Racist Society Research Articles

Women Friendship in the novel Sula

This article examines the historical and cultural experiences of African-American women through the lens of Black feminist thought, with a focus on Toni Morrison's novel Sula (1973). The research question guiding this study is: How does Sula reflect the complexities of friendship, autonomy, and the quest for empowerment among Black women within a racist and patriarchal society? The study employs a literary analysis method, drawing on the historical context of Black American women’s oppression and the emergence of Black feminist ideology as theorized by scholars like Patricia Hill Collins. Findings reveal that Sula intricately portrays the deep bond between the two protagonists, Sula Peace and Nel Wright, against the backdrop of systemic oppression. Their friendship symbolizes the broader struggle of African-American women to navigate personal autonomy within a community shaped by the legacy of slavery. Sula’s defiance of societal norms, particularly in her relationships with men, highlights the challenges Black women face in seeking empowerment and identity in a society that marginalizes them. This study concludes that Sula not only captures the historical context of Black women's experiences but also serves as a significant contribution to the discourse on Black feminist thought, emphasizing the importance of friendship, autonomy, and resistance in the fight for liberation.

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.

Self-identified Race and Ethnicity and How this is Perceived: Associations with the Physical and Mental Health of Incarcerated Individuals.

The singular focus on self-identified race and ethnicity in health disparities research may not fully convey the individual and structural components of experiencing race in society, or in a racialized context such as prison. Processes of racialization create boundaries between incarcerated individuals and regulate their daily interactions and access to resources, with possible effects on well-being. However, the relationship between perceived race and health has not been examined within the imprisoned population. We used data from the 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates (n = 23,010) to assess how self-identified race, perceived race, and the discordance between racial self-identification and perception were associated with the physical (number of chronic conditions) and mental health (psychological distress) of American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian, Black, Latino, White, and multiracial incarcerated individuals. Reported perception as Latino was associated with better mental and physical health relative to perception as White. Perceived Latino identity was more strongly associated with physical and mental health than a Latino self-identity. Reported perception as Black was associated with less psychological distress than perception as White, but this relationship dissipated after accounting for self-identified race. In contrast, perceived and self-identified multiracial incarcerated individuals reported worse health than their White counterparts. Having a discordant (vs. concordant) racial identity was associated with worse physical and mental health among imprisoned persons regardless of race. The use of a single, unidimensional measure of race and ethnicity in health disparities research does not fully reveal racialization's influence on health, specifically for those experiencing incarceration.

Role of Language in the Mandela Strategy

The peaceful and non-violent transformation of an officially racist and discriminatory minority-governed society into a non-racist inclusive democracy is one of the remarkable events of the 20th century. A fundamental part of this transformation was Nelson Mandela’s strategy. This article will assess the role of language in the Mandela strategy.

Hurston’s Art of Controversy in Dust Tracks on a Road

Zora Neale Hurston’s autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road, has generated controversy since its publication in 1942. Critics either dismiss the work for its alleged celebration of liberal individualism and its denial of race consciousness, or else they argue that the book deconstructs its apparent meanings or is essentially ironic in tone. Countering such polarized reactions, this essay takes seriously Dust Tracks’ overt sentiments by placing them in the context of the abstract humanism that developed at midcentury to understand the particular forms of Hurston’s transracial universalism, based on patterns of likeness and relationality. Moreover, by appreciating the ways this discourse fails—as evidenced in the many textual contradictions and inconsistencies of Dust Tracks—we gain a fuller sense of a process in which universalist ideals bear the marks of Hurston’s personal and historical position as a Black woman in a racist society.

Self-Realisation in the Awakening by Kate Chopin

Racism took a different turn in the 16th century, impacting this generation's society. Through racist beliefs and thoughts, people divided society into divisions. This study was based on racism and white people's historical oppression of black people. In this study, we examined two novels that help to analyze racism in society, and the impact of these novels on culture was also addressed. The study described slavery in the 19th century and the colonial times of Nigerian tribes. Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn offered an American perspective on racism vs. the African setting of Things Fall Apart. During the 19th century, Nigerian people faced colonization that impacted the culture and behaviour of indigenous people. In this study, different aspects of racism and the effects of racism on black people were examined. This study also showed that the British invasion forced marginalization in every element of Igbo society, ranging from traditional values to religious and gender roles; this study aims to discuss the differences in the perspective of racism by analyzing Things Fall Apart and The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn. These two pieces of literature helped to develop better concepts and aspects of racism in the social setting and highlighted the racism between white and black people.

Research with Black Communities to Inform Co-Development of a Framework for Anti-Racist Health and Community Programming.

