A focus group study using four groups of food shoppers provides insights into consumers’ knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors regarding organic foods. Two focus groups consisted of shoppers who regularly bought organic foods and two focus groups of shoppers who predominantly purchased conventional foods. Participants in one of the conventional groups were all Caucasian; in the other they were all African-American. While familiarity with organic foods was much lower in the African-American group, its (...) members were more receptive and positive towards organic foods. Likewise, the African-American shoppers were more accepting of price premiums for organics foods. In comparing the two organic shopper groups with the two conventional shopper groups, it was found that the former were generally more knowledgeable about organic foods. They were also more likely to follow a special diet than conventional Caucasian shoppers. However, the behavior of organic shoppers varied widely. The research supports examining social justice and access as motivations for changing policies to support organic agriculture. (shrink)

Traditional African American foods, also referred to as “soul food,” are often given a blanket label of “poor food choices.” The cultural value of these ethnic foods may be disregarded without sufficient study of their nutrient content. This study showed that of the various foods perceived as traditionally African American by the local sampled population, greens were the most often identified as such by 78% and the most frequently consumed (22%) by the subjects. 37% (...) perceived chitterlings as a traditional food, yet only 30% consumed them, and only on an occasional basis. Okra, yams, and black-eyed peas had relatively high consumptions but were not often perceived as traditional African American foods. The latter may suggests a lack of historical food facts, relating to indigenous African foods or may indicate the mainstreaming of these foods. Cowpeas or black-eyed peas, okra, sesame seeds, and watermelon seeds were originally brought to North America from Africa. The literature contains scant information on this particular topic, which leaves unanswered: (1) the current consumption of traditional foods by African Americans, (2) certain availability of these foods; and (3) the positive contributions to the diet that these foods may contribute. The author recognizes that “African American” is the most appropriate and preferred term used widely today, to refer to African descendants in North America, however “Black” and “Black American” will be used interchangeably, to reflect consistency of literature cited herein. First, this article will define traditional African American foods and relate their historical significance. Secondly, it will present data on current food consumption from a sample population of African Americans surveyed in San Diego. Lastly, this article will explore possible applications of the research itself. (shrink)

In Cameroon, a monumental "statue of liberty" is made from scrap metal. In Congo, a thriving popular music incorporates piercing screams and carnal dances. When these and other instantiations of the aesthetics of Africa and its diasporas are taken into account, how are ideas of beauty reconfigured? Scholars and artists take up that question in this invigorating, lavishly illustrated collection, which includes more than one hundred color images. Exploring sculpture, music, fiction, food, photography, fashion, and urban design, the contributors (...) engage with and depart from canonical aesthetic theories as they demonstrate that beauty cannot be understood apart from ugliness. Highlighting how ideas of beauty are manifest and how they mutate, travel, and combine across time and distance, continental and diasporic writers examine the work of a Senegalese sculptor inspired by Leni Riefenstahl's photographs of Nuba warriors; a rich Afro-Brazilian aesthetic incorporating aspects of African, Jamaican, and American cultures; and African Americans' Africanization of the Santería movement in the United States. They consider the fraught, intricate spaces of the urban landscape in postcolonial South Africa; the intense pleasures of eating on Réunion; and the shockingly graphic images on painted plywood boards advertising "morality" plays along the streets of Ghana. And they analyze the increasingly ritualized wedding feasts in Cameroon as well as the limits of an explicitly "African" aesthetics. Two short stories by the Mozambican writer Mia Couto gesture toward what beauty might be in the context of political failure and postcolonial disillusionment. Together the essays suggest that beauty is in some sense future-oriented and that taking beauty in Africa and its diasporas seriously is a way of rekindling hope. Contributors. Rita Barnard, Kamari Maxine Clarke, Mia Couto, Mark Gevisser, Simon Gikandi, Michelle Gilbert, Isabel Hofmeyr, William Kentridge, Dominique Malaquais, Achille Mbembe, Cheryl-Ann Michael, Celestin Monga, Sarah Nuttall, Patricia Pinho, Rodney Place, Els van der Plas, Pippa Stein, Françoise Vergès. (shrink)

Zimbabwe's communal farmers are now less food secure than they were two generations ago. The roots of this decline lie not only in the confinement of Africans to marginal land but also in the historic forced replacement of their sustainable, indigenous farming system with one whose productivity now relies on the use of large amounts of expensive chemical inputs. Environmentally-friendly, traditional farming practices such as pyro-culture, minimum tillage, mixed cropping, and bush fallowing were completely wiped out and replaced with (...) a highly technical western or ganic farming system based on plough cultivation and continuous monocultures of commodity crops, that were supposed to be sustained by liberal amounts of green and animal manures. This gave rise to an effective agricultural hegemony that was due, mainly, to the zealous dedication of an American Mormon missionary whose motives were evangelical rather than scientific. (shrink)

The emerging critique of alternative food networks (AFNs) points to several factors that could impede the participation of low-income, minority communities in the movement, namely, spatial and temporal constraints, and the lack of economic, cultural, and human capital. Based on a semi-experimental study that offers 6 weeks of free produce to 31 low-income African American households located in a New Orleans food desert, this article empirically examines the significance of the impeding factors identified by previous scholarship, (...) through participant surveys before, during, and after the program. Our results suggest economic constraints are more influential in determining where the participants shop for food than spatial and temporal constraints, and the study participants exhibit high levels of human and cultural capital regarding the purchase and consumption of locally grown produce. We also find them undeterred by the market’s predominantly White, middle-class cultural social space, which leads us to question the extent to which cultural exclusivity discourages their participation in AFNs. For all five factors we find that the constraints posed to accessing the local food market were not universal but varied among the participants. Finally, the study reveals some localized social constraints, fragmented social ties in particular, as a possible structural hurdle to engaging these residents in the alternative market in their neighborhood. Conclusions point to the need for a multi-dimensional and dynamic conceptualization of “food access.”. (shrink)

