This paper considers what realist social theory can add to existing knowledge about black and minority ethnic entrepreneurs and outlines a methodology for exploring the role of the BME entrepreneur. For this group, embodied signifiers such as skills and abilities, cultural characteristics, social norms, and value systems combine with structural antecedents, such as financial, contractual, professional, and other national and regional institutional arrangements to create impediments on the progression of BME enterprises. Understanding such complex social arrangements presents significant ontological (...) and methodological challenges. We argue that previous research has failed to capture the richness of the forms of agency BME entrepreneurs display and that, as a consequence, RST has much to offer this debate. The paper ends with a discussion of the methodological implications of analysing BME entrepreneurs in terms of their social agency. (shrink)

The publication ‘Governance arrangements for NHS Research Ethics Committees’ is clear in its recommendations about the composition of National Health Service research ethics committees in the United Kingdom. It highlights the need for a sufficiently broad range of experience and expertise, balanced age and gender distribution and every effort to be made to recruit members from black and ethnic minority backgrounds, as well as people with disabilities. It was considered that this composition would make it possible for the scientific, (...) clinical and methodological aspects of a research proposal to be reconciled with the welfare of research participants, and with broader ethical implications. Black and other ethnic minorities constitute 7.9 per cent of the UK population. Ideally, in any research ethics committee with a maximum of 18 members, at least one would be a member of the black or other ethnic minority groups. However, this does not appear to be the case; some committees having more than one, while most do not have any. This paper looks at the present position and suggests ways of improving recruitment and retention of members of these groups. (shrink)

There are a plethora of issues within higher education which continually reinforce aspects of inequality and discrimination. These particular issues are aligned to institutionally racist struc...

Does intersectionality divide marginalized groups (e.g., women) along identity lines (e.g., race, class, and sexuality)? In response to the criticism that intersectional approaches to feminist and critical race theories lead to fragmentation and division, this paper notes that it relies on an ontological (mis)understanding of identity as a fixed entity. I argue against this notion of identity by engaging in a detailed case study of how Asian American women experience their Asian identity. The case study demonstrates that identity is lived (...) not as a pre-given static object but rather as a fluid and flexible process: what Asian identity means varies according to how this identity is related to the dynamics of power. I propose a tripartite taxonomy of identity-power relationships exhibited in Asian American women’s lives, in which identities are 1) constructed by and 2) used to reproduce power as oppression, as well as 3) used to build power as resistance. In particular, I explore Black and Asian feminist solidarities to show that those at the margins recreate their identities and, in doing so, build positive forms of power such as resistance and solidarity. The criticism that intersectionality leads to fragmentation does not hold, as it is grounded in a flawed notion of identity that fails to consider how identities are actually lived in their changing relationships to power—especially how marginalized groups, such as women of color, build solidarity to resist oppression by recreating their identities, rather than being fragmented into smaller and mutually exclusive subgroups. (shrink)

South Africa has been undergoing a process of transformation since the end of White minority rule in 1994. During this period, various employment and lifestyle opportunities have given rise to a growing Black middle class. Against this backdrop, the article draws upon an intersectional approach to corpus-assisted discourse studies in order to examine the construction of the BMC in a 1.4 million-word corpus composed of 20 mainstream Anglophone South African newspaper titles published between 2008 and 2014. With the help (...) of the corpus tool AntConc, the article investigates the collocates of ‘black middle class’, ‘black diamonds’, ‘clever blacks’ and ‘coconuts’, classifying results according to semantic categories in order to provide an idea of the multiple but nuanced representations of the BMC in contemporary SA. The analysis finds several lexically rich moralizing and paternalistic discourses that, in accordance with an intersectional perspective, enact a complex pattern of strategies that are simultaneously exclusionary and inclusionary. (shrink)

It is a noteworthy achievement of Western liberal democracies that they have largely relinquished the use of force against citizens whose lifestyles offend their members’ sensibilities, or alternatively which violate their members’ sense of truth. Toleration has become a central virtue in our public institutions. Powerful majorities are given over to restraint. They do not, by and large, expect the state to crush eccentrics, nonconformists, and other uncongenial minorities in their midst. What precipitated this remarkable evolution in our political (...) culture?The road to toleration originates in the debates provoked by religious dissent in the early modem period. This road was paved in part by a grudging appreciation of the necessity for pragmaticaccommodation. The wars of religion that had devastated the Continent educated the political classes about the costs of persecution. A policy of state-imposed religious intolerance was widely understood to be imprudent.In the early modem period there occurs, however, a shift in the arguments adduced in support of the duty of toleration. (shrink)

