Racist Society Research Articles

Being Black and Woman in a Racist and Sexist Society: Locating an Existential Standpoint Philosophy in Mamphela Ramphele’s Autobiography

ABSTRACT This article considers Anika Mann’s (aka Anika Simpson) arguments on race and feminist standpoint theory. Its intervention is to take up Mann’s claim that “being-in-situation is the ontological condition for achieving a standpoint.” Mann’s analysis is reformulated as an existential standpoint philosophy, rooted in experience, and aimed at the concrete, freedom, praxis, and achievement. The article uses the existential standpoint framework as a foundation to take up Mamphela Ramphele’s initial autobiography, Mamphela Ramphele: A Life (1995) to critically reflect on what the actions of nonsubservient Blackwomen reveal about the lived experience of being Black and a woman under Apartheid South Africa. It argues that Ramphele’s philosophical approach to unveiling “Apartheid racism as a system” integrates a standpoint theory with existential phenomenology.

Is my work racist? Critical thinking and critical discourse in social work research

The United States is once again experiencing a window of time wherein there is a heightened acknowledgement and understanding of our history as a racist society. Many researchers are discussing the impact of their work in this new light. Researchers are in a unique position that holds power to chart new directions and paths forward, or to reinforce the status quo. Drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis and Dual Process Theory, we examine our own research, looking at language as action. We suggest that researchers are not objective observers but active participants, and as such, must struggle to understand how our worldviews shape our work. We illustrate how critical thinking shapes our understanding of society, and how that understanding underpins our research from the framing of our questions to the interpretation of results. We explain how the discourse of research serves to not only capture but drive dominant ideologies. We offer suggestions for considering research in the context of social justice.

Cultivating Community Cultural Wealth and Armed Love: Freedom School as a Vanguard

We present a conceptual exploration of armed love as a component of liberatory pedagogy. We ground our work in community cultural wealth theory (CCW) that centers social capital often found in non-dominant communities under pressure. We argue that recognizing and working against exploitation using the community's social, cultural, and historical assets are central to liberatory pedagogy. Explicating the connections between armed love and CCW is a novel contribution to the field, as it has not been done before and it highlights how asset-based pedagogies that are grounded in love can act as a protective factor for students in a racist society.

An African Looks at America: Picturing Racial Integration for Africa, 1956–68

The global tour of Edward Steichen’s 1955 photographic exhibition The Family of Man, sponsored by the United States Information Agency (USIA), has long been viewed as the defining moment for the medium’s engagement in US Cold War diplomacy and propaganda. Yet the attention garnered by this single exhibition has served to obscure an extensive programme of photographic diplomacy developed by the USIA during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and largely overlooked by photographic scholarship. One strand of this programme was shaped by the twin concerns of racial conflict at home and decolonisation in Africa and Asia. As the US government cultivated audiences in the newly independent nations of the emerging Third World, it became clear that it would need to adapt its message. Racial integration became a pervasive theme in the agency’s photographic output as it sought to picture America for its international audiences and visually refute accusations that the USA was an inherently racist society. In contrast to studies of US propaganda output of the early 1950s, which have suggested a limited repertoire for the representation of African Americans, the photographic records for this period provide evidence that the USIA paid close attention to the micro-politics of racial interaction and endeavoured to create a richer and more complete set of representations. Seen in the context of the time, the carefully choreographed portrayals of interracial interaction that emerge from the USIA archives are remarkable, if always highly partial and selective.

Offerings of carnal scriptures

The anthology “Chicana Lesbians: the Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About” was instrumental to my writing as it bolstered my confidence to take control over my sexuality and sensuality. The text in this collection affirmed that exploring and expressing my sexuality through writing was an act of empowerment and defiance within a sexist, racist, heteronormative, and capitalist society.