Although the concept of food sovereignty is rooted in International Peasant Movements across the global south, activists have recently called for the adoption of this framework among low-income communities of color in the urban United States. This paper investigates on-the-ground processes through which food sovereignty articulates with the work of food justice and community food security activists in Oakland, California, and Seattle, Washington. In Oakland, we analyze a farmers market that seeks to connect black farmers to (...) low-income consumers. In Seattle, we attend to the experiences of displaced immigrant farmers from Latin America and their efforts to address their food needs following migration. In both cases, we find that US based projects were constrained by broader forces of neoliberalism that remained unrecognized by local activists. In Oakland, despite a desire to create a local food system led by marginalized African Americans, emphasis on providing green jobs in agriculture led activists to take a market-based approach that kept local food out of the economic grasp of food-insecure neighborhood residents. In Seattle, the marginalization of the immense agroecological knowledge of Latino/an immigrant farmers rendered local food projects less inclusive and capable of transformative change. Taken together, these very different cases suggest that a shift towards food sovereignty necessitates a broad acknowledgement of and resistance to neoliberalism. (shrink)

In Cameroon, a monumental “statue of liberty” is made from scrap metal. In Congo, a thriving popular music incorporates piercing screams and carnal dances. When these and other instantiations of the aesthetics of Africa and its diasporas are taken into account, how are ideas of beauty reconfigured? Scholars and artists take up that question in this invigorating, lavishly illustrated collection, which includes more than one hundred color images. Exploring sculpture, music, fiction, food, photography, fashion, and urban design, the contributors (...) engage with and depart from canonical aesthetic theories as they demonstrate that beauty cannot be understood apart from ugliness. Highlighting how ideas of beauty are manifest and how they mutate, travel, and combine across time and distance, continental and diasporic writers examine the work of a Senegalese sculptor inspired by Leni Riefenstahl’s photographs of Nuba warriors; a rich Afro-Brazilian aesthetic incorporating aspects of African, Jamaican, and American cultures; and African Americans’ Africanization of the Santería movement in the United States. They consider the fraught, intricate spaces of the urban landscape in postcolonial South Africa; the intense pleasures of eating on Réunion; and the shockingly graphic images on painted plywood boards advertising “morality” plays along the streets of Ghana. And they analyze the increasingly ritualized wedding feasts in Cameroon as well as the limits of an explicitly “African” aesthetics. Two short stories by the Mozambican writer Mia Couto gesture toward what beauty might be in the context of political failure and postcolonial disillusionment. Together the essays suggest that beauty is in some sense future-oriented and that taking beauty in Africa and its diasporas seriously is a way of rekindling hope. Contributors. Rita Barnard, Kamari Maxine Clarke, Mia Couto, Mark Gevisser, Simon Gikandi, Michelle Gilbert, Isabel Hofmeyr, William Kentridge, Dominique Malaquais, Achille Mbembe, Cheryl-Ann Michael, Celestin Monga, Sarah Nuttall, Patricia Pinho, Rodney Place, Els van der Plas, Pippa Stein, Françoise Vergès. (shrink)

This paper provides a conceptual framework to explain why disparities may exist in food safety code compliance by food stores in different neighborhoods. Explanations include market dynamics, community characteristics, retailer attributes, inspector characteristics, and enforcement approaches, and interactions among the factors. A preliminary and limited empirical test of some of these relationships in Detroit, Michigan shows a higher rate of food safety violations by stores in poorer neighborhoods and in neighborhoods with higher concentrations of African-American (...) residents. Stores inspected by female inspectors also scored higher numbers of critical violations, suggesting a need for greater examination of the social relations associated with enforcement interactions in food safety studies. (shrink)

Science and Community: Ending Obesity Improving Health (S&C) aimed to reduce obesity in Houston by developing community partnerships to identify research priorities and develop a sustainable obesity reduction program. Partnership members were recruited from S&C events and invited to participate in in‐depth interviews to gain insight into obesity prevalence, causes, and solutions. Members (n = 22) completed a 60–90‐min in‐depth interview. The interview guide consisted of 30 questions about pressing health problems in the community, potential solutions to health problems and (...) obesity and how the environment has impacted obesity and health behaviors in the community. Interviewees (n = 12 women and 10 men) were mostly Hispanic/Latino (n = 9) and African American (n = 7). Common problems identified were childhood obesity, balancing a healthy diet and physical inactivity. Interviewees identified obesity as a major problem in their communities and cited access to quality food and physical activity resources as both a problem and a solution. Additional emergent themes focused on solutions, including increasing awareness and education, coordinated efforts among organizations and using an ecologic approach to combat obesity. Community insight gleaned from this study may be used to enhance relevance and sustainability of programs developed to reduce obesity and suggests possible avenues for participatory research and intervention. (shrink)

