modernism to a tropical climate. Yamasaki, an avid golfer, enjoyed Hawaiian vacations and pursued commissions on O`ahu, chief among them apartment buildings and an office tower, along with unbuilt proposals for hotels and shopping centres. These opportunities came as a direct result of a westward movement among mainland U.S. citizens, the architect’s Japanese heritage, and a newfound obsession with the island chain, but such developments added to significant pressures facing local housing market, raising issues of race, identity, and the displacement of the urban poor in favor of sleek modernist housing deemed “appropriate” by city officials and funded by federal initiatives. The MYA-designed Hawaiian projects illustrate how one design firm’s formal and technical ambitions change over time, largely in response to shifting desires of clients, an evolving construction industry, and a growing tourist market, all of which come together in the development of a post-war itinerant architecture.

Woke women of the 90s return: Toxic white feminism and the Murphy Brown and Roseanne reboots

AbstractTwo feminist icons of the 1990s returned to network television in 2018: Murphy Brown and Roseanne Conner. Neither rebooted character survived the reboot's first season. Despite their attempts to demonstrate that they were “woke,” the acting styles and strong personas of these two icons were, this paper argues, not appealing to a younger generation of television viewers and feminists and, simultaneously, too progressive for the older and more conventional audiences of the networks on which they aired. Moreover, both leading characters demonstrated the narrowmindedness associated with a toxic white feminism that overlooks issues of class and race.

Maya Angelou’s Selected Poems: A Reflection on Racism and Segregation

This paper focuses on the issues of racism and segregation in Maya Angelou’s selected poems. As an African American, Maya Angelou in her poems and autobiographical novels demonstrates the historical, social and economic condition of her community, especially till the 1970’s. To argue on these grounds, power structure between the white and the black, or African American is also important to discuss. In this paper, six poems of Maya Angelou which are “Still I Rise”, “Caged Bird”, “Alone”, “Harlem Hopscotch”, “Phenomenal Woman” and “My Guilt” will be discussed and analyzed to discover and rediscover the themes of racism and segregation. So, this paper examines the historical reality of Maya Angelou’s community, important features, facts and information found in her poetry, along with the way of segregation in a racist society. Simultaneously, this paper explores the socio-economic context of the blacks as a base for racism and segregation and the apparent mentions of racism and segregation in Maya Angelou’s poems.

Recovered History: Chicanx Representation in the Dual Credit Classroom

Abstract Recent legislation in Texas effectively prohibits K-12 educators from addressing issues of racism and explicitly prevents teachers from discussing the place of racism in Chicanx relations across Texas history. University educators, and dual-credit instructors especially, must intercede if future generations of learners are going to encounter the true and complete history of border culture, colonialism, and the complex relationship that Chicanx people have with the Southern region of the United States. I argue that the use of digital archives and recovered history like the internet project Are We Good Neighbors? Mapping Discrimination Against Mexicans in 1940s Texas, which catalogs racial discrimination through individual testimony, the Library of Congress database of Mexican American documents, and Chicano! History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement offer educators an opportunity to incorporate key research skills into the classroom while also establishing a linear context for liminality as a feature of identity formation in contemporary Chicanx literature. The combination of research and critical inquiry is vital to instructing students on the realities of Chicano relations and introducing them to the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, a key element of American history that is not only conspicuously absent from most K-12 curricula but also an inescapable influence on identity formation and contemporary discussions around Mexican American relations. The use of digital archives to recover and center Chicanx history is actionable on a small scale and serves as an important opportunity to resist anti-ethnic legislation in real time, a vital act of subversion that sidesteps prolonged challenges to censorship at the legislative level.

American Arcadia? The Shift of the Homoerotic Gaze in Herbert List’s Work

The German photographer Herbert List (1903–75) is well known for his pictures from the Mediterranean, metaphysical still lives and portraits of young men. The latter, in particular, have garnered continuous attention due to their beauty and as examples of homosexual aesthetics in prewar and postwar Europe. A lesser-known body of work are his photographs taken in the Caribbean in 1957, including portraits of Black men. This article sheds light on List’s different homoerotic images by situating them in their art historical as well as local context. First, in an analysis of his Oriental and Orientalist representations of young men in Tunisia, I delineate his expansion of classical Greco-Roman tropes. Second, I contrast these images with List’s portraits of people of colour in the Caribbean and his critique of their historical exploitation and current living situation. In both contexts, List is complicit with as well as in contradiction to the power dynamics of European imperialism, and both follows and digresses from white European visual traditions. This analysis expands current scholarship by taking into consideration the issues of race, class and postcolonialism and their impact on the representation of bodies of colour.