The effects of systemic racism were exacerbated and amplified throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The resurgence of the "Black Lives Matter" movement in North America brought awareness to the public, especially white people, of the impacts of systemic racism in society and the urgent need for large-scale and institutional anti-racism work. In collaboration with a local Community Health Centre, this research focused on identifying priority areas for tailored and co-developed anti-Black racism interventions in health services and community programming, as well as examining how purposeful relationships can be created with African, Caribbean, and Black (ACB) communities in London, Ontario. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in either French or English with nine formal or informal leaders from London's ACB communities. Interpretive description methodology guided analysis and interpretation. Participants indicated that anti-Black racism is ever-present in the community and in their lives, with systemic racism causing the most harm. Racism should be addressed by creating ACB-specific services, and education for non-Black communities; increased representation, inclusion, and engagement of ACB people within organizations, especially in leadership roles, are essential. A framework based on study findings to guide how organizations can develop authentic and purposeful relationships with ACB communities is presented. Organizations will continue to perpetuate systemic racism unless they actively seek to be anti-racist and implement strategies and policies to this end. The proposed framework can guide partnerships between health and community organizations and ACB communities, and support co-development of strategies to address anti-Black racism.

Development of the Indigenous Health Toolkit

Indigenous patients frequently experience bias and racism in society and within medical encounters. Biased health care relates to delayed and worsened health care, as well as worse health outcomes. Evidence exists that training can reduce bias and improve care. However, no recommendations or requirements around Indigenous health education exist. Therefore, a team of 7 experts was formed to create a training guide called the Indigenous Health Toolkit to train healthcare providers to provide more effective care to Indigenous patients. Indigenous methodologies were applied to this endeavor to create recommendations and training which included engagement with Indigenous elders, community, youth, and businesses. A 7-module toolkit was created over one year to train healthcare providers to provide culturally congruent and bias-free care to Indigenous patients in hopes of reducing the gap in health disparities that exists between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.

Social Reasons

ABSTRACTThe goal of this article is to motivate the idea of a social reason and demonstrate its usefulness in social theorizing. For example, in a society that values getting married young, the fact that one is young is a reason to get married. In racist and sexist societies, we have social reasons to be racist and sexist. Social reasons give rise to social requirements and obligations, where these requirements often conflict with prudential and moral requirements. My application of reasons to social philosophy parallels Charles Mills' and Carole Pateman's applications of social contract theory to political philosophy. While they use social contract theory to make sense of patriarchy and white supremacy, I use the theory of normative reasons to make sense of social injustice. The theory of normative reasons meets non‐ideal theory.

Finding Antiracists: Construction of an Antiracism Attitude Scale

ABSTRACT While there have been many antiracism discussions, an instrument is needed to capture the degree of support of a popularized form of this philosophy. Such an instrument, contextualized to contemporary racial controversies, can be an upgrade from older measures of racial attitudes, such as the racial resentment scale. Furthermore, a scale assessing antiracism differs from previous scales by measuring racial progressiveness or radicalism rather than racial conservatism or overt racism. Exploratory factor analysis of survey data from two samples indicates that five statements—BLM, white fragility, slavery, government request, and blacks deserve—loaded .6 or higher on the first factor for both samples, and these statements have Cronbach’s alphas higher than .8 and explain more than half the variance. Two other statements—white supremacy and racist society—barely missed qualifying for the index, but further analysis with confirmatory factor analysis indicates that their inclusion in the index should be done with caution. Qualitative scale assessment indicates that respondents reflected themes from popular antiracism literature. The scale was tested with a national sample and found to be statistically sound with predictive validity. This scale assesses the degree to which racial attitudes reflect popular antiracism ideals and can assess the prevalence of antiracism.

Body autonomy: women with disabilities and the quest for a sex life free from violence

The present paper aims to analyze the body autonomy of girls and women with disabilities and its influence on a sexual and reproductive life free from violence. Established in 1994, at the International Conference on Population and Development (or ICPD), the expression of bodily autonomy has entered the discourse of human rights advocates, activists, and experts. Other international texts point in the direction of "protecting and guaranteeing the right of all individuals to physical integrity, autonomy, and reproductive rights, and to provide access to essential services in support of these rights," such as the voluntary Nairobi Declaration (2019), the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006), and the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which established, among its goals, the achievement of sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights for all, reaffirming the importance of the theme for the development of a society with gender equality. With bibliographical research and statistical data, authors such as Gesser, Beauvoir, Butler Honneth, and Becker have been used to establish a dialogue about disability and its necessary intersectionalities, to understand the condition of women with disabilities within a patriarchal, sexist, ableist, and racist society that reifies and silences them, reducing their lives to the private sphere, as if they were objects. Thus, we conclude that education for bodily autonomy, through the emancipatory process of girls and women with disabilities is one of the paths to be followed for the eradication of gender violence against this vulnerable group.