Pathologizing Black Bodies reconsiders the black body as a site of cultural and corporeal interchange; one involving violence and oppression, leaving memory and trauma sedimented in cultural conventions, political arrangements, social institutions and, most significantly, materially and symbolically engraved upon the body, with "the self" often deprived of agency and sovereignty. Consisting of three sections, this text focuses on works of the 20th and 21st century fiction and cultural narratives by mainly African American authors, aiming to highlight the (...) different ways in which race has been pathologized in America and examine how the legacies of plantation ideology have been metaphorically inscribed on black bodies. The variety of analytical approaches and thematic foci with respect to theories and discourses surrounding race and the body allow us to delve into this thorny territory in the hope of gaining perspectives about how African-American lives are still shaped and haunted by the legacies of plantation slavery. Furthermore, this volume offers insights into the politics of eugenic corporeality in an illustrative dialogue with the lasting carceral and agricultural effects of life on a plantation. Tracing the degradation and suppression of the black body, both individual and social, this text includes analysis of the pseudo-scientific discourse of social Darwinism and eugenics; the practice of mass incarceration and the excessive punishment of black bodies; and food apartheid and USDA practices of depriving black farmers of individual autonomy and collective agency. Based on such an interplay of discourses, methodologies and perspectives, this volume aims to use literature to further examine the problematic relationship between race and the body and stress that black lives do indeed matter in the USA. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 122.2 (2001) 179-200 [Access article in PDF] The Myth Of Numidian Origins In Sallust's African Excursus (Iugurtha 17.7-18.12) Robert Morstein-Marx The excursus on the ethnography and geography of North Africa in Sallust's Iugurtha (17-19) has lately attracted much attention. Until recently there seemed to be little to say but that it demarcated the structure of the narrative and relieved the reader with "Greek (...) erudition and fancies." 1 On one level, that is surely true enough, and consistent with the conventions of Roman historiography. 2 But a series of more probing studies of aspects of the digression by Carin Green, Renato Oniga, Thomas Scanlon, and Thomas Wiedemann has done much to lay bare the web of allusions and ethnographic typologies at work in the text and to demonstrate its thematic links with the larger narrative of the Iugurtha. 3 Yet while each of these studies has cast new light on the African excursus and demonstrated its considerable interest, no convincing reinterpretation of the digression's function in the monograph has emerged. 4 Another try, building on some of the best recent work, is warranted. I shall concentrate on the myth of Numidian origins that forms the core of the African excursus (Iug. 17.7-18.12). Its importance is clearly signaled by its central position in the digression; by the appearance of a "second introduction" of its own containing an eye-catching [End Page 179] claim to be contributing a heterodox, native account on the basis of original research (17.7); by its narrative form, through which it stands out from the surrounding descriptive material; and indeed by its length, far greater than the other parts of the excursus. I begin with a reexamination of the underlying structure of ideas that drives the narrative of 18.1-12 and characterizes the Numidian people against a complex background of ethnographic thought. Ultimately I wish to show that this deceptively rich narrative defines the Numidian people as an African counterpart to the Romans, yet also their polar opposite--a natural enemy with nomadic traditions and a heritage that makes them brothers to the Parthians, who at Sallust's time of writing were posing an extraordinary threat to Rome's eastern provinces and allies. The myth sets the Jugurthine conflict within a wider cultural context: this will be a war not merely between the Roman people and a particularly energetic and cunning African prince, but between Roman civilization and the mobile, treacherous, seminomadic "Other" whose dangerous intractability and capacity to erode the bases of civilized order were to be proven not for the last time in 112-105 B.C. 5The narrative begins with the aboriginal Libyes and Gaetuli, both tribes "savage and uncivilized, whose food was raw flesh and fodder on the ground, as for cattle. They were not controlled by customs, law, or anyone's power: scattered wanderers, they stayed wherever night forced them" (18.1-2). The traditional (and conventional) polarity between primitive savagery and civilization is thus implicitly invoked. 6 As far back as Odysseus' account of the Cyclopes (Od. 9.106-15), uncivilization was defined above all by the absence of agriculture and the constraint of law. 7 We may note, too, that native Africans are described by Sallust as eating like animals (uti pecoribus); they are thus explicitly living in a bestial condition. In our author's historiographical thought, certain other associations emerge from such a categorization. We may recall that in the [End Page 180] prologue of the Catilina we are told that the properly human state differs from the animal according to the degree to which men strive "not to pass their lives unnoticed, like cattle [veluti pecora] which nature has made to face the earth and obey their stomach" (Cat. 1.1). In Sallust's moral matrix, primitives such as the Gaetuli and Libyes are aligned on the side of corporis servitium rather than animi imperium, dependent on vires rather than ingenium; "warlike" they may be, but... (shrink)

There is widespread and growing concern among U.S. consumers about the treatment of farmed animals, and consumers are consequently paying attention to food product labels that indicate humane production practices. However, labels vary in their standards for animal welfare, and prior research suggests that consumers are confused by welfare-related labels: many shoppers cannot differentiate between labels that indicate changes in the way animals are raised and those that do not. We administered a survey to 1,000 American grocery (...) shoppers to better understand the extent to which consumers purchase and pay more for food with certain labels based on an assumption of welfare improvement. Results showed that 86% of shoppers reported purchasing at least one product with the following labels in the last year: “cage or crate-free”, “free-range”, “pasture-raised”, “natural”, “organic”, “no hormone”, “no antibiotic”, “no rBST”, “humane”, “vegetarian-fed”, “grass-fed”, “farm-raised”. Of those who purchased one of the aforementioned labels, 89% did so because they thought the label indicated higher-welfare production practices, and 79% consciously paid more for the product with the label because they thought that the label indicated better-than-standard animal welfare. However, many of these labels lack uniform standards for the production practices they represent, and some labels represent production practices that do not influence animal welfare, thus the degree of the animal welfare impact of a given label is highly variable. These results indicate that labels need to clearly and accurately specify their animal welfare benefits to improve the consumers’ ability to purchase products that align with their expectations. (shrink)