Native American youth finding self through digital story telling

AbstractThis holistic single‐case study aimed to understand the impact of digital story telling (DST) on the identity expressions of Native American youth. The question that guided the study asks, ‘How do Native American adolescents in a rural, tribal‐run after‐school programme for Indigenous youth explore and express who they are through digital story telling?’ Five Indigenous youth enrolled in a tribal‐run after‐school programme participated in the study and completed a digital story telling project that contained multiple components and interviews. Data sources included funds of knowledge maps, shields, story scripts, storyboards, interview transcripts, and digital videos. Thematic analysis was the overarching method used to identify themes. The researchers also conducted constant comparison, content analysis, and/or intertextual transcription to analyse specific data types. Findings indicate the youth enjoyed the DST process, explored and solidified their personal identities, and discovered personal strength. The findings also suggest that DST enabled the youth to draw upon cultural knowledges, literacies, and personal experiences to establish their identities and make sense of the world around them. Furthermore, findings reveal the continued presence of racism in society and schools and the need to transform schools into sites that embrace and support Indigenous knowledges, languages, literacies, and identity development of Indigenous students.

Relational egalitarianism and moral unequals

Relational egalitarianism and moral unequals

Creation and validation of the anti-racism efficacy measure: factor analysis and measurement invariance

This study develops and validates the Anti-Racism Efficacy Scale (A-RES), a 4-item measure that examines (1) competence, or self-rated ability to challenge racism and (2) impact, the degree to which an individual believes they may create change in working against racism. Drawing on a sample of 1322 college students, including 26.6% White, 20.6% Black, 17.1% Latinx, 25.3% Asian or Pacific Islander, 1.2% American Indian, and 9.3% indicating either nothing, other or more than one racial grouping, we test for measurement invariance, conduct a factor analysis, and use ANOVA to compare factor scores by racial grouping. Past literature on antiracism has either not focused explicitly on efficacy, or has not developed means to measure it. The A-RES scale assesses the extent to which individuals feel they are capable of exerting some impact on racism in society.

White psychodrama

White psychodrama

Self –Delusion in Doris Lessing's The Grass is Singing (1950)

This study presents Doris Lessing as one of the most accomplished and significant British writers of the post-World War II generation. Her work looks into The Grass is Singing (1950) from a psychological, socio-cultural and economic point of view. It attempts to analyze the bleak and the tragic causes and effects of self-delusion in the lives of female and male characters alike in a racist society grappling with a number of deep-rooted social and political misconceptions and misjudgments. Moreover, it showcases a recycled series of psychological problems the main female protagonist faces due to her delusional beliefs which end only with her tragic death. It also sheds light on the importance of knowing oneself in a baffling and fragmented world enmeshed with people caught tight in the grip of self-made delusional conceptions in an attempt to cope with the challenges set by modern life. This fact can be discerned through the analysis of Lessing's representative novel: The Grass is Singing (1950) from Autobiographical, psychoanalytical and existentialist perspectives to make readers familiar with the destructive power of delusion and self-delusion in life. Lessing tackles issues that are at the essential concern to whole humanity around the world; therefore, this study can be taken as an attempt and an entry point of highlighting some aspects of the creative and innovative intellectual accomplishments of any truly concerned and committed writer with mankind problems in the world regardless to gender, race and educational and cultural background. The study is in two sections. Section one is concerned with the analysis of The Grass is Singing (its abbreviated form is TGS), and Lessing's narrative creativity through reader's concentration on causes rather than results. The second section presents racial discrimination and self-delusion in the text, taking childhood trauma into consideration and the issues of Marriage and Self- Delusion followed by conclusions and Bibliography.

The Representation of African Americans in 12 Years A Slave and Antebellum Films

Cinemas are often used as an element of escapism and a representation of reality to the audience. Cinema also plays a crucial part in developing and sustaining racial cultural ideas and attitudes in the United States of America and globally. Since the 1830s, African Americans have appeared in film as either shown unfavorably or as small-minded people in comparison to their white peers. In a famous film in America, “Birth of Nation”, a white actor who acted as African American was portrayed as savagely violent who seized on Caucasian women. Despite the inaccurate portrayal of African Americans in the film, identical tropes have continued to emerge in the film industry since the 1920s. Therefore, this paper studies the representation of African Americans in Hollywood films using Critical Race Theory. Two Hollywood films will be used as a comparative case study namely Steve McQueen’s 12 Years A Slave (2013) and Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz’s Antebellum (2020) respectively. The result shows the importance of race and racism in society, several common types of racial prejudice have been detected in the films. Pathological stereotypes have also been presented through the films and the white characters show their power and control towards the African Americans who once had equal privilege with them. Keyword : Representation, African-Americans, Hollywood Films, Antebellum.