This article is about the information relevant to decision-making capacity in refusal of life-prolonging medical treatment cases. We examine the degree to which the phenomenology of the options available to the agent—what the relevant states of affairs will feel like for them—forms part of the capacity-relevant information in the law of England and Wales, and how this informational basis varies across adolescent and adult medical treatment cases. We identify an important doctrinal phenomenon. In the leading authorities, the courts appear to (...) count the first-personal phenomenology of the available options among the information that adolescents seeking to refuse life-prolonging treatment must understand and appreciate in order to possess capacity; adults are not held to this (higher) standard. We evaluate this differential treatment in light of philosophical work on transformative choice—decisions involving options whose sensory character, and effect on our values and preferences, are grasped only through experience itself. (shrink)

In the world of practical affairs the rights of individuals and the prerogatives of communities often lie in tension. Collectives pursue cultural aims at the expense of the minorities in their midst. Individuals assert their freedoms and deploy their wealth in ways that are inimical to the public interest. There is not one country in the world where some variation of this theme is not being played out. Recognizable communities clash with individuals, just as surely as other individuals do.

Ethnic minority groups have been shown to obtain poorer final year degree outcomes than their majority group counterparts in countries including the US, the UK and The Netherlands. Obtaining a lower degree classification may limit future employment prospects of graduates as well as opportunities for higher level study. To further investigate this achievement gap, we analysed performance levels across three academic years of study of 3,051 Black, Asian and White students from a UK University. Analyses of covariance investigated effects (...) of ethnicity and work placement experience (internships) on first, second and final year marks, whilst statistically controlling for a number of factors thought to influence achievement, including prior academic performance. Results demonstrated superior achievement of White students consistently across all years of study. Placement experience reduced, but did not eliminate, the size of the achievement gap exhibited by final year students. Sex, parental education and socioeconomic status had no significant main effects. Female students showed a more complex pattern of results than males, with Black females not showing the same final year uplift in marks as their Asian and White counterparts. Implications and possible explanations are discussed. (shrink)

The position concerning the mental health of black and minority ethnic women in Britain is closely linked to that of their respective communities in general. Issues concerning inappropriate care and treatment; lack of access to services; and service delivery based on assumptions and stereotypes govern the way in which black women and men experience mental health care and treatment. This article discusses the specific nature of black women's position, within the wider context of black communities’ experience (...) as a whole. While the term ‘black and minority ethnic communities’ covers a range of differing communities, the focus here is on the experiences of women from African, African-Caribbean and Asian communities. In relation to women in these communities, reference is made to issues concerning: (1) older women; (2) women of mixed heritage; (3) women's roles as care-givers; and (4) the position of refugees and asylum seekers. The article also explores and outlines the importance of self-help strategies including, e.g. befriending and counselling and the role of religion and spirituality in enabling many black people to manage their mental distress. (shrink)

With increasing complexity in the evolving structure of work in organizations, employees’ preferences for working from home (WFH) relative to working on-site can lead to systematic differences in perceived career implications. An emerging tension associated with WFH versus work-at-work is whether this locational divide is associated with concerns over career progression, especially among racial minorities. Here, we seek to determine whether Black employees, relative to their White counterparts, have more concerns over career progression relating to WFH compared with (...) their on-site colleagues. From a sample of employees in the May 2021 cross-section of the Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes (SWAA), we find that relative to higher (lower) income White employees, higher (lower) income Black WFH employees have significantly higher (lower) concerns over career progression than their on-site counterparts. These findings speak both to the nontrivial choices employees may be forced to make as the structure of work continues to evolve and consequences for racial inequality. (shrink)

This chapter delineates the theory of the black or white screen as a force of deterritorialization in minor, or modern political cinema. In the previous chapter I relied on the molar and the molecular for the description of deterritorializations in corporeal and cerebral modern cinema, but here I shift emphasis to the major and the minor. These latter concepts help us to better understand the connection between thought, body, and social milieu. Various impossibilities in the social field create conditions (...) that are enabling for minor filmmaking machines. In terms of abstract machining, a social impasse is not an obstacle or loss; instead, it produces continuous variations that either open relative alternative paths or offer radical lines of flight. I first present an overview of concepts that intersect with minor cinema. I then examine Deleuze's concept of modern political-or minor-cinema as a blended form of "minor(itarian) cinema," the resistant cinema of experimentation that under certain conditions embraces the cinema of minorities. In my discussion of the characteristics of minor cinema borrowed from Deleuze and Guattari's concept of minor literature, I "minorize" typical narrative questions by putting them to flight. In his essay, "One Manifesto Less" (1979), Deleuze defines "less" (in opposition to "more") as a quintessential principle for minor artworks. Following the method of "less," which operates by subtraction and rendition in a minor key, I explore the indefinite coordinates of minor cinema. Specifically, I probe the genetic and cerebral power of the black or white screen as an avatar of "less" in relation to parameters of minor literature and minor cinema such as the connection between the private and the political, collective value of enunciation, and deterritorialization of the major language. (shrink)