“Implicit bias” is a term of art referring to relatively unconscious and relatively automatic features of prejudiced judgment and social behavior. While psychologists in the field of “implicit social cognition” study “implicit attitudes” toward consumer products, self-esteem, food, alcohol, political values, and more, the most striking and well-known research has focused on implicit attitudes toward members of socially stigmatized groups, such as African-Americans, women, and the LGBTQ community.[1] For example, imagine Frank, who explicitly believes that women and men (...) are equally suited for careers outside the home. Despite his explicitly egalitarian belief, Frank might nevertheless implicitly associate women with the home, and this implicit association might lead him to behave in any number of biased ways, from trusting feedback from female co-workers less to hiring equally qualified men over women. Psychological research on implicit bias is relatively recent (§1), but a host of metaphysical (§2), epistemological (§3), and ethical questions (§4) about implicit bias are pressing.[2]. (shrink)

African-American Philosophers brings into conversation seventeen of the foremost thinkers of color to discuss issues such as Black existentialism, racism, Black women philosophers within the academy, affirmative action and the conceptual parameters of African-American philosophy.

This article focuses on the experiences of 29 African American teachers in K–12 institutions in Southern California. The article reports on the major themes of the participating teachers’ shared narratives in light of the theory of racial micro-aggression; their responses include evidence that racial micro-aggression during interactions with nonminority organizational members have had a negative impact on their experience. These findings, which are consistent with the neophyte literature, reveal a unique opportunity for scholars to engage in cutting edge (...) research and also suggest the need to integrate training specific to racial micro-aggression in professional development and teacher education programs in order to improve the experience of African American teachers in the future. (shrink)

A special issue of The Philosophical Forum , one of the most prestigious philosophy journals, is now available to a wider readership through its publication in book form. The volume includes twelve essays in three sections-- Philosophical Traditions; the African-American Tradition; and Racism, Identity, and Social Life. Contributors are: K. Anthony Appiah, Kwasi Wiredu, Lucius Outlaw, Leonard Harris, Bernard Boxill, Frank M. Kirkland, Tommy L. Lott, Adrian M.S. Piper, Laurence Thomas, Michele M. Moody-Adams, Anita L. Allen, and Howard (...) McGary. The introduction is by John P. Pittman. (shrink)

We have previously addressed the use of race in health care generally. Subsequent developments have made the issue even more pointed. Given the recent Food and Drug Administration approval of BiDil as a result of a clinical trial limited to participants identifying themselves as African-American, this Symposium could not be more timely as an effort to further advance the dialogue on the issue of race in medical research. While this dialogue has informed our own analysis, we believe (...) our distinctive contribution concerns the extent to which the law does and should constrain such use of race. Even in legal academic circles – somewhat notorious for considering problems of little practical significance – the issue has been given little thought. This piece, therefore, attempts to analyze extant legal regimes against the backdrop of medical and scientific developments. (shrink)

In the burgeoning field of whiteness studies, What White Looks Like takes a unique approach to the subject by collecting the ideas of African-American philosophers. George Yancy has brought together a group of thinkers who address the problematic issues of whiteness as a category requiring serious analysis. What does white look like when viewed through philosophical training and African-American experience? In this volume, Robert Birt asks if whites can "live whiteness authentically." Janine Jones examines what it (...) means to be a "goodwill white." Joy James tells of beating her "addiction" to white supremacy, while Arnold Farr writes on making whiteness visible in Western philosophy. What White Looks Like brings a badly needed critique and philosophically sophisticated perspective to central issue of contemporary society. (shrink)

The presence of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study was palpable at the June 16, 2005, Food and Drug Administration’s Advisory Committee meeting on BiDil, a heart medication from the pharmaceutical company NitroMed that sought approval as the first race-specific drug. So ubiquitous is the restless and unsettled spirit of Tuskegee that it continues to hover over the African American public and the biomedical research/health care provider communities more than three and a half decades after the actual study “died.” (...) No one invoked the word “Tuskegee” in that dimly lit meeting room as BiDil gained the Advisory Committee’s approval. Yet its power was exerted even when it was not named. The FDA Committee’s chairman, Cleveland Clinic cardiology chief Steven Nissen, acknowledged this after the committee met: “We were putting [Tuskegee]…to rest.”. (shrink)

This anthology brings together a selection of historical and contemporary writings on topics in African-American Philosophy. Questions regarding a wide range of issues--including slavery and freedom, social progress, self-respect, alienation, sexuality, cultural identity, nationalism, feminism, Marxism and violence--are critically examined from different perspectives by well-known philosophers and by non-philosophers from many disciplines. It emphasizes the historical significance of the philosophical arguments within very specific social and political contexts. Features substantial extracts, and in some cases complete works by important (...) 19th- and 20th-century social and political thinkers--organized under sections on Antebellem Critical Thought, Emigrationist and Diaspora Thought, Assimilation and Social Uplift, Contemporary Black Feminist Thought, Civil Rights and Civil Disobedience, Marxism and Social Progress, Rebellion and Radical Thought, Social Activism Reconsidered, Black Women Writers on Rape, and Alienation and Self-Respect. For anyone interested in the African-American experience and American history. (shrink)

A special issue of _The Philosophical Forum_, one of the most prestigious philosophy journals, is now available to a wider readership through its publication in book form. The volume includes twelve essays in three sections-- Philosophical Traditions; the African-American Tradition; and Racism, Identity, and Social Life. Contributors are: K. Anthony Appiah, Kwasi Wiredu, Lucius Outlaw, Leonard Harris, Bernard Boxill, Frank M. Kirkland, Tommy L. Lott, Adrian M.S. Piper, Laurence Thomas, Michele M. Moody-Adams, Anita L. Allen, and Howard McGary. (...) The introduction is by John P. Pittman. (shrink)

