Negro Girl Research Articles

“Mad Hot” Multiculturalismo: Identidad cultural dominicana a través de la música y la danza

In 1994, a ballroom dance program for 5th graders was implemented in New York public schools. By 2005, more than 6,000 kids from 60 schools in Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn were required to take this 10-week course. The very same year, Marilyn Agrelo directed the documentary Mad Hot Ballroom Dance (2005). The documentary tells the story of the preparation, instruction, and rehearsal of various school teams for the Colors of the Rainbows final competition. New York is one of the most multicultural states in the United States with the student population coming from different countries and backgrounds. There are Dominicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, European Americans, African Americans, and Asian Americans. Through the music used in this Public-School program (merengue, tango, rumba, and swing), students find an outlet for their feelings and a way to “construct their subjectivities”, as Charles Keil would suggest. It is through dance that, a public school becomes a space of alterity or paratopia; a Korean boy dances a tango with a Dominican girl, whereas a Jewish-American boy dances a merengue with an African-American girl. In this essay, I will argue, among other things, that the ballroom dance program teaches students from different races, religions, and cultural backgrounds not only how to dance but also how to mingle and interact, thus reinforcing the possibility of greater multicultural integration. [Article copies available for a fee from The Transformative Studies Institute. E-mail address: journal@transformativestudies.org Website: http://www.transformativestudies.org ©2024 by The Transformative Studies Institute. All rights reserved.]

Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye : A Critical Analysis

Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye : A Critical Analysis

Celebrate with me: a black adolescent girl’s speculative multimodal design of intersectional college and career futures

PurposeThis paper aims to demonstrate how Alayah, a 16-year-old African American girl, leverages multiple expressive modes for intersectional self-representation as speculative design. Here, speculative design refers to a multimodal composition (i.e. digital collage) which leverages multiple expressive modes for intersectional self-celebration in possible futures.Design/methodology/approachInformed by intersectional multimodal literacy frameworks and analyses, this paper addresses the question, “How does Alayah represent her college and career futures in her speculative multimodal design? To address this question, the author analyzed Alayah's digital collage using an intersectional multimodal analysis template complemented by a thematic analysis of her interview data and the narrated explanation of her collage.FindingsIn a speculative design composed of 15 images and words, Alayah agentively determined and critically celebrated her intersectional college and career futures through four interrelated themes: Black girl affirmation; Collegiate success; “Sweet” work; and Black livingness.Originality/valueBy centering Black girls’ speculative multimodal designs in college and career curricula, ELA educators (re)imagine college and career pedagogies to critically celebrate Black adolescent girls as intelligent, empowered and literate young women worthy of the futures that they desire.

The Unwonted Veil: A Pediatric Case of a Dermatologic Complication Following a COVID-19 Infection

One week after contracting COVID-19, an 8-year-old African American girl developed a rash covering her face and parts of her arm. This rash resolved after four weeks after treatment with Pimecrolimus cream and barrier repair cream. While no unique exanthem is associated with COVID-19, it has been linked to various cutaneous symptoms. As a result, healthcare providers must be aware of this potential link while examining their patients and be prepared to give counseling to help patients cope with any psychological stress connected with these symptoms.

Methodical control of the difficult pediatric airway: two case reports

BackgroundManagement of children who present with a history of impossible mask ventilation or difficult tracheal intubation is fraught with challenges. Despite this, the “airway stress test” of an inhalational induction is frequently employed risking airway obstruction, breath holding, apnea, and laryngospasm.Case presentationsWe present two cases of children with anticipated difficult airway management. The first child (14-year-old African American boy) had severe mucopolysaccharidosis with a history of failed anesthetic induction and failed airway management. The second child (3-year-old African American girl) had progressive lymphatic infiltration of the tongue, resulting in severe macroglossia. We describe a technique that forgoes inhalational induction, incorporates recent pediatric airway guidelines, and provides a greater margin of safety. The technique encompasses the use of drugs that facilitate sedation for intravenous access, without respiratory depression or airway obstruction, titrated use of medications to achieve anesthetic depth while preserving ventilatory drive and airway tone, and the continuous provision of directed oxygen flow during airway manipulation. Propofol and volatile gases were avoided to preserve airway tone and respiratory drive.ConclusionsWe emphasize that an intravenous induction technique utilizing medications that preserve airway tone and ventilatory drive, and the use of continuous oxygen flow throughout airway manipulation, allows for successful management of children with a difficult airway. The common practice of volatile inhalational induction should be avoided in anticipated difficult pediatric airways.