This review article situates the work Black Flame within a capita selecta of earlier publications on anarchism-syndicalism and radical thought. Schmidt and Van der Walt's contribution (2009) is a recent addition to political thought, theory and socio-economic practice within the broad stream of anarcho-syndicalism. Its treatment of anarchism and anarchist syndicalist groups in the workplace within an international context since the middle 1800s and the attempt to situate the debate in contemporary society are some notable features. The authors engage (...) with the past relevance of anarcho-syndicalism and implications for the future given current discontent with (global) politics. As an ongoing discourse on social philosophy, references are made to areas of agreement and differences between Anarchist and Marxist discourse. The latter versus one ‘grand narrative’ conjectures that liberal-capitalism on a global scale is bringing about an ‘End of History’ and that we have entered a post-industrial or even post-modern condition on the globe. However, theories-put-into-practice around the implosion of history and a ‘clash of civilisations’ result in deep inequality and the rise of absolute poverty. The work invites reflection and critical engagement. (shrink)

Background: Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups have a high need for organ transplantation but deceased donation is low. This restricts the availability of well-matched organs and results in relatively long waiting times for transplantation, with increased mortality risks. Objective: To identify barriers to organ donor registration and family consent among the BAME population, and to develop and evaluate a training intervention to enhance communication with ethnic minority families and identify impacts on family consent. Methods: Three-phase programme comprising community-based (...) research involving two systematic reviews examining attitudes and barriers to organ donation and effective interventions followed by 22 focus groups with minority ethnic groups; hospital-based research examining staff practices and influences on family consent through ethics discussion groups with staff, a study on intensive care units and interviews with bereaved ethnic minority families; and development and evaluation of a training package to enhance cultural competence among ICU staff. Setting: Community focus group study in eight London boroughs with high prevalence of ethnic minority populations. Hospital studies at five NHS hospital trusts. Participants: Community studies: 228 focus group participants; hospital studies: 35 nurses, 28 clinicians, 19 hospital chaplains, 25 members of local Organ Donation Committees, 17 bereaved family members; and evaluation: 66 health professionals. Data sources: Focus groups with community residents, systematic reviews, qualitative interviews and observation in ICUs, EDGs with ICU staff, bereaved family interviews and questionnaires for trial evaluation. Review methods: Systematic review and narrative synthesis. Results: Community studies: Organ Donor Register – different ethnic/faith and age groups were at varying points on the ‘pathway’ to organ donor registration, with large numbers lacking knowledge and remaining at a pre-contemplation stage. Key attitudinal barriers were uncertainties regarding religious permissibility, bodily concerns, lack of trust in health professionals and little priority given to registration, with the varying significance of these factors varying by ethnicity/faith and age. National campaigns focusing on ethnic minorities have had limited impact, whereas characteristics of effective educational interventions are being conducted in a familiar environment; addressing the groups’ particular concerns; delivery by trained members of the lay community; and providing immediate access to registration. Interventions are also required to target those at specific stages of the donation pathway. Hospital studies: family consent to donation – many ICU staff, especially junior nurses, described a lack of confidence in communication and supporting ethnic minority families, often reflecting differences in emotional expression, faith and cultural beliefs, and language difficulties. The continuing high proportion of family donation discussions that take place without the collaboration of a specialist nurse for organ donation reflected consultants’ views of their own role in family consent to donation, a lack of trust in SNODs and uncertainties surrounding controlled donations after circulatory death. Hospital chaplains differed in their involvement in ICUs, reflecting their availability/employment status, personal interests and the practices of ICU staff. Evaluation: professional development package – a digital versatile disk-based training package was developed to promote confidence and skills in cross-cultural communication. Initial evaluation produced positive feedback and significant affirmative attitudinal change but no significant difference in consent rate over the short follow-up period with requirements for longer-term evaluation. Limitations: Participants in the focus group study were mainly first-generation migrants of manual socioeconomic groups. It was not permitted to identify non-consenting families for interview with data regarding the consent process were therefore limited to consenting families. Conclusions: The research presents guidance for the effective targeting of donation campaigns focusing on minority ethnic groups and provides the first training package in cultural competence in the NHS. Future work: Greater evaluation is required of community interventions in the UK to enhance knowledge of effective practice and analysis of the experiences of non-consenting ethnic minority families. Funding: The National Institute for Health Research Programme Grants for Applied Research programme. (shrink)

Anti-racist education within the Academy holds the potential to truly reflect the cultural hybridity of our diverse, multi-cultural society through the canons of knowledge that educators celebrate, proffer and embody. The centrality of Whiteness as an instrument of power and privilege ensures that particular types of knowledge continue to remain omitted from our curriculums. The monopoly and proliferation of dominant White European canons does comprise much of our existing curriculum; consequently, this does impact on aspects of engagement, inclusivity and belonging (...) particularly for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) learners. This paper explores the impact of a dominant Eurocentric curriculum and the Decolonising the Curriculum agenda within higher education and its influence upon navigating factors such as BAME attainment, engagement and belonging within the Academy. This paper draws on a Critical Race Theory (CRT) theoretical framework to centralize the marginalized voices of fifteen BAME students and three academics of colour regarding this phenomena. Aspects examined consider the impact of a narrow and restrictive curriculum on BAME students and staff and how the omission of diverse histories and multi-cultural knowledge canons facilitates marginalization and discriminatory cultures. (shrink)