Analyzing the Movie "Hidden Figures" (2016): A Comprehensive Examination of Race and Gender Inequality

Hidden Figures is a movie based on a true story that told a story about the challenges of being black race women due to racial and gender discrimination in the society at that time. This study aims to examine how Hidden Figures portrays black feminism of the injustice against the black race and the complexities of women in gender inequality, particularly within the historical context that highlights the experiences of women. This research is based on descriptive analysis methods. Descriptive analysis is used to reveal the representation of gender inequality, racial injustice, and black women feminism in Hidden Figures by examining the characters' interactions, dialogue, and narrative choices. The analysis revealed the injustice against the black race in society experienced by the characters in the movie. Furthermore, this study showed gender inequality that happened in the movie Hidden Figures. It can be concluded that Hidden Figures portrays issues such as racial and gender barriers, especially to black women in workspace. In addition, the movie Hidden Figures also added a conclusion to this study, in which complexity of women in gender inequality is a concerning issue in the film.

Imperial algorithms: Contemporary manifestations of racism and colonialism.

In this special issue, we invited contributions that critically examined issues of imperialism, colonialism, power, justice, etc. to expand the canon of anticolonial scholarship and critical scholarship in community psychology. Our two objectives were: (1) to build on the canon of anticolonial and critical race scholarship to cultivate an empirical and theoretical body of work and conceptual frameworks about racism and colonialism within the field of community psychology and (2) to unpack the different manifestations of racism in society from the lens of community psychology and reflect on the implications of these varied forms of injustice in the contemporary moment. Rooted in African epistemology and methodology (Martin, 2012), we find the concept of the algorithm to serve as a potent metaphor for the ways in which these oppressive structures operate given the prevalence of algorithms in our daily lives and the algorithm is symbolic of the information age and predictive powers that seem to govern society beyond conscious control. In this sense, imperial algorithms are these structures, patterns, processes, and procedures that perpetuate imperialism. These imperial algorithms manifest as neo-colonialism, surveillance, social engineering, carcerality, reality warping of contemporary racism, health disparities exacerbated by COVID-19, and environmental grids of oppression.

‘A lack of cultural understanding and sometimes interest’: Towards half a century of anti-racist policy, practice and strategy within probation

In 2021, HM Inspectorate of Probation published a long awaited and highly critical report – Race equality in probation: the experience of black, Asian and minority ethnic probation service users and staff. The inspection upon which it was based was conducted in the Autumn of 2020 and was therefore set against the background of the death of George Floyd in the United States, and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement worldwide. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement laid down a challenge on many levels, stating that black, Asian and minority ethnic people must be accepted and respected as equal citizens and nowhere is this more urgently needed than within the operation of the criminal justice system. However, its follow up report (HM Inspectorate of Probation 2023) reported being disappointed in the lack of progress made by the Probation Service in addressing the issues raised in its earlier report. The article seeks to move beyond the conclusions and recommendations of the Inspection report using the lens of Critical Race Theory to engage in a discussion of systemic racism in society. To do this we have used three levels of analysis – macro, meso and micro – to situate contemporary probation within the wider structures of a post-colonial society.

When They Know Us: Do Dalit Lives Matter?

This paper explores the concept of knowing in caste-ridden Dalit lives using the analogy of seeing in the context of the Black African-American racial society, where race is identified primarily through skin colour. Thus, the ‘Black body’ is marked by the act of seeing. A Dalit body, however, is usually discovered through knowing caste. Knowing is a complex mediated by caste, class, race, religion, occupation, spatiality, language and other forms of placement. Knowing is imperative in the context of a representative democracy to ensure social justice and the equitable distribution of government services. But does knowing someone’s identity lead to equal treatment and equal respect, which constitute the substantive measures of democracy? I argue that knowing is a mode used to perpetuate caste, based on everyday ways in which Hindus live their lives. Pursuing this question, I problematise the concept of knowing in the trajectory of Dalit lives. I then take Ambedkar’s ‘Waiting for a Visa’, situated in the genre of Dalit autobiographies, to illustrate the concept of knowing. Finally, I ask: given the politics of knowing, how do Dalit lives matter when practising caste?

How Have Changes to the United Kingdom Modern Slavery Act Affected the Conceptualization of 'Race' and Racism in Society?

Modern slavery, as an increasingly incessant problem around the world and in the United Kingdom especially, is driven by and influenced by many different factors. As such, this paper focuses on the changes towards the 2015 United Kingdom Modern Slavery Act (UKMSA) and how those changes can be applied to analyze and explain how the conceptualization of ‘race’ and racism are affected by issues such as Brexit and COVID-19. Little previous research has been completed on the correlation between those above factors, and so this paper will provide guidance for future research and for policy-makers to consider the different elements that affect modern slavery and human trafficking. This paper also includes a literature review whereby different pieces of literature are analyzed to gain a better-rounded understanding on the different topics, concepts, and themes that are present in United Kingdom modern slavery research. It was useful to compare the annual changes to the 2015 UK Modern Slavery Act from 2015 to 2022. Then, statistics from the United Kingdom Office for National Statistics were gathered to address the total number of potential modern slavery cases there were in the United Kingdom, starting from 2015, as that was when the first revision of the UK Modern Slavery Act was officially published. In the future, research can focus on how to disperse precise information on ways to prevent and spot modern slavery as a bystander and on ‘race’ and racism as social constructs, to reduce and eventually eliminate the issue of modern slavery.