Cakewalk through Kudzu, and: In the Spirit of Dorothy Dandridge—, and: The White Negro Girl's Diary

Cakewalk through Kudzu, and: In the Spirit of Dorothy Dandridge—, and: The White Negro Girl's Diary Kathy Z. Price (bio) Cakewalk through Kudzu Kudzu rings through the broken fences. We strip thebattered white and cut our fingers on roughunstained wood. Your fingers in my mouth the dayturns the children sit at the base of a tree wherethey were buried there is a slight opening in thecracks in your fingers your eyes disappear and shinethrough the shade this is not a wisdom or poem ortruth, or even a lie there is relief in vagueness I imagine her, pulling out white ghosts out of herbody as if stitching away mist of handkerchiefwatched each man slide under her and her and her,mouths cinched up, too flazy for the kiss on top ofthe burial ground, sweating beads on the stones,owls hurl out acrid bellows, I imagine her How to define the way moon tilts elbow your heels the way you all conspire to change the heat under themonarch's wing the collusion of twin moths singed in ash on a floor lamp that too,is dance [End Page 1] In the Spirit of Dorothy Dandridge— The silence was palpable, Diahann Carroll said of DorothyDandrige who somehow always seemed to look slightly amusedExcept the day her naked body was found on the bathroom floorIn her photos, the beauty mark, the ha-ha to those who said, prettiness is white deep, that half grin on her lipsdimmed when otto preminever said, I am gonna showthe Negroponte who is master, I will make you my birchwoodwhitened and stripped till the sap runs dry, in front of everyone till Sidney went natt on fraulein's son,& crowned her with, magenta, frangipani, and marigoldsI see her up-do, large swinging earrings, the cherry-pickedbosom that looked like it bloomed out of afallen southern pecan, and today, so many stings, the gnats are not contentto mist their pinpricks with a stab here or there, nothey must lift off a quarter of flesh, to, day is not the day you carry away my naked beingI have a secret, I am getting stronger, and when gnatsaim for the iris, the wires of my eye, to blind, I move as if birthed from the clusterof butter pecan, the birchwears a half-amused smile but onlyhalf because none of you are funny so I walk through you, look out,I am channeling the best of dorothy dandridge,the beauty mark above my lips … singsha-ha [End Page 2] The White Negro Girl's Diary Fields vagrant as crows one will die pass for what, not white. dry as a psalm one will burn feed the raven to peck out your eye throw something in the grave that won't return in the middle of a sermon she suckt blood out of a cut sun drew sweat from her young girl body in her mouth a beautiful snake & screamed only living virgin in Ezra her tongue caught in your throat had tired of johns and their red eyes walked on these hot roads to come to this on her knees naked for the very first time or so she said provided what every preacher must have clear water & weeping to refrain from blood peace is it peace Go without shoes shine on a boxcar, a risen chrism, eulogize lovers who betrayed you, to find their way back to beauty, paint your lips through a night of djembes made from the bones of guitar-p lucking skeletons, midnight runs soft between our fingers, cry turmeric and brush it off the armpits crouching outside Hades stick her shadow to the front door quartered like the woman mounted on the windowless window, wishing she could run back to Deuteronomy go to bed at eleven watch the dead bury the living witness Cerberus laughing at the yogis, spiraling in downward dog, Mississippi on your back Blessed is the beating of the fallen bark, the twisted limbs of the star-leaf trees, found her in the dark, moistened his...

P067: Identification of novel variant in WT1 gene in African-American girl with Denys-Drash syndrome

P067: Identification of novel variant in WT1 gene in African-American girl with Denys-Drash syndrome

Archiving Black Diasporas

Archiving Black Diasporas

Romanticism and the Rhetoric of Racialization

This essay proposes that Romantic studies needs to overhaul its canonical theories of language in order to contend with the rhetoric of racialization that underwrites and sustains structures of antiblackness. Scholarship often casts the apparent instability of race in the period as potentially liberatory, having derived its ideas about rhetoricity from the tradition of rhetorical deconstruction. Arguing that this tendency is both historically and theoretically misguided, the essay identifies an alternative model of rhetorical reading in the work of Hortense Spillers and develops its implications through analyzing a couplet from Mary Robinson's "The Negro Girl" (1800).

Divided Consciousness in The Bluest Eye

Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye uncovers the identity conflicts between the African- Americans and the whites due to the notions of Eurocentrism, America-centrism, racism, and dominance of the west over the east. This paper explores an African-American girl Pecola’s divided identity because of the reasons such as Dominance of West over the East, Being Black Immigrant, Lack of Recognition from Home and Society, Racism, and Poverty and Lack of Social security. The tragic part of their getting victimized is that due to the white standard of beauty even blacks regard themselves ugly and inferior, which gets analyzed by the use of W. E. B. Du Bois’ theory of double consciousness. Though the novel shows both reasons and consequences of an African-American girl Pecola’s divided identity, my paper mainly focuses on the reasons for Pecola’s divided identity.

Listening for Silences: The Trap of Biased Sources

Listening for Silences: The Trap of Biased Sources

Persistent pigmented papules on the neck of a 12-year-old African American girl.

Persistent pigmented papules on the neck of a 12-year-old African American girl.

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>

Presyncope Leading to the Diagnosis of Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor in a Pediatric Patient.

A 16-year-old African American girl presented after a presyncopal event. Initial evaluation revealed anemia (hemoglobin 5.2 mmol/L) and positive stool hemoccult. Esophagogastroduodenoscopy revealed an ulcerated, bleeding, submucosal mass (Fig. 1). Bleeding was controlled with argon plasma coagulation. Abdominal computed tomography showed a heterogenous 6.8 cm mass at the serosal surface of the lesser curvature. Neck and thorax computed tomography did not show metastases. Endoscopic ultrasound with fine needle biopsy (Fig. 2) revealed histology consistent with a gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST). Laparotomy was performed with complete resection of the mass. Pediatric GISTs are rare and they account for about 1% of all GISTs (1). When suspected, endoscopic biopsy, either core needle or forceps biopsy, is the preferred method to prevent tumor spillage which is highly associated with GIST recurrence (2). Pediatric GISTs usually lack KIT or PDGFRA gene mutations, making them wild-type GISTs (3). In this case, genetic testing revealed associations with hereditary paraganglioma-pheochromocytoma syndromes (4). Prognosis is based on the mitotic rate, tumor size, and tumor site; gastric site being the most favorable (5). MRI after surgery showed no residual tumor. The patient will continue close monitoring via annual MRI, which is the preferred modality for surveillance (6).FIGURE 1: Endoscopic photograph showing a bleeding submucosal mass.FIGURE 2: Endoscopic ultrasound of the mass while obtaining fine needle biopsy.

Slippin’ into Darkness

Slippin’ into Darkness

"African" Songs and Women's Abolitionism in the Home, 1787–1807

"African" Songs and Women's Abolitionism in the Home, 1787–1807 Julia Hamilton (bio) During the first wave of antislavery activism in Britain—from about 1787 to 1807—the nation's musical marketplace saw a new trend for scores composed on the themes of West Indian slavery, the transatlantic slave trade, and African identity.1 At least fifty of these scores were so-called "African" songs: that is, songs by white British composers and poets whose texts used first-person narration from the imagined point of view of an African.2 These songs ranged in tone and subject matter from sentimental complaints about the slave trade to expressions of hospitality for white travelers in Africa to songs of cheerful slavery. Whether their texts advocated for the abolition, amelioration, or continuation of slavery, all of the songs promoted racialized thinking by producing and circulating stereotypes about Africans. Yet these problematic songs are important historical sources, particularly as they bring to light new musical performance contexts in which the debates over abolition played out. Scholars have already begun to explore the relationship between music and popular abolitionism, studying the texts of antislavery ballads sung on the streets and so-called "Negro" songs performed on the stage.3 Brycchan Carey's work on abolitionist ballads by William Cowper has pointed to another performance venue for "African" songs: the home.4 Indeed, the format in which most "African" songs were published—short musical scores for voice with accompaniment by a keyboard instrument or harp—was [End Page 153] ideally suited for domestic consumption. Women in particular were encouraged to cultivate their keyboard, harp, and vocal skills, and their music collections were filled with such scores.5 In fact, I have located personal copies of "African" songs and keyboard pieces on African themes that were originally owned by nineteen different British women. Eleven of these women owned at least one "African" song whose text contained explicitly antislavery rhetoric.6 For instance, Lady Maria Beauclerk (ca. 1779–1822) transcribed into her manuscript copybook John Wall Callcott's "Forc'd from Home and all it's [sic] Pleasures" (ca. 1799), a new setting of Cowper's "The Negro's Complaint."7 Lydia Hoare Acland (1786–1856) of Killerton House likewise owned two antislavery songs by William Carnaby: "The Negro Girl" (ca. 1801) and "Azid, or the Song of the Captive Negro" (ca. 1802)."8 Mary Edmeades (1772–1840) of Owletts included Edward Miller's "The Negro Boy, Who was Sold by an African Prince, for a Metal Watch" (1792) and William Reeve's "The Desponding Negro" (ca. 1793) in a single binder's volume, which was later used by her two daughters.9 The existence of these scores in women's music collections is especially significant because we already know that British women actively supported abolition by writing antislavery literature, abstaining from slave-produced sugar, and wearing antislavery medallions.10 The scores, therefore, introduce to scholarship a previously unknown group of women who opposed the slave trade and recast domestic music-making as a potentially abolitionist activity. With that said, the specifics of women's day-to-day musical practices are notoriously difficult to uncover. Amateur musicians rarely left written evidence of the music that they played on any given day, let alone descriptions of how the political message in a song's text affected their worldview. How then might we understand a musical score as evidence of antislavery activism? This article thinks through what it might have meant for a contemporary British woman who opposed the slave trade to use the score of one abolitionist "African" song, William Howard's "The Negro's Lamentation" (1800), in her home.11 I outline some of the musical activities that are likely to have been involved in the domestic consumption of this score: studying the meaning and sentiment of the song's text, singing the words of the first stanza to the tune, working to find suitable text-settings for later stanzas, and accompanying oneself while singing. Each of these activities, I argue, would have entailed spending time working through the lyrics. And since the song's text forces the reader to reflect on her complicity in Britain's...

Editor's Column: “I set this matter down … to inform myself”: Steinbeck's Travels with Charley in Search of America as Private Discourse

Editor's Column: “I set this matter down … to inform myself”: Steinbeck's <i>Travels with Charley in Search of America</i> as Private Discourse

The Impact of Teacher-Student (Dis)Connection on Black Student and Teacher Identity Development in U.S. Schools

In one year, I moved from a diverse school where I felt pretty and smart to a predominantly White school where I felt ugly and dumb. This autoethnography examines how a little African American girl’s transfer from an urban to a suburban school resulted in a paradigm shift that had and continues to have profound consequences on her identity development and subsequent choices and practices as a marginalized student struggling to succeed academically, a teacher grappling with professional identity, and a doctoral student hoping to help preservice teachers prepare to meet the needs of diverse students. The research question that prompted this exploration is How does teacher-student (dis)connection impact the identity development of students of color in U.S. schools, and these same students’ professional identity development should they later become teachers themselves? In a larger social context, this work examines the impact of a culture of care, or lack thereof, in the milieu of teaching and learning, especially as it relates to the academic and personal growth and development of Black and Brown students in U.S. public schools. The inquiry aids in unpacking, storying, and restorying the school-related lived experiences of the researcher. The narrative exemplars that are illuminated reinforce the personal, relational, and professional significance of creating a school and classroom culture of care; and the “truths” revealed may offer new knowledge that encourages today’s teachers to develop behaviors and practices that lead to safe, productive, culturally solicitous learning environments.

Marked lateral ST-segment elevation with inferior ST-segment depression in an asymptomatic 12 year-old girl: A normal variant?

Significant ST-segment changes raise concern for myocardial ischemia, cardiomyopathy or myocardial inflammation and therefore, warrant an extensive and often invasive cardiovascular evaluation. We report a 12 year-old asymptomatic African-American girl with marked ST-segment elevation in leads I and aVL and ST-segment depression in inferior leads II, III and aVF. Extensive cardiovascular evaluation did not reveal any abnormality suggesting that these findings, which have previously not been reported, are likely benign, at least in this young girl.

OR33-07 ARNT2: A Potential Novel Candidate Gene for Monogenic Obesity in Humans

Introduction: Aryl hydrocarbon nuclear translocator 2 (ARNT2) is a basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH)-PAS (Per/Arnt/Sim) transcription factor shown to be critical to the development of paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVN), key region for energy homeostasis and feeding response. In vivo and in vitro studies have shown that ARNT2 is an obligate heterodimer for SIM1, known cause of monogenic obesity. Null mutations in Arnt2 in animals are not viable, but hypomorphic mutation results in hyperphagic obesity and its associated consequences (1). Due to the critical role of ARNT2 in the development of PVN, we hypothesize that hypomorphic mutations may result in early onset obesity in humans. Methods: The Genetics of Early Childhood Obesity (GECO) study recruits children with severe obesity (BMI > 120% of 95th percentile) of early onset (< 6 years). Whole exome sequencing (WES) was performed in a subset of proband-parent trios. The functional validation of the mutation(s) in ARNT2 is ongoing with co-transfection of tagged Arnt2 and Sim1 in HEK293 cells, with the induction of a luciferase reporter gene under the control of 6 repeats of bHLH-PAS core binding element by the Arnt2-Sim1 complex. Results: Two adolescents from unrelated families were found to have genetic variants in ARNT2. Subject 1 has a novel de novo heterozygous coding variant in ARNT2, c.388 C>G (p.P130A, CADD 25), predicted to be deleterious by 8/12 in silico algorithms. She is a 14-year old Caucasian girl with severe early onset obesity, BMI 28.1 kg/m2 (BMIz +4.72) at 2.5 years of age that has increased to 53.54 kg/m2 (BMIz + 3.25) at 14-years, and height > 95th %tile. She is non-dysmorphic, has developmental delay, absence seizures, behavior abnormalities & glucose intolerance/dyslipidemia secondary to obesity. Using genematcher, we identified another proband with the phenotype of obesity: an African American girl (BMIz +1.9) with biallelic inherited heterozygous variants in ARNT2, c.1228T>A (p.W410R, CADD 29) and c.916G>A (p.G306S, CADD 22). An only child conceived by IVF, she is non-dysmorphic and on treatment for bilateral focal epilepsy. All 3 variants are rare, with mean allele frequency < 0.005 in population-based databases such as gNOMAD. Both the patients have early onset obesity and a significant neurological phenotype. ARNT2 is a highly constrained gene of 717 amino acids with a significant depletion of missense variants in the N-terminus (1-244 aa) and overall fewer loss of function variants in ~282,644 alleles sequenced in gNOMAD. Conclusions: We propose that hypomorphic mutations in ARNT2 could be a potential novel cause of monogenic obesity in humans. Future studies will investigate the molecular mechanisms causing weight dysregulation in patient specific disease relevant hypothalamic neurons.Reference: (1) Turer et al., Dis Model Mech. 2018; 11(12)