In many regions around the world, those at highest risk for acquiring HIV are young adults and adolescents. Young men who have sex with men in the USA are the group at greatest risk for HIV acquisition, particularly if they are part of a racial or ethnic minority group.1 Adolescent girls and young women have the highest incidence rates of any demographic subgroup in sub-Saharan Africa.2 To reverse the global AIDS pandemic’s toll on these high-risk groups, it is important to (...) deploy the most effective HIV prevention tools to young MSM in the USA, to adolescent girls and young women in sub-Saharan Africa, and to any other adolescents and young adults at high risk for HIV as products are proven to be safe and efficacious. Although prevention interventions with proven efficacy, such as oral pre-exposure prophylaxis, are available,3–8 they have not been sufficient to stem the tide and an expanded prevention toolkit is urgently needed to serve these populations. The field of HIV prevention continues to identify promising leads in the development of new biomedical prevention products, either delivering antiviral drug topically or systemically. The dapivirine ring has been shown to provide modest protection and is currently being tested in open label studies while injectable cabotegravir is being tested in a large efficacy trial for preventing HIV acquisition. Advances in the field of HIV prevention mean that scientists and regulators must plan for how they will bring prevention tools to populations at high risk for HIV as they conduct efficacy and effectiveness trials. For instance, safety data from younger age groups can also be used in combination with efficacy data from adult studies, where appropriate, as bridging studies to expand labelling to younger ages. If these …. (shrink)

This book acknowledges and highlights the moral excellence embedded in black queer practices of family. Taking the lives, narratives, and creative explorations of black queer people seriously, Thelathia Nikki Young brings readers on a journey of new, queer ethical methods that include confrontation, resistance, and imagination. Young asserts that family and its surrounding norms are both microcosms of and foundations for human relationships. She discusses how black queer people are moral subjects whose ethical reflection, lived experience, and (...) embodied action demonstrate valuable moral agency for those of us thinking about liberating and life-giving ways to enact “family.” Young posits that black queer people enact moral agency in ways that ought to be understood qua moral agency. Refusing to recognize the examples from this (and any other) community, Young argues, denies us all the learning and moral growth that come from connecting with diverse human experiences. This book investigates how acknowledging and critically engaging with the moral agency within marginalized subjectivities allow us to consider and bear witness to the moral potential in us all. (shrink)

Background This article describes the issues encountered when designing a study to evaluate recruitment of minority ethnic groups into clinical cancer research in order to monitor adherence to the principles for good practice set out in the Department of Health, Research Governance Framework, England. Methods (i) A review of routine data sources to determine whether their usefulness as a source of data on prevalence of cancer in the population by ethnic category. (ii) A local case study at one hospital trust (...) to ascertain whether the ethnicity of cancer trial participants was representative of admitted cancer patients. Results (i) The lack of a comparator population makes it problematic to assess recruitment levels by ethnic group in clinical research. (ii) The odds of being in a trial were 30% lower for a member of a minority ethnic group compared to a white cancer patient after adjusting for disease, age and gender, OR 0.70 (0.53 to 0.94). These results differed for each ethnic group; Asian patients did not appear under-represented while Black and Chinese did so. However, there are important caveats to the findings based on the limited recording of ethnicity. Conclusions The lack of available data on the ethnicity of participants in clinical research and the prevalence of cancer in the population according to ethnicity makes it difficult to design a study to monitor representation of minority ethnic groups. This information is necessary to assess adherence to the Research Governance Framework principle that research evidence reflects the diversity of the population. (shrink)

Charles Mills makes visible in the world of mainstream philosophy some of the crucial issues of the black experience. Ralph Ellison's metaphor of black invisibility has special relevance to philosophy, whose demographic and conceptual "whiteness" has long been a source of wonder and complaint to racial minorities. Mills points out the absence of any philosophical narrative theorizing and detailing race's centrality to the recent history of the West, such as feminists have articulated for gender domination. European expansionism (...) in its various forms, Mills contends, generates a social ontology of race that warrants philosophical attention. Through expropriation, settlement, slavery, and colonialism, race comes into existence as simultaneously real and unreal: ontological without being biological, metaphysical without being physical, existential without being essential, shaping one's being without being in one's shape. His essays explore the contrasting sums of a white and black modernity, examine standpoint epistemology and the metaphysics of racial identity, look at black-Jewish relations and racial conspiracy theories, map the workings of a white-supremacist polity and the contours of a racist moral consciousness, and analyze the presuppositions of Frederick Douglass's famous July 4 prognosis for black political inclusion. Collectively they demonstrate what exciting new philosophical terrain can be opened up once the color line in western philosophy is made visible and addressed. (shrink)

Analyzes the impact that the Voting Rights Act has had on the electoral participation of blacks and on the access of minorities to elective office since the act was passed in 1965.