Modern Challenges of Individuals in Interracial Relationships in a Racialized Society: A Thematic Analysis

Since laws prohibiting interracial marriages were abolished, the United States has seen an increase in interracial relationships. Individuals in interracial relationships experience the typical challenges of partnered life; however, these relationships also have the potential to face additional challenges existing in a racialized society. Individuals in interracial relationships are experiencing increased anxiety due to heated public debate concerning racial justice, immigration reform, and even direct attacks on certain minority groups. This analysis investigates the challenges of interracial relationships and provides clinicians with insight into their unique challenges. Further, this article discusses implications for clinicians encountering this population in clinical settings.

Contributions of a “Brazilianized” Radical Behaviorist Theory of Subjectivity to the Feminist Debate on Women

An essentialist view of gender and an individualistic concept of subjectivity have distanced psychological theories from emancipatory feminist projects. In Brazil, similar to some other psychological orientations, the behavior-analytic field has sought an interface with feminism. The anti-essentialist vein of radical behaviorism underpins the early movement toward feminism. This essay aims to expand the area of contact with feminism through a theoretical proposal for understanding women’s subjectivity inspired by Brazilian behavior-analytic literature. From a contextualized, multidimensional, pluralized, and politicized view of subjectivity, women’s subjectivation is forged in a tripartite complex of body, person, and “self”, whose relative unity is susceptible to changes and conflicts. In a patriarchal, racist, and cis-heteronormative society, such as the Brazilian one, subjectivation is also an oppressive process. Nevertheless, the essay demonstrates that women’s subjectivation can be a process of emancipatory liberation. This possibility is glimpsed within a virtuous dialectical circuit between disruptive verbal communities (uncommitted to institutional, hierarchical, and oppressive social control) and subversive subjectivities. Thus, behavior-analytic psychology has theoretical tools to situate the process of women’s subjectivation not as a locus of depoliticization but as a crucial ally in constructing a more equitable and just society, as envisioned by feminism.

Racist State and the State of Race: An Analysis of Instagram Commentary Pertaining to LeBron James

The purpose of this study was to examine the evolution of social media commentary pertaining to LeBron James’ activism efforts during two pivotal moments of state-enacted anti-Blackness violence. Utilizing the lens of critical race theory and critical whiteness studies, we examined user commentary pertaining to James’ two Instagram posts responding to the state-enacted violence against Michael Brown in 2014 and George Floyd in 2020. While responses to LeBron’s activism certainly evolved between 2014 and 2020, it is wise to be skeptical of that newly found support for James’ message and the outrage toward a fundamentally racist society. Superficial rhetoric and virtue signaling are the norm, while progress toward substantive change remains stoic and still, often like the beliefs deeply etched within us.

Subversion of Patriarchal Discourse in Meridian

Walker in her novel Meridian, criticizes patriarchal society’s expectations of woman's roles and advocates about women's individuality and independence. The novel examines its title character Meridian’s emergence as a liberated strong woman. It observes Meridian's attempts to break the patriarchal tradition and how she brings an end to the racism and segregation. It also studies the lives and revolutionary activities of black women who played crucial roles to bring subversion in patriarchal discourse. Initially suspended black woman of patriarchal society, Meridian, the protagonist of the novel, becomes a liberated woman as she knows what she should borrow from the past for the present to create a new future. She breaks most of the generally accepted patriarchal norms and values that govern her society. Though she grows up in the racist, sexist and patriarchal society, she rebels against oppressive systems to attain her self-identity and selfhood. She considers marriage a false institution and deserts it as a challenge to the patriarchal ideology. She challenges the patriarchal image of womanhood and motherhood and presents herself as a liberated woman rather than a submissive wife and loving mother. She disobeys the patriarchal rules made for women and rejects any of the life-narratives of her patriarchal society. She starts her journey in search of meaningful personal and political life. She subverts all sorts of patriarchal discourses dominant in racist and sexist society. She finally paves a path of liberty with self identity and selfhood for herself and for the whole women. The paper tracks Meridian’s experiences from her college life to her self-determining liberated woman of present. She is free to love men without the burdens of marriage, sexual restriction and motherhood. It also explores black women's hidden strength, their beauty and feelings of sisterhood and wifehood. The study reveals how Meridian, revolts against the patriarchal ideologies to regain her lost identity and wholeness.