Long Day’s Journey Into Night

Long Day’s Journey Into Night

The Spanish Language in the United States: Rootedness, Racialization, and Resistance. José A. Cobas, Bonnie Urciuoli, Joe R. Feagin, and Daniel J. Delgado (Ed.) (2022). Routledge, New York, 162 pages, ISBN:9781 0321 90563

Spanish is the second most populous language in the United States, which makes the United States the third largest Spanish speaking country in the world. However, throughout the history of the southwestern United States, language, as a major factor in cultural rights and the representation of bilingual state governments, is a controversial issue. These issues often cause social and cultural “conflicts” between English speakers and Spanish speakers. In a “white supremacy” racial society like the United States, although there are a large number of Spanish speakers, the racial discrimination against Spanish speakers is inevitable. Based on the sociological points, the use of Spanish is not only influenced by the current social factors in the United States, but also hindered by the rule of racism and colonialism in the United States for a long time.

Structural racism in clinical research limits its validity and applicability

The current sociocultural pressures to re-examine structural racism in society and in medicine have inspired researchers to question the assumptions that underpin clinical research and to more deliberately ask questions about the disparities in cancer outcomes based on race or ethnicity with a more intersectional lens.1 Sumit Gupta and colleagues2 present a provocative study on racial and ethnic disparities in survival outcomes in children with acute lymphocytic leukaemia who participated in Children's Oncology Group clinical trials between 2004 and 2019, showing that racial disparities in the outcome of acute lymphocytic leukaemia persist, despite overall advances in its management.

Working Toward Health Equity Requires Antiracist Teaching

Eliminating health inequities requires undoing systemic and institutional racism in society and repairing past harms. The public health and preventive medicine workforce has an important role to play in reaching this goal, but it will require shifting the approach to training and capacity building. Public health and medical training programs are needed, including schools of public health and medicine at universities and workforce development programs, to adopt antiracist pedagogy principles. These principles can help to ensure that training programs have both the content and processes that enable the future and current health workforce to take meaningful action toward racial equity and justice in our society. This paper starts by defining antiracist pedagogy, and 6 key principles are set forth. Then, the authors describe how integrating antiracist pedagogy into training programs is a key strategy for addressing racial health inequities. The paper closes by providing considerations and recommendations for the field of public health and preventive medicine for more fully adopting antiracist pedagogy principles.

When I say … anti-racist praxis.

'@darthvethar and @eakinsella explore praxis as an approach for medicine to navigate Dr. Angela Davis’ powerful quote: “In a racist society, it is not enough to be non‐racist, we must be anti‐racist”.

Audre Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name as a Feminist Bildungsroman

In accordance with the increasing confirmation within feminist literary and cultural studies on women’s literature and the rumination of its social function to provide a sympathetic as well as a critical analysis of contemporary feminist fiction, this paper explores the attempt of women writers to reconfigure and reformulate established fictional genres to create more responsive genres that better represent the heterogeneity of women’s experiences. Focusing on the way Audre Lorde incorporates individual and collective memories as well as erotic and traumatic memories in her literary works, I use the literary category of feminist Bildungsroman to examine her biomythography, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name in which she presents an alternative model of female development. The paper traces the strenuous personal development and transformation of Audre as a black woman endeavouring to challenge marginalization and resist the various forms and layers of abuse and subjugation practiced against her in a racist and sexist society. Taking into consideration that the political implications of women’s writing can only be theorized when it is related to the cultural and ideological processes that shape it, I employ Rita Felski’s analysis of women’s modern writing as a area where female political identities and collective consciousness are treated and depicted.
 In accordance with the increasing confirmation within feminist literary and cultural studies on women’s literature and the rumination of its social function to provide a sympathetic as well as a critical analysis of contemporary feminist fiction, this paper explores the attempt of women writers to reconfigure and reformulate established fictional genres to create more responsive genres that better represent the heterogeneity of women’s experiences. Focusing on the way Audre Lorde incorporates individual and collective memories as well as erotic and traumatic memories in her literary works, I use the literary category of feminist Bildungsroman to examine her biomythography, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name in which she presents an alternative model of female development. The paper traces the strenuous personal development and transformation of Audre as a black woman endeavouring to challenge marginalization and resist the various forms and layers of abuse and subjugation practiced against her in a racist and sexist society. Taking into consideration that the political implications of women’s writing can only be theorized when it is related to the cultural and ideological processes that shape it, I employ Rita Felski’s analysis of women’s modern writing as a area where female political identities and collective consciousness are treated and depicted.

We Deserve to Thrive

The summer of 2020 saw a racial justice awakening among predominantly white scholars. While this “awakening” or reckoning regarding the long-standing racism in society is welcomed and necessary, we must recognize the stark differences in how this work is felt and ultimately in how the work needs to be done by different groups in society. While BIPOC scholars worked to balance the need to process and recover, self-preserve, and advocate, white peers formed book clubs and posted black squares to their social media sites. This distinction describes the frustrating reality that many BIPOC scholars experience in the work of undoing racism. We bear the unrelenting burdens of being oppressed, fighting racism, and trying to survive in a society that does not value our inherent dignity and worth. For BIPOC doctoral students who simultaneously navigate the roles of being a student, peer, and instructor, these burdens are threefold. We are expected to do the invisible work of mentoring and holding space for fellow BIPOC students while also educating white students and faculty/administrators on racial justice issues and contending with faculty expectations. These burdens are exacerbated as we see anti-racism quickly go in vogue and then fall out of favor soon after. The aftermath: unfulfilled promises and commitments by self-proclaimed anti-racists, leaving BIPOC scholars to pick up the pieces and solely shoulder the never-ending work of anti-racism. There is a continued lack of sustained commitment to achieving racial equity across the board. The steps that have been taken are often characterized by quick fixes that fall short of the real work that will lead to a racially just, equitable and inclusive community. The purpose of this paper is to bring attention to the challenges within the academy experienced by BIPOC social work doctoral students. Drawing upon our experience with creating a BIPOC-centered support group at a predominantly white institution (PWI), we provide insight and recommendations on how colleagues and administrators alike can take action to hold space, bolster, and better support BIPOC doctoral student scholars by creating inclusive educational environments, offering tailored, concrete, and formal supports, and ultimately creating an anti-racist academic culture free from all forms of oppression.

“But there is a God”: Teaching Nat Turner in early childhood education

This study set out to gain a deeper understanding of how early childhood students, specifically Black boys in first and second grade, would respond to the teaching of historical figures and events traditionally omitted from classrooms. Contrary to general assumptions, these students were able to astutely contribute to classroom lessons, discussions, and interviews about Nat Turner, an enslaved Black American, who led a rebellion in 1831. Employing notions of Black intellectual thought and curricular and pedagogical resuscitation as theoretical frameworks, in addition to critical hermeneutic phenomenology as its methodology, this study highlights the voices of young Black boys often missing in early childhood discourse. Findings indicate that the students expressed a favorable assessment of Nat Turner and his comrades. The statement, “But there is a God,” ultimately confronts the unavailability and restricted options for Black humanity in a racist society, but also an awareness testifying to a self-ordained defense of the Black body. This study gives added perspective to the understanding of the early learning process, cultural meaning-making, and connection to a Black educational legacy spanning generations.

No justice, no peace: an arts-based project with a college choir

ABSTRACT This study examined the changes in perception toward systemic racism of twenty-six first-year students at a mid-sized university in central New Jersey. All were members of the first-year choir and, with their conductor, participated in a three-week workshop called ‘No Justice, No Peace.’ The goal was to examine social justice issues and systemic racism in society and to produce multimedia works of art to express their changing attitudes. Reacting to prompts by the facilitator, they created original poetry, singing, movement, and visual art projects recorded and posted on YouTube for public viewing. Critical pedagogy, critical pedagogy for music education, and activist pedagogy provided the theoretical frameworks. Coding techniques from the grounded theory literature offered a structure for the data analysis. We invited four students from the choir to participate in open-ended interviews and to share their final projects. We found that the students had positive feelings about the project, which did provide a safe space for dialogue among the students. But little changed in their attitudes and understandings about systemic racism and/or their commitments to social justice by condemning acts of racism and injustice when they see evidence of it in society.