When Spinoza described his dream of a ‘black, scabby Brazilian’, was the image indicative of a larger pattern of racial discrimination? Should today’s readers regard racist comments and theories in the texts of 17th- and 18th-century philosophers as reflecting the prejudices of their time or as symptomatic of philosophical discourse? This article discusses whether a critical discussion of race is itself a form of racism and whether supposedly minor prejudices are evidence of a deeper social pathology. Given historical hindsight, (...) we may read such discussion of race in early modern philosophy as a sign of the incipient struggle against prejudice, a sign that we can recognize and use in the struggles of our own time. Key Words: colonialism • the concept of haunting • essentialism • David Hume • Immanuel Kant • racism • Benedict Spinoza. (shrink)

Interest in third sector organisations (TSOs) is growing as their role in addressing social regeneration, especially in urban environments, is regarded as crucial by governmental and supra-governmental organisations. The challenge is increased in multicultural environments, where those from ethnic minorities may struggle to participate in the mainstream economy and society more broadly. There is an assumption that TSOs make a positive contribution to the social good of the diverse communities and client groups that they serve. However, although there have (...) been many studies of ethicality in commercial and public sector organisations, few focus on TSOs. Furthermore, black and minority ethnic (BME) TSOs, in particular face specific pressures, caught between the high expectations of their capacity to engage with diverse communities where the public sector has failed and, in common with all TSOs, the struggle to secure the resources necessary to manage their organisations and deliver front-line services. In this article, we investigate how implicitly ethicality is constructed in TSOs, including those with a primary mission to provide support for and services to BME communities. Building on information obtained for 305 TSOs in a post-industrial city we develop a structural equation model (SEM) in order to evaluate the relationships between elements that we argue comprise ethicality. We then assess the manner in which TSOs generally, and BME TSOs specifically, vary in the manner in which they communicate their ethical purpose and the outcomes of their actions. (shrink)

This essay aims to demonstrate how attention to black political thought might expand and complicate our understanding of modern politics and the conceptualization of the political in contemporary political theory, and in modern politics more generally. Black political thought can be viewed as the attempt to develop a set of critical tools to help explain the political distinctiveness of black life-worlds and how this distinctiveness is structured by a series of relations between individual and community, self and (...) other, state and society, citizen and non-citizen, and national and multinational (or global) circumstances. Too often, black politics is exclusively considered as a form of minority group politics and phenomena reducible to empirical investigation and observation, rather than a set of practices with underlying conceptual, theoretical, and epistemological premises. If we understand race as a fundamentally relational concept, namely, an assumption of dynamic interaction between two or more putatively distinct groups, and racism as a political phenomena that is conditioned and articulated through politics, then taken together they provide the opportunity for reflection and consideration of how black peoples and subjects have conceptualized, created and engaged in politics, political communities, and their articulation. Race and racism, the modalities of political participation and, conversely, the modalities of political exclusion have been recurrent themes in black political thought. The distinctiveness of black political thought is symptomatic of the distinctive trajectories of black politics, which first emerged from spaces of exclusion in Western polities and colonies. The histories of black political and social movements provide evidence of the ways in which black subordination in Western societies and polities required the reconfiguration of the actual boundaries between the public and private, the political and the social. Race and racism, the distinction between identity and identification, black solidarities, and the relationship between history, context, and politics and the political are themes central to black political thought. (shrink)

Despite the prominence of person‐centred care (PCC) in nursing, there is no general agreement on the assumptions and the meaning of PCC. We sympathize with the work of others who rethink PCC towards relational, embedded, and temporal selfhood rather than individual personhood. Our perspective addresses criticism of humanist assumptions in PCC using critical posthumanism as a diffraction from dominant values We highlight the problematic realities that might be produced in healthcare, leading to some people being more likely to be disenfranchised (...) from healthcare than others. We point to the colonial, homo‐ and transphobic, racist, ableist, and ageist consequences of humanist traditions that have influenced the development of PCC. We describe the deep rooted conditions that structurally uphold inequality and undermine nursing practice that PCC reproduces. We advocate for the self‐determination of patients and emphasize that we support the fundamental mechanisms of PCC enabling patients' choice; however, without critical introspection, these are limited to a portion of humans. Last, we present limitations of our perspective based on our white*‐cisheteropatriarchy** positionality. We point to the fact that any reimagining of models such as PCC should be carefully done by listening, following, and ceding power to people with diversity dimensions*** and the lived experience or expertise that exists from diverse perspectives. We point towards Black, queer feminism, and critical disabilities studies to contextualize our point of critique with humanism and PCC to amplify equity for all people and communities. Theory and philosophy are useful to understand restrictive factors in healthcare delivery and to inform systematic strategies to improve the quality of care so as not to perpetuate the oppression of groups of people with diversity dimensions. *We purposely capitalize Black and use lower case for white to decentre whiteness and as an intentional act of antiracism (see White Homework a podcast series by Tori W. Douglas). **Cisheteropatriarchy describes people with intersecting identities of dominant social groups; cisgender is the gender identity that aligns with the gender you were assigned at birth, hetero means heterosexual, and patriarchy refers to structural systems of power based on maleness where women are often excluded and hold less power. ***With diversity dimensions, we refer to subjective lived experience and material realities of people that exist outside the ‘dominant minorities' of white‐cisheteropatriarchy, meaning groups of people in society who historically and currently hold more power and through this, structurally dominate the norms and possibilities of living for other people. (shrink)