In spite of laws in many states regulating the nutritional content of foods and the availability of “junk food” and soda, a 2001 Surgeon General’s Report indicated that 15% to 20% of the nation’s children are overweight or obese. In areas that are predominately Hispanic and African American, the numbers rise to between 40% and 50%. Although there are continuing efforts to educate the adult population, many school systems and public health jurisdictions have had little impact on (...) the rising numbers of overweight and obese children. This session described the process of initiating a student-based, student driven approach to obesity, junk food, and diabetes and disease prevention.A need existed for a grassroots approach at the student level to raise awareness of increasing obesity rates and diabetes and other related diseases in the adolescent population. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Stepping Off the Edge of the Earth:A bariatric patient’s journey out of obesityNikki MassieI have been overweight my entire life. When I was born—three weeks early—I weighed 9 lbs., 3 oz. I proceeded to trend on the high end of the weight percentile for my age. By the time I was 14 years old I’d surpassed 200 lbs. By the time I graduated high school I’d hit 250 lbs.Even (...) today, after losing a considerable amount of weight from having Roux–en–Y gastric bypass surgery, I am still considered overweight according to the body mass index.All this is to say that the way I think about my health, my body and my life is very much from the perspective of someone who has never experienced the so–called condition of being “normal.”Enough is EnoughI’ve been asked many times how I decided to have bariatric surgery. The answer isn’t simple. Because I’d been overweight all my life, the notion of being anything but overweight seemed a bit absurd to me. Not absurd as in, “I would not be happy if I were smaller” but more like, “I don’t know if this could ever happen for me and, if it did, who would I be?”Truth be told, I wasn’t entirely unhappy as an overweight woman. By the account of my primary care physician I also was not necessarily unhealthy for an overweight person. I didn’t have high blood pressure or diabetes (I wasn’t even pre–diabetic). My heart seemed to work fine. I was just very, very large.However, I’d been large (or larger than others) my entire life. In many ways my very identity was inextractable from that fact. While I can’t speak for my entire culture, my experience as an African–American woman is one where women of size were not reviled, but celebrated. Being too thin was always presented to me as a negative cultural value, I believe because it was associated with drug use.That means that growing up I didn’t have some of the experiences other obese people had. There were a few people who teased me but they were the exception, not the norm. I don’t recall being lonely because of my size. I dated avidly throughout my adolescence. I was asked to, and went to, both my proms.I proceeded into young adulthood with a few bumps along the way. I suffered a bout of depression in my sophomore year of college and just after my 21st birthday I found the first signs of what would be massive hair loss from alopecia areata (although did not know that’s what it was at the [End Page 107] time). Otherwise, I was fairly healthy and no more or less happy than any other 21 year–old I knew.At age 22, I had my first child, a daughter. This was the beginning of an upward weight climb that took me from being very overweight into very obese. At age 21, I weighed about 240 lbs. (I am 5 ft. 8 inches tall). By the time I was 26 (and after I had a second daughter), I weighed in at 340 lbs.At this point I began to want to lose weight. I no longer liked the way I looked in pictures. My increased clothing size and cost depressed me even further. My attempts at dieting, however, failed miserably. I did seek help from my primary care physicians (I went through several throughout my young adulthood). Each time I’d be given a copy of the food pyramid and a pamphlet explaining the health benefits of losing weight.But how? How exactly does one lose weight? In my mind it was some strange combination of sadistic exercise and starvation. That’s what I saw in magazines. Women who ate the equivalent of one meal per day who exercised many hours a day. I had no desire to do either and so I continued on my trend upward.During that time my mother (now deceased) worried about my weight a lot. I’d... (shrink)

This article endeavors to place into context recent developments surrounding the United States Food and Drug Administration recent approval of BiDil® (isosorbide dinitrate/hydralazine hydrochloride) (NitroMed, Inc., Lexington, MA) as the first ever race-specific drug—in this case to treat heart failure in African Americans. It focuses in particular on both commercial incentives and statistical manipulation of medical data as framing the drive to bring BiDil to market as a race-specific drug. In current discourse about pharmacogenomics, targeting a racial audience (...) is perceived as necessary because at this point the technology and resources do not exist to scan efficiently every individual's genetic profile. The article argues that medical researchers may say they are using race as a surrogate to target biology in drug development, but corporations are using biology as a surrogate to target race in drug marketing. Pharmacogenomics may hold great promise, but on our way to that Promised Land, it is imperative to review such short cuts with a critical eye. (shrink)

Through the back door: the problem of history and the African American philosopher/philosophy -- The problem of philosophy: metaphilosophical considerations -- The search for values: axiology in ebony -- Philosophy of science: African American deliberations -- Mapping the disciplinary contours of the philosophy of religion: reason, faith, and African American religious culture.

This collection demonstrates the strong influence that humanism and freethought had in developing the history and ideals of black intellectualism. Most people are quick to note the profound influence that religion has played in African-American history: consoling the downtrodden slave or inspiring the abolitionists, the underground railroad, and the civil rights movement. But few are aware of the role humanism played in shaping the black experience: developing the thought and motivating the actions of powerful African-American intellectuals. (...) Section One of this book offers biographical sketches of such prominent black humanists as Frederick Douglass, Cheikh Anta Diop, W.E.B. DuBois, Hubert H. Harrison, and Richard Wright. Section Two features essays by black humanists: Douglass, DuBois, Charles W. Faulkner, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Ishmael Jaffree, Claude McKay, Melvin B. Tolson, and Bruce Wright. Section Three offers the views of contemporary black African humanists: Freda Amakye Ansah, Emmanuel Kofi Mensah, Nkeonye Otakpor, Franz Vanderpuye, and Kwasi Wiredu. Section Four contains interviews conducted by Allen on the subjects of black humanist activism, the Afroasiatic roots of classical civilization, and the Harlem Renaissance with: Martin G. Bernal, Charles Faulkner, Leonard Harris, Norman Hill, and Alaine Locke. (shrink)

If we are dissatisfied with our situation in life, we often dream of how our life could be improved. Most basically, we want a full stomach, decent clothing and housing, and a sense of security, and millions of people in the world today do not now have these things. Throughout American history, African Americans were kept from achieving this most basic decent life, let alone the more complex needs that become possible for those who fulfill the first needs. (...) All the elements of this fundamental vision are included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted in 1948 but was not ratified by the United States until 1992. Among the rights included in the Universal Declaration are Article 4. No one... (shrink)

In a recent discussion about how scientific knowledge might potentially change our understanding of the nature and extent of human genetic, cultural, or biological variation, the sociologist David Skinner identified two competing visions of the future: one that was decidedly dystopian, which conjured up a “re-racialized” future, and an opposing utopian future in which the potential for racialized thinking might be finally overcome. We can situate the ongoing debates about the congestive heart failure drug BiDil, approved by the Food (...) and Drug Administration for use only by African Americans, in relation to these differing future prospects.When the FDA announced its approval of BiDil in June 2005, it located the drug, and perhaps the future of pharmaceutical development, within a particular vision of the future, heralding BiDil as “representing a step toward the promise of personalized medicine.” The discourse of “personalized medicine” can be characterized as part of a utopian future, one in which clinicians will be able to make increasingly individualized decisions based on each patient’s genetic makeup so that the drugs they take will be those that work best for them. (shrink)

A recent message on one of the e-mail bulletin boards sent by a college student read, “I believe that the AIDS virus was developed in government labs for the purpose of controlling black folks.” In September 1990, Essence, an African American magazine with a circulation of 900,000, had as a lead article “AIDS: Is It Genocide?” In 1991, the New York Times quoted Clarence Page, African American columnist and Pulitzer prize winner: “You could call conspiracy theories (...) about AIDS and drugs fringe ideas, but they seem, to have a large following among the black intelligentsia. … [And] you find it at all levels.” In April 1992, Lorene Gary explained in Newsweek “Why it's not just paranoia.” In that same month, another New York Times article reported: “Bizarre as it may seem to most people, many black Americans believe that AIDS and the health measures used against it are part of a conspiracy to wipe out the black race.”4 In February 1992, Science quoted Peter Breggin, director of the Center for the Study of Psychiatry in Bethesda, Maryland, as saying that research on violence “cloaks the intention to identify problem black children and then … prescribe pacifying drugs.”. (shrink)

African American adolescents have become more active users of digital media, which may increasingly expose them to direct online discrimination based on their racial and gender identities. Despite well-documented impacts of offline discrimination, our understanding of if and how direct online discrimination affects African American adolescents similarly remains limited. Guided by intersectional and ecological frameworks, we examined the association between direct online discrimination and internalized computing stereotypes in African American adolescents. Further, we explored the (...) moderating effects of systemic and individual factors – vicarious online discrimination, parental technological attitudes, and racial identity centrality – on this association by adolescent gender. Utilizing data from 1041 African American parent-adolescent dyads, we found a positive association between adolescents’ direct online discrimination and internalized computing stereotypes. Surprisingly, greater vicarious online discrimination mitigated this association for both male and female adolescents. Further, parental technological attitudes and racial identity centrality mitigated this association only for female but not male adolescents. Our findings highlight the importance of understanding the impact of media on adolescents’ online experiences from intersectional and systemic perspectives. We discuss the implications for prospective research and educational programs focused on African American adolescents’ digital media use and online experiences. (shrink)

The use of African American as a new denomination for a group previously referred to as Black has rapidly become standard practice in American society. This paper analyzes how the introduction of African American in our ordinary language marks the elaboration of a new social reality. As the concept becomes part of our social life, it is transformed into a real “phenomenon” of social representation that formalizes behaviour and orients communication. Such a transformation requires that (...) the new term infiltrates people's everyday lives sufficiently to concretize it into a common reality. The analysis presented here outlines three key processes in the emergence and formation of the social representation of African American. The first one is anchoring which familiarizes the new object by linking it with preexisting categories in our minds. The second process is objectification which assures the crystallization of the object. A figurative core is created to allow the projection of images. At this point people can talk about the object, and through communication the object takes on meaning. This naturalization is the third process to conclude the transformation of the object into a social reality. These steps have allowed African American to become the carrier for a modification of cognitions and broadening of attitudes concerning the group. (shrink)

In this article I argue that African-American philosophy emerges from a socio-existential context where persons of African descent have been faced with the absurd in the form of white racism. The concept of struggle, given the above, functions as both descriptive and heuristic vis-à-vis the meaning of African-American philosophy. Expanding upon Charles Mills’ concept of non-Cartesian sums, I demonstrate the inextricable link between Black lived experience, struggle, and the morphology of meta-philosophical assumptions and philosophical problems (...) specific to African-American philosophy. Then, I provide a sketch of two early African-American philosophers whose philosophical work is, though neglected, indispensable to African-American philosophical legitimating practices and whose work is informed by the defining motif of struggle. Lastly, I demonstrate the efforts of Africana philosophers at creating philosophical sites that nurture a sense of shared struggle and community. (shrink)

Many African American children make use of African American English in their everyday lives, and face academic barriers when introduced to Standard American English in the classroom. Research has shown that students who can adapt and use SAE for academic purposes demonstrate significantly better test scores than their less adaptable peers. Accordingly, AAE use and its confirmed inverse relationship to reading achievement have been implicated in the Black-White Test Score Gap, thus becoming the focus of (...) intense research and practical interest. This volume discusses dialectal code-switching from AAE to SAE and stresses the benefits and importance of African American students becoming bi-dialectal. It provides background theory and science supporting the most promising educational approach to date, Contrastive Analysis, a set of longstanding methods drawn from Second Language research and used effectively with students ranging from kindergarten through college. It offers a deeper knowledge of AAE use by students, the critical features of Contrastive Analysis, and detailed information about successful applications which teachers can apply in their own pedagogy. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article asks why African American Philosophy matters. The notion of the “Black philosopher” continues to be an enigma. African descendants are not generally associated with the revered location and status of “the philosopher” and with doing philosophy. In a celebration of the sustained work of the Black philosopher-practitioner, who continues to suffer a fate of deliberate academic “invisibility” and historical erasure, this article supports the expansion of philosophical categories, philosophical conversation, and philosophical inclusivity. This work (...) contends that the marginalization of African American philosophy can be understood from a synthesis of Foucault’s thesis of “subjugated knowledge” and Black philosopher Lewis Gordon’s explanation of “subverted realization,” which is built in to “white” modern thought. Both key philosophers help locate the problem questioned here. The overriding current of the “white stream” of philosophy, by its deliberate exclusion of African American philosophy, disqualifies it. (shrink)

Long touted in literary and historical works, the Mississippi River remains an iconic presence in the American landscape. Whether referred to as ‘Old Man River’ or the ‘Big Muddy,’ the Mississippi River represents imageries ranging from pastoral and Acadian to turbulent and unpredictable. But these imageries – revealed through the cultural production of artists, writers and even filmmakers – did not adequately reflect the experiences of everyone living and working along the river. The African-American community and its (...) relationship to the Mississippi River down the ages is occluded by these discourses. In focusing on this alternate history, namely the African-American experience with the Mississippi River, the overarching framework of this paper will consist of three lenses on the river as: refuge, labor, and cultural icon. From the moment of their arrival, the intersection of their lives with the Mississippi River reveals a history where the river offers freedom, oppression, escape, sustenance, renewal, disease and displacement. From this largely unexplored perspective, distinctions of race and class are exposed and reinforced. Although rivers have long been included in the historical record, whether through a geographical, spiritual, aesthetic or recreational perspective, the juncture where human lives intersect with rivers, constructing memory and identity, remains overlooked despite a plethora of cultural artifacts such as song, prose and poetry that distinguish experiences. These cultural artifacts, in turn, differentiate reciprocal relationships with the river based on race and class. For the African-American community, the Mississippi River alternated between liberator and oppressor, informing the social construct of an identity that was at times lamented, celebrated, demeaned and feared. But how did these linkages with the river not only influence a distinct collective memory but also nurture a culture with certain understandings and perspectives about the river? And if so, what have been their ramifications? Through an examination of folklore, song and first-person accounts, these questions will be addressed as multiple narratives persist, offering a history that makes more explicit the distinctive experiences of the African-American communities in their engagement with the Mississippi River. (shrink)

Shrinking enrollments in the agricultural programs of the 1890 schools can be partly explained by negative attitudes of Blacks toward agriculture. This attitude has roots in the historical experiences of African Americans and has negative implications for the agricultural programs of the 1890 schools. A collection of data from a sample of Black Louisiana Farmers lends credence to the claim that Black Farmers are not encouraging their children to go into farming. To counter the impact on the 1890 schools, (...) an active recruiting program should be undertaken, partly to show Black students that career openings in various agricultural fields offer excellent opportunities for Black students. These fields extend beyond the traditional farmgate. (shrink)

The Ansaru Allah Community, also known as the Nubian Islamic Hebrews (AAC/NIH) and later the Nuwaubians, is a deeply significant and controversial African American Muslim movement. Founded in Brooklyn in the 1960s, it spread through the prolific production and dissemination of literature and lecture tapes and became famous for continuously reinventing its belief system. In this book, Michael Muhammad Knight studies the development of AAC/NIH discourse over a period of thirty years, tracing a surprising consistency behind a facade (...) of serial reinvention. It is popularly believed that the AAC/NIH community abandoned Islam for Black Israelite religion, UFO religion, and Egyptosophy. However, Knight sees coherence in AAC/NIH media, explaining how, in reality, the community taught that the Prophet Muhammad was a Hebrew who adhered to Israelite law; Muhammad’s heavenly ascension took place on a spaceship; and Abraham enlisted the help of a pharaonic regime to genetically engineer pigs as food for white people. Against narratives that treat the AAC/NIH community as a postmodernist deconstruction of religious categories, Knight demonstrates that AAC/NIH discourse is most productively framed within a broader African American metaphysical history in which boundaries between traditions remain quite permeable. Unexpected and engrossing, Metaphysical Africa brings to light points of intersection between communities and traditions often regarded as separate and distinct. In doing so, it helps move the field of religious studies beyond conventional categories of “orthodoxy” and “heterodoxy,” challenging assumptions that inform not only the study of this particular religious community but also the field at large. (shrink)

Jacoby Adeshei Carter has done an invaluable service in editing this critical edition of Alain Leroy Locke’s series of six lectures in Haiti delivered “from April 9 to July 10, 1943, when he was the Inter-American Exchange Professor to Haiti under the joint auspices of the American Committee for Inter-American Artistic and Intellectual Relations and the Haitian Ministry of Education”. African American Contributions to the Americas’ Cultures consists of two parts. The first part is Locke’s (...) series of six lectures entitled “The Negro’s Contribution to the Culture of the Americas.” The second part is Carter’s critical interpretative essay on Locke’s lectures entitled “‘Like Rum in the Punch’: The Quest for Cultural... (shrink)

Philosophy and the African American Modern Freedom Struggle: A Freedom Gaze analyzes the ways oppression and marginalization produced the philosophical space necessary for the development of a unique form of Black consciousness within the African Diaspora.

This book examines the lived experiences and work of African American women educators during the 1880s to the 1960s.

This essay considers the recuperation of beauty as a productive critical strategy in discussions of African American dance. I argue that black performance in general, and African American concert dance in particular, seeks to create aesthetic sites that allow black Americans to participate in discourses of recognition and appreciation to include concepts of beauty. In this, I suggest that beauty may indeed produce social change for its attendant audiences. I also propose that interrogating the notion of (...) beauty may allow for social change among audiences that include dance theorists and philosophers. Through a case-study consideration of work by three African American choreographers, Donald Byrd (b. 1949), Ulysses Dove (1947 – 1996), and Abdel Salaam (b. 1949), I ultimately hope to suggest critical possibilities aligning dance performance with particular aesthetic theory relevant to its documentation and interpretation. (shrink)

Focused on preparing educators to teach African American students, this straightforward and teacher-friendly text features a careful balance of published scholarship, a framework for culturally relevant and critical pedagogy, research-based case studies of model teachers, and tested culturally relevant practical strategies and actionable steps teachers can adopt. Its premise is that teachers who understand Black culture as an asset rather than a liability and utilize teaching techniques that have been shown to work can and do have specific positive (...) impacts on the educational experiences of African American children. (shrink)

The black women's club movement is frequently seen as definitive of "first-wave" African American feminism. However, this six-volume collection from the History of Feminism series draws together key documents that show the varied political work African American feminists were undertaking well before the turn into the 20th century. African American Feminisms brings together writings that document distinctly African American feminist organizing from as early as the late 1820s through female benevolent and literary (...) societies, as well as writings that document African American feminist participation in black political concerns such as emigration and colonization, discrimination in public transportation, and anti-lynching. African American women also negotiated competing demands within interracial reform movements like abolition, woman's rights, temperance and suffrage, as well as within organizations like the black church, making documents that offer insight into those unique demands key to understanding black feminist arguments and rhetoric. Pursuing a varied feminist rhetoric that ranged from advocating domestic and maternal feminism to defending black womanhood, African American feminists focused on larger social reforms as well as agitating for material changes in the lives of African American women and girls. African American feminists were also keenly attuned to opening useful venues to black feminist voices, from the pulpit to the press, and urged the women that followed them to continue this work. This collection, which includes a variety of genres from the spiritual autobiography to the platform speech and the pamphlet, goes beyond the more common focus on the "greats" of black feminism to include lesser known black feminists and some unidentified women who contributed to black feminist debate on a variety of topics. _African American Feminisms, _edited and with an introduction by Teresa Zackodnik, is destined to be welcomed by those interested in women's studies, feminism, and African American history as an invaluable reference resource. (shrink)

Abstract:This essay examines the experiences of three 19th-century African American travelers to Greece—David Dorr (1852), Frederick Douglass (1887), and John Wesley Gilbert (1890–1)—using evidence from their letters, diaries, and published writings. The essay shows that although each traveler's unique personal perspective shaped his response to seeing the ancient sites and monuments of Greece, all three men responded most deeply to a site connected with Greece's Christian heritage: the Areopagus or Mars Hill, where according to 19th-century understanding the Apostle (...) Paul had spoken the words recorded in the Book of Acts. (shrink)

I will argue that President Biden has not only the right to nominate an African American woman for SCOTUS, but, if he chooses a suitable candidate, he will be doing a great service to our country.

In the context of African American enslavement and the legacy of that enslavement, do some uses of the word “nigger” possess the power to enslave? It goes without saying that the words “negro,” “nigger,” “colored,” and “black” are an important part of the language and discourse of African American enslavement—as terms used by slave owners, slave traders, slave catchers, and slaves themselves; as terms still used today by people living with the legacy of slavery; and as (...) terms highlighted by academics in explaining these events and various other aspects of the African American experience. However, the aim of this article is to explore the role of these words as instruments of racial enslavement within the USA—past and present. To be more precise, the article argues that in several different ways relating to bodies of law, enforcement of law (or lack thereof), and the scope of law, the words “negro,” “nigger,” “colored,” and “black” come to not simply mean “a slave” but actually to make African Americans slaves. (shrink)

African American spirituality provides a rich lens into the heart and soul of the black church experience, often overlooked in the Christian spiritual formation literature. By addressing this lacuna, this essay focuses on three primary shaping qualities of history: the effects of slavery, the Civil Rights Movement under Dr. Martin Luther King's leadership, and the emergence of the Black Church. Four spiritual practices that influence African American spirituality highlight the historical and cultural context of being “forged (...) in the fiery furnace,” including worship, preaching and Scripture, the community of faith and prayer, and community outreach. The essay concludes by recognizing four areas of the lived experiences of African Americans from which the global church can glean: persevering in pain and suffering, turning to God for strength, experiencing a living and passionate faith, and affirming God's intention for freedom and justice to be afforded to every individual. (shrink)