Cheating the evidence to get to best interest and the presumption of unfitness

AbstractThis article explores our national reactive child protection model which has focused on removing poor people from poor families and has resulted in conflating poverty with neglect. Significant issues of class and race are implicated given dramatic systemic racial and ethnic disparities and questions must be asked whether current practices have done more harm than good. In reviewing this landscape this article is descriptive and prescriptive and calls for adopting proactive public health‐oriented policies which support children and families in their homes and a culture of due process and fairness in juvenile and family court hearings involving children and their families. Dependency or abuse and neglect cases involve state intervention. These are not disputes between private parties where the sole focus is the best interest of the child regarding which guardian to be placed with. Cheating the Evidence warns against diluting the constitutional requirement of proving the lack of parental unfitness by clear and convincing evidence by making comparative judgments about placement which are based on often subjective assessments on best interests of the child which are resource based. Given that high percentage of cases involving allegations of neglect versus inflicted abuse these concerns are of paramount importance. There is a need for more rigor in fact‐finding and adherence to constitutionally required burdens of proof. Due process and fairness are best‐served by supporting client‐directed advocacy and greater transparency, including presumptively opening up the doors to closed juvenile and family court hearings as recommended by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges in 2005. Opening the doors is not a binary or either or proposition‐ we can preclude dissemination of records of youth, and protect confidentiality as a growing number of states have done. Transparency includes more than raising the level of practice of lawyers and judges‐ it includes encouraging systemic accountability from child serving agencies and educating the public about the complexities which are related to the birth or cradle to prison pipeline.

Putting People First: A Multimodal Bi‐Stream Structure‐based Model for Bias Mitigation

ABSTRACTResearch into multimodal model biases has largely concentrated on gender and racial issues, neglecting key areas such as biases related to religion, nationality, sexual orientation, and disabilities, as well as the subtleties of question intent and common biases. To address these gaps, we developed the Multimodal Bi‐Stream Structure‐based Model (MBSS) for Bias Mitigation, an innovative approach that focuses on these underrepresented groups by focusing on religion, nationality, sexual orientation, and disability but also to identify common biases and question intents. The MBSS employs a dual stream bias mitigation system, where the standard stream addresses common biases and the mitigation stream targets specific biases, allowing for nuanced and effective bias reduction by making decisions based on the difference in predicted probabilities between these two streams. Empirical results demonstrate MBSS's efficacy, especially in reducing religious bias by up to 71%, highlighting its potential to foster a more inclusive digital environment and enhance the representation of diverse groups.

Study on the Interactive Mechanism between Racism and Terrorism in Europe

Given the growing racial and religious tensions in Europe and the frequent occurrences of terrorist activities, studying the correlation between the two can provide a theoretical basis for preventing terrorist activities. This study aims to explore the logical relationship and interaction mechanism between them. Taking the Paris terrorist attack in 2015 as an example, adopting the analytical dualism theory, this paper analyzes the mutual influence paths between racial discrimination and terrorist activities and discusses from cultural and structural perspectives the conditions under which racism becomes the hotbed for extremism, as well as the ways terrorist organizations manipulate racial issues to expand influence. The study concludes that racial divides in Europe provide a real basis for the spread of extremism, while extremist organizations also manipulate racial, customary, and religious emotions through online and offline means to expand influence, and the two reinforce each other. To thoroughly break this vicious cycle, positive multicultural identity needs to be promoted, structural discrimination between races needs to be eliminated at the social system level, and the independent thinking abilities and subjectivity of minority ethnic groups need to be enhanced to block the conduction of resentful emotions towards terrorism at its root.

The Politics of a Portrait: Biopics, Slavery and Contemporary Racial Politics in the United States

The article examines the connection between the past and the present, and between the personal and the political, in three recent biographical pictures directed by filmmakers of color: The Birth of a Nation (2016, dir. Nate Parker), Harriet (2018, dir. Kasi Lemmons), and Emancipation (2022, dir. Antoine Fuqua). By addressing the history of American slavery, the films not only come into a dialogue with the preexisting representations of slavery in music, photography and cinema, but also reflect on current racial politics and antiracist activism in the United States. They offer a commentary on changing attitudes towards the issue of race in America, and engage with the collective memory of slavery - a past trauma, which has shaped the African American identity.