Many revisionist historians today try to make the late President Andrew Jackson out to be something that he was not—that is, a man of all the people. In our uninhibited, polarized culture, the truth should mean something. Therefore, studying the character of someone like Andrew Jackson should be fully investigated, and researched, as this work attempts to do. Indeed, this article tells us that we should not accept lies and conspiracy theories as the truth. Such revisionist history comes into sharp (...) focus in Bradley J. Birzer’s latest book, In Defense of Andrew Jackson. Indeed, his efforts are surprisingly wrong, as he tries to give alternative explanations for Jackson’s corrupt life and political malfeasance. Hence, the lawlessness of Andrew Jackson cannot be ignored or “white washed” from American history. More important, discrediting the objective truth about Andrew Jackson, and his blatant misuse of executive power as the U.S. President should never be dismissed, like his awful treatment of Blacks and other minorities in the United States. It should have been important to Birzer to get his story right about Andrew Jackson, with a more balanced approach in regards to the man. Finally, Jackson should have tried to eliminate Black slavery in his life time, not embrace it, based on the ideas of human dignity and our common humanity. To be brutally honest, it is one thing to disagree with Andrew Jackson; but it is quite another to feel that he, as President of the United States, was on the side of all the American people during his time, because it was not true. Perhaps the biggest question is: Could Andrew Jackson have made a positive difference for every American, even Black slaves and Native Americans? (shrink)

The black hole information loss paradox is a catch-all term for a family of puzzles related to black hole evaporation. For almost 50 years, the quest to elucidate the implications of black hole evaporation has not only sustained momentum, but has also become increasingly populated with proposals that seem to generate more questions than they purport to answer. Scholars often neglect to acknowledge ongoing discussions within black hole thermodynamics and statistical mechanics when analyzing the paradox, including (...) the interpretation of Bekenstein-Hawking entropy, which is far from settled. To remedy the dialectical gridlock, I have formulated an overarching, unified framework, which I call ``Black Hole Paradoxes'', that integrates the debates and taxonomizes the relevant `camps' or philosophical positions. -/- I demonstrate that black hole evaporation within Hawking's semi-classical framework insinuates how late-time Hawking radiation is an entangled global system, a contradiction in terms. The relevant forms of information loss are associated with a decrease in maximal Boltzmann entropy and an increase in global von Neumann entropy respectively, which engender what I've branded the ``paradox of phantom entanglement''. Prospective solutions are then tasked with demonstrating how late-time Hawking radiation is either exclusively an entangled subsystem, in which a black hole remnant lingers as an information safehouse, or exclusively an unentangled global system, in which information is evacuated to the exterior. -/- The disagreement between safehouse and evacuation solutions boils down to the statistical interpretation of thermodynamic black hole entropy, i.e., Bekenstein-Hawking entropy. Safehouse solutions attribute Bekenstein-Hawking entropy to a minority of black hole degrees of freedom, those that are associated with the horizon. Evacuation solutions, in contrast, attribute Bekenstein-Hawking entropy to all black hole degrees of freedom. I argue that the interpretation of Bekenstein-Hawking entropy is the litmus test to vet the overpopulated proposal space. So long as any proposal rejecting Hawking's original calculation independently derives black hole evaporation, globally conserves degrees of freedom and entanglement, preserves a version of semi-classical gravity at sub-Planckian scales, and describes black hole thermodynamics in statistical terms, then it counts as a genuine solution to the paradox. (shrink)

John Ogbu has studied minority education from a comparative perspective for over 30 years. The study reported in this book--jointly sponsored by the community and the school district in Shaker Heights, Ohio--focuses on the academic performance of Black American students. Not only do these students perform less well than White students at every social class level, but also less well than immigrant minority students, including Black immigrant students. Furthermore, both middle-class Black students in suburban school districts, as (...) well as poor Black students in inner-city schools are not doing well. Ogbu's analysis draws on data from observations, formal and informal interviews, and statistical and other data. He offers strong empirical evidence to support the cross-class existence of the problem. The book is organized in four parts: *Part I provides a description of the twin problems the study addresses--the gap between Black and White students in school performance and the low academic engagement of Black students; a review of conventional explanations; an alternative perspective; and the framework for the study. *Part II is an analysis of _societal and school factors_ contributing to the problem, including race relations, Pygmalion or internalized White beliefs and expectations, levelling or tracking, the roles of teachers, counselors, and discipline. *_Community factors_--the focus of this study--are discussed in Part III. These include the educational impact of opportunity structure, collective identity, cultural and language or dialect frame of reference in schooling, peer pressures, and the role of the family. This research focus does _not_ mean exonerating the system and blaming minorities, nor does it mean neglecting school and society factors. Rather, Ogbu argues, the role of community forces should be incorporated into the discussion of the academic achievement gap by researchers, theoreticians, policymakers, educators, and minorities themselves who genuinely want to improve the academic achievement of African American children and other minorities. *In Part IV, Ogbu presents a summary of the study's findings on community forces and offers recommendations--some of which are for the school system and some for the Black community. _Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement_ is an important book for a wide range of researchers, professionals, and students, particularly in the areas of Black education, minority education, comparative and international education, sociology of education, educational anthropology, educational policy, teacher education, and applied anthropology. (shrink)

Black farmers are still Black farmers, yet now are considered a part of minority or small or limited resource farmers/ranchers (SLRF/R) by the Department of Agriculture. Except for a few Southern states, their numbers have fallen from a remnant to a fragment in recent years. They continue to leave agriculture at a faster rate than whites. What few programs the Department has for this category of producers (SLRF/R) show genuine promise, provided they are pursued diligently by the Congress (...) and the Department. Also vigorous enforcement of civil rights laws and directives of the Secretary and the new initiatives by the Office of Civil Rights Enforcement (OCRE) have to be sustained. (shrink)

Strategies for tackling educational inequality take many forms, though perhaps the argument most often invoked is school integration. Yet whatever the promise of integration may be, its realization continues to be hobbled by numerous difficulties. In this paper we examine what many of these difficulties are. Yet in contrast to how many empirical researchers frame these issues, we argue that while educational success in majority-minority schools will depend on a variety of material and non-material resources, the presence of these resources (...) does not require school integration; indeed sometimes the most crucial resources are easier to foster in its absence. To that end, we briefly canvass the evidence from the United States on high performing majority-minority schools serving poor and minority students. Yet because these debates are so contentious in the American context, we pivot away from the U.S. to consider a different country, the Netherlands. We invite the reader to consider an analogous case where racial injustice and educational inequality are just as serious, yet where differences in the state school system might prove instructive concerning how some majority-minority schools choose to respond to existing segregation, but more importantly how educational success can occur in the absence of integration. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Strangers in the Land: Blacks, Jews, Post-Holocaust AmericaKeith P. Feldman (bio)Eric J. Sundquist. Strangers in the Land: Blacks, Jews, Post-Holocaust America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2005. 662 pp.Strangers in the Land: Blacks, Jews, Post-Holocaust America provides a wide-ranging, rich, and nuanced cultural history of what Eric J. Sundquist terms the "black-Jewish question" (2). In doing so, the book serves as both culmination and corrective to an already-expansive (...) scholarly literature on blacks and Jews generated since the late 1960s. Much of this scholarship has operated within a U.S.-centered paradigm to chart interethnic relations, laboring as it does to unpack, complicate, theorize, and otherwise come to understand the changing texture of black-Jewish relations and, in Sundquist's wods, its "intermixture of empathy, anxiety, and Hostility' (3)." Strangers in the Land stretches this paradigm to its limit, even as the diasporic imaginaries treated therein persistently escape a U.S. national imaginary and signal other possibilities for conceptualizing this tense and tender history.In its five hundred–plus pages of text, one hundred–plus pages of endnotes, and countless detailed footnotes (that are themselves illustrative and evocative), Sundquist has assembled a voluminous archive of textual material to show how works of the imagination by blacks and Jews have been "produced in a dynamic, multilayered historical matrix" that reveals the paradoxes of American liberalism (9). From the well-known and well-trodden (novels by Bellow, Roth, Malamud, and Morrison all play key roles) to the newly discovered and underappreciated (John A. Williams's Sons of Darkness, Sons of Light; Paule Marshall's The Chosen Place, the Timeless People; Gloria Naylor's Bailey's Café; William Melvin Kelley's A Different Drummer; Jon Michael Spencer's Tribes of Benjamin; Lore Segal's Her First American), Sundquist's careful historicism reveals how works of the imagination can serve as both microscopic and telescopic lenses through which to examine the vicissitudes of what he calls black and Jewish "interdependent self-conceptions" in the United States (5).Along with addressing a thick textual archive with subtlety and patience, Sundquist's major analytical innovation is that, unlike many of his predecessors, which frequently [End Page 63] positioned their analyses within the scarred domestic terrain of post–civil rights polarization, Sundquist's voracious curiosity dwells in the archive's heterogeneous details, allowing him to linger in examples that routinely exceed the simple polarization of blacks and Jews. The complex racial geography of New York boroughs and greater Chicagoland, for instance, is overlaid by Auschwitz and Egypt and Jerusalem, Ghana and Kenya and the Caribbean. In these settings, Sundquist spends time with figures only glimpsed in passing in other works: Arab Jews, Afro-Zionists, and anti-Zionists; Jews and Black Jews; Black Panthers, Israeli Black Panthers, Holocaust survivors, Holocaust deniers, Black Power advocates, and their Jewish Power doppelgangers. In a lengthy meditation on Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Sundquist charts the novel's refractions of the problem of American racial equality in the wake of the Holocaust. Similarly, the careful readings of novels by Naylor, Williams, Spencer, and Kelley exemplify the rich results of Sundquist's method.This deeply historicist and intertextual project echoes Sundquist's 1993 epic work To Wake the Nations: Race in the Making of American Literature, which strenuously and quite effectively demonstrated how African American literature is constitutive of American literature, and not merely a minor subset of it. If this earlier work revealed the continued paradox of racial slavery in American conceptions of democracy, Strangers in the Land serves as something of a sequel. The book places another massive racial project, the systematic genocide of Europe's Jews, at the heart of twentieth-century American life. "The Holocaust," writes Sundquist, "became the benchmark against which at least one other case, African American slavery and its aftermath, has been judged" (6). By placing Jewish genocide at the center of his analysis, Sundquist importantly reminds us of the conclusion reached almost simultaneously by both Hannah Arendt and Aimé Césaire, that the Nazi racial project had its ideological origins in nineteenth-century European imperialism, and that this legacy bears indelibly on the present... (shrink)

As a Black bioethicist whose primary area of expertise is anti-Black racism’s influence on our health, I read articles calling on bioethics to do a better job of promoting anti-racist principles an...

Social acceptance is assumed to have widespread positive effects on the recipient; however, ethnic/racial minorities often react negatively to social acceptance by White individuals. One possibility for such reactions might be their lack of trust in the genuineness of White individuals’ positive evaluations. Here, we examined the role that oxytocin—a neuropeptide putatively linked to social processes—plays in modulating reactions to acceptance or rejection during interracial interactions. Black participants received intranasal oxytocin or placebo and interacted with a White, same-sex (...) stranger who provided positive or negative social feedback. After positive feedback, participants given oxytocin tended to display approach-oriented cardiovascular responses of challenge, exhibited more cooperative behavior, and perceived the partner to have more favorable attitudes toward them after the interaction. Following negative feedback, oxytocin reduced anger suppression. Oxytocin did not modulate testosterone reactivity directly, but our exploratory analysis showed that the less participants suppressed anger during the interaction with their partner, the greater testosterone reactivity they displayed after the interaction. These results survived the correction for multiple testing with a false discovery rate of 20%, but not with a rate of 10 or 5%. Discussion centers on the interplay between oxytocin and social context in shaping interracial interactions. (shrink)

MAPEDZAHAMA V, RUDGE T, WEST S and PERRON A. Nursing Inquiry 2012; 19: 153–164 [Epub ahead of print]Black nurse in white space? Rethinking the in/visibility of race within the Australian nursing workplaceThis article presents an analysis of data from a critical qualitative study with 14 skilled black African migrant nurses, which document their experiences of nurse‐to‐nurse racism and racial prejudice in Australian nursing workplaces. Racism generally and nurse‐to‐nurse racism specifically, continues to be under‐researched in explorations of these workplaces; (...) when racism is researched, the focus is nurse‐to‐patient racism and racial prejudice. Similarly, research on the experiences of migrant nurses from a variety of ethnicities in Australia has tended to neglect their experiences of the social dynamics of the workplace, thus reinforcing their racialisation. When racialised, the migrant nurse becomes ‘the problem’ through a focus on English language competency and ensuing communication barriers. This paper applies Essed’s framework of ‘everyday racism’ to theorise narratives of racism by black African migrant nurses in Australia. In so doing, it not only brings to the fore silenced discussions of nurse‐to‐nurse racism in Australia, but also exposes the subtle, mundane nature of contemporary racism. For this reason, while the data we present must be read within their context, that is, the Australian nursing workplace, it has significance for advancing a critical analysis of racialised minority groups’ experiences of racism within seemingly ‘race‐less’ nursing workplaces internationally. (shrink)

The dystopian tale has a special place in our shared cultural heritage. -/- Many of us will have a favourite, or perhaps several. I myself adored the 1984 and The Handmaid’s Tale books as a youngster; moved on to JG Ballard then discovered Philip K. Dick thanks to Minority Report; and in recent years was floored by Black Mirror episodes and videogames such as The Last of Us. -/- The thrill can be explained by one question: ‘What if this (...) horror was actually happening?’ -/- “People say Black Mirror and The Handmaid’s Tale are conspiracies, science fiction – but as a philosopher, I can see a lot of the elements in these films and books that are actually happening now,” Marie Oldfield, AI ethics consultant to the UK government and other organisations, tells BusinessCloud. (shrink)

Fifty Key Scholars in Black Social Thought is a collaