Racial Policies Research Articles

Christiaan Scott: beacon for paediatric rheumatology on the African continent

“I was raised in a world of academia and art, as a privileged white south African during apartheid,” says paediatric rheumatologist Christiaan Scott. Perhaps as a result, Scott has an unwavering commitment to speak up for the marginalised, campaigning for social justice, in particular the racial policies that were the backdrop to his childhood and adolescence. “I joined some antiapartheid youth groups and had a particularly good friend called Tyrone. He died suddenly in unexplained circumstances […] at the time it was not uncommon for young activists to just disappear.

Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield's Mid-to-Late Career, Philanthropy, and Activism in Nineteenth-Century America

Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield's Mid-to-Late Career, Philanthropy, and Activism in Nineteenth-Century America

Changing Faces of the American Apartheid

Bu makale Amerika Birleşik Devletlerindeki günümüzde hala, başta siyahlar olmak üzere ırkî azınlık gruplarına, sistematik bir şekilde uygulanan ırk ayrımcılığının kapsamını belirlemektedir. Bunu yaparken de, karşılaştırmalı tarihi sosyolojik metodu uygulayarak, ülkedeki ırk ayrımının tarihi kökenlerini takip etmektedir. Söz konusu sosyolojik yaklaşım zaman içerisinde aynı ırk siyasetinin - ırkî azınlıkların beyaz çoğunluktan ayrıştırılması - farklı tatbiklerini karşılaştırma olanağı tanımaktadır. Bu makaledeki ana amaçlardan biri, okuyucuya ABD’deki ırkî ayrımcılığın zaman içerisinde değişen doğasını göstermektir. Dolayısıyla, bu makale iki ana akademik soru üzerine inşa edilmiştir: 1) ABD’deki ırk ayrımının ülkenin kuruluşundan bu yana tarihi safhaları nelerdir? ve 2) ABD’deki ırk ayrımcılığının (eğer varsa) çağdaş uygulamaları nelerdir?

The Polls—Trends

Abstract Public opinion research has long demonstrated that white Americans are generally resistant to racially egalitarian policies. Using decades of national public opinion data, we re-examine opinion on race policy in the wake of considerable polarization and shifts in racial attitudes across white partisans. We find that white Democrats have in recent years shown both increasingly liberal racial attitudes and a marked increase in support for policies promoting racial equality that at times rivals the levels of support expressed by Black Americans. We also find, however, that these trends among white Democrats are tempered by heightened levels of racial resentment and continued opposition to racially egalitarian policies among white Republicans. Today, partisans appear to be far more polarized on matters of race and racism than at any point in the last three decades.

“Why We Have Become Revolutionaries and Murderers”: Radicalization, Terrorism, and Fascism in the Ustaša–Croatian Revolutionary Organization

ABSTRACT This article advances an interdisciplinary and multifactorial socio-cultural approach to the fascistization of the Ustaša in interwar Yugoslavia, leading to terrorism and racial cleansing. It concentrates on the life-trajectories of Mijo Babić and Zvonimir Pospišil, two nationalist activists notoriously known as the first Ustaša terrorists. Drawing on the previously unknown political memoirs of Pospišil and Babić, the article argues that the two activists bridged several phases of cumulative radicalization in the Ustaša organization, from the adoption of political violence at the grass-root level in the 1920s to international terrorism in the 1930s and then state-sponsored genocide in the first half of the 1940s. The article points out that Ustaša underwent most forms of political radicalization to terrorism identified by McCauley and Moskalenko (2008), but it also adds to their typology a case of radicalization to mass violence in the regime phase. Ustaša’s trajectory thus illustrates a rare process of transition from the radicalization of an oppositional, non-state group to mass radicalization leading to racial genocidal policies under a fascist-totalitarian regime. It is hoped that the biographical approach to radicalization advanced by the article contributes to a better understanding of politically motivated terrorism and mass violence in post-1918 Europe.

Cultural Racism and Ethnic Cleansing: The Islamic Republic of Iran and Minority Rights

AbstractThe phenomenon of “political Islam” has been explored in several social theories. These accounts have mainly concentrated on the forms of violence that Islamists have instigated, but the racist drive that is often embedded within political Islam has remined overlooked and unexplored, that is, at least until recently when the brutal crimes by ISIS against Yazidis and Christians in northern Iraq were widely documented and broadcasted. Even so, this tendency has only been attributed to ISIS and extreme Jihadi groups, while states infused with Islamist ideology have remained relatively untouched by such critical analyses.This article argues that most extant theoretical frameworks on political Islam do not adequately explain the often-latent racist trend in Islamist political ideology. By building off of Foucault's theory of biopolitics and genealogy of racism, it takes the Islamic Republic of Iran's policy against the Kurds as a case study to demonstrate how power shifts in favor of Islamist factions in early-1980s Iran legitimized a racist policy toward minorities in general and the Kurds in particular.

Preparing educators who save lives: what can US schools of education do?

PurposeAided with critical-race theory (Ladson-Billings, 1998), culturally responsive pedagogy tenets (Gay, 2002), and culturally sustaining pedagogy philosophy (Paris, 2012). The purpose of this paper is to make a two-pronged argument that: the killing of blacks has taken many forms, physical, moral, intellectual, cultural, and financial; and through its endorsement of racist policies, the education domain is a covert partaker in the killing of black lives. The author proceeds to tell her story of how lived experience, i.e., related to racism and inequities, inspired her to implement a curriculum that saves lives. She then proposes actionable measures that leaders of schools of education can take to show that they are allies of anti-black-racism and racial equity voices in education.Design/methodology/approachMethodologically, this paper is situated in the intersection of three methodological models, which share the use of narrative as a source of evidence: critical participatory action research, critical autoethnography and narrative inquiry.FindingsThe author’s narrative of lived experience, demonstrates the difficulty of black faculty of education to prepare nonblack educators who save black children’s lives and the author’s determination to tailor her syllabus to that urgent goal.Originality/valueThis study is one of its kind in claiming that ill-prepared teachers can “kill lives” and advocating that “saving lives” should be the mission of teacher preparation programs, especially those in high-diversity urban schools.

Consideration of racism experiences in the implementation of trauma-focused therapy in primary care.

To understand providers' perceptions of how a patient's experience of racism may impact the successful implementation of a brief posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treatment in the safety net integrated primary care setting. To conduct a developmental formative evaluation prior to a hybrid type I effectiveness-implementation trial. From October 2020 to January 2021, in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with integrated primary care stakeholders (N=27) at the largest safety net hospital in New England, where 82% of patients identify as racial or ethnic minorities. Interviews with clinical stakeholders were used to (a) contextualize current patient and provider experiences and responses to racism, (b) consider how racism may impact PTSD treatment implementation, (c) gather recommendations for potential augmentation to the proposed PTSD treatment (e.g., culturally responsive delivery, cultural adaptation), and (d) gather recommendations for how to shift the integrated primary care practice to an antiracist framework. Interview data were gathered using remote data collection methods (video conferencing). Participants were hospital employees, including psychologists, social workers, primary care physicians, community health workers, administrators, and operations managers. We used conventional content analysis. Clinical stakeholders acknowledged the impact of racism, including racial stress and trauma, on patient engagement and noted the potential need to adapt PTSD treatments to enhance engagement. Clinical stakeholders also characterized the harms of racism on patients and providers and provided recommendations such as changes to staff training and hiring practices, examination of racist policies, and increases in support for providers of color. This study contextualizes providers' perceptions of racism in the integrated primary care practice and provides some suggestions for shifting to an antiracist framework. Our findings also highlight how racism in health care may be aPTSD treatment implementation barrier.

Lies, Denials, and Cover-Ups: The Pervasiveness of Whiteness in School Districts Relations with Black and Racialized Parents

This study explores whiteness as property in parent engagement as experienced by Black and racialized parents in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area in Ontario, Canada. Drawing on counter-storytelling methodology, we explore the active harm endured by parents who have challenged racist educators, policies, and practices. We also explore how educators uphold whiteness as property (and intersections with “smartness” and “goodness”) through a spectrum of coercive power tactics, such as lies, denials, and cover-ups to protect their power and control at the expense of Black and racialized parents and students.

Racial Diversity and Racial Policy Preferences: The Great Migration and Civil Rights

Abstract Between 1940 and 1970, more than 4 million African Americans moved from the South to the North of the US, during the Second Great Migration. This same period witnessed the struggle and eventual success of the civil rights movement in ending institutionalized racial discrimination. This article shows that the Great Migration and support for civil rights are causally linked. Predicting Black inflows with a shift-share instrument, we find that the Great Migration raised support for the Democratic Party, increased Congress members’ propensity to promote civil rights legislation, and encouraged pro-civil rights activism outside the US South. We provide different pieces of evidence that support for civil rights was not confined to the Black electorate but was also shared by segments of the white population.

Tapestry, ideology and counter voices in Southern Africa during apartheid

ABSTRACT In 1963 a tapestry-weaving project was established at Rorke’s Drift, South Africa, by left-wing Swedes. This poverty-alleviation initiative targeted rural black women affected by the National Party regime’s oppressive apartheid laws. Further centres evolved from this enterprise, including Khumalo’s Kraal Weaving Workshop in KwaZulu-Natal and Thabana li Mele in neighbouring Lesotho. It is little appreciated that tapestries from these workshops might have interrogated the government’s exclusionary racial policies. In uncovering some of the weavers’ agencies and iconographies, the author shows how perceptions of these tapestries have been shaped by apartheid-era narratives, even in contemporary scholarship. Their works are almost invariably represented as the outcome of foreign initiative, and collectivised as obedient iterations by women reconciled with their marginalised status. In a new reading the author argues that these artists not only exercised their individual agencies, but at times even targeted the enormities of apartheid. It also exposes the potentially catastrophic consequences of nationalist ideology and expediency on the tapestry domain itself. Ironically, while the authorities harassed those at Rorke’s Drift, they publicised the Centre’s achievements as a triumph of apartheid policy. Yet as the needs of the Centre and the regime were to some degree aligned, the relationship between them was complicated.

After Childbirth: Better Data Can Help Align Postpartum Needs with a New Standard of Care.

After Childbirth: Better Data Can Help Align Postpartum Needs with a New Standard of Care.

Ways Forward in Preventing Severe Maternal Morbidity and Maternal Health Inequities: Conceptual Frameworks, Definitions, and Data, from a Population Health Perspective.

Ways Forward in Preventing Severe Maternal Morbidity and Maternal Health Inequities: Conceptual Frameworks, Definitions, and Data, from a Population Health Perspective.

Politics that Matter in Nas’s "Illmatic"

This essay focusses on a single, seminal piece of American hip-hop music: Nas’s Illmatic. Taking prompts from ANT and new materialism, and from Bruno Latour more specifically, I argue that Illmatic can and should be read as an exploration of the specific urban ecology from which it originated. This ecology is one of the urban landscape of New York’s housing projects as much as of the social practices of their inhabitants. At the same time, it is a concrete articulation, to borrow Latour’s famous phrase, of the racist policies that those who planned and oversaw its construction aimed to enforce. Though Nas’s music is often thought of as not as explicitly political as that of Public Enemy or KRS-One, a reading of it in this context reveals that it has no less political potential. Throughout the album, there is a detailed and complex engagement with the housing projects and how they contain and modify the possible mental landscapes of those who inhabit them. Incarceration, a central question for both Nas and Black America, must then be thought of as something that is not limited to the milieu of the prison. Instead, it is the prevailing condition in the urban ecologies of the housing projects. This imprisonment Nas understands in two ways: materially and mentally, working on bodies and working on minds. The very possibilities of thought are limited and formed by the ecologies of concrete that they take place in. Ultimately, through a close and careful reading of Illmatic, it becomes clear that the oppression of African Americans is not simply a social one: it is material. The housing projects themselves are an attempt to construct an urban environment that constrains thought, to make impossible the imagination of an alternative.

White Evangelicals, White Supremacy, and the ‘Born Again’ Identity in a Post-Trump America: A Latino Reading of John 3:1–8

Abstract This essay seeks to provide a Latino rereading of the ‘born again’ identity in John 3:1–8. It argues that being ‘born again’ is not a religious identity as popularly understood in American evangelicalism but an anti-racist identity that rejects all notions of racial superiority through the negation of birthing privileges. To champion or support racist policies toward Latin American migrants (or any minoritized community) is contrary to the very identity of a ‘born again’ believer. This Latino reading explores the racial context of the historical milieu of the New Testament and reflects upon the contemporary challenges of white supremacy and white evangelicalism in a post-Trump America.

Navigating Black Identity and White Desire: Seven-Eleven and the 1920s Crossover Musical Comedy

Navigating Black Identity and White Desire: <i>Seven-Eleven</i> and the 1920s Crossover Musical Comedy

An Antiracist Index for State Level Assessment

In 2020, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security identified white supremacists as the most lethal threat in America. White supremacy is a system rooted in racist policies and ideas that produce and normalize racial inequities. Combatting white supremacism thus requires identification and promotion of antiracist policies, actions, and systemic changes. This study constructs an Antiracist Index comprised of 15 indicators to assess the degree to which American states exhibit antiracist conditions across political, economic, and cultural dimensions. Indices are rank-ordered for all 50 states, from Very High to Very Low scores. Results demonstrate that three indicators—self-defense laws, gun ownership, and support for Black Lives Matter—primarily impact both high and low ranking states. The Antiracism Index thus serves as an exploratory assessment tool which enables state-by-state comparisons, identification of antiracist indicators, and the ability to monitor changes in racism and antiracism moving forward.

Where are the labor markets?: Examining the association between structural racism in labor markets and infant birth weight.

Racist policies and practices that restrict Black, as compared to white workers, from employment may drive racial inequities in birth outcomes among workers. This study examined the association between structural racism in labor markets, measured at a commuting zone where workers live and commute to work, and low-birthweight birth. We found the deleterious effect of structural racism in labor markets among US-born Southern Black pregnant people of working age, but not among African- or Caribbean-born counterparts in any US region. Our analysis highlights the intersections of structural racism, culture, migration, and history of racial oppression that vary across regions and birth outcomes of Black workers.

Testimonios in the mouth of the dragon: A call for Black liberation in psychology.

U.S. society has witnessed and experienced the impact and suffering caused by the racial pandemic within the COVID-19 viral pandemic. In response to anti-Blackness, a multigenerational and multiracial movement of people is rising and demanding justice for Black lives. Using testimonio research and Liberation Psychology as a theoretical framework, the authors describe their current understanding of what it means to practice a more responsible resistance to racist power structures as non-Black Latinas in the field of psychology. Braun and Clarke's (2016) thematic analysis (TA) was used to search for patterns of meaning within the authors' testimonios. Results revealed four themes: (a) to "hold the line" means to struggle for Black liberation, (b) confront anti-Blackness and colonial mentality in the self and community, (c) challenge anti-Blackness within the field of psychology, and (d) collective struggle. The third theme was divided into two subthemes: (a) tear down and (b) center Black lives. The testimonios emphasize that practicing allyship involves being a dissenter who questions and challenges colonial mentality and anti-Blackness, who fights for the abolition of racist policies and power systems, and who moves beyond the hegemonic values that exist in the field of psychology. This study presents the use of testimonio research and Liberation Psychology as suitable tools for psychologists to increase their racial consciousness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Hollywood’s Embassies

Hollywood’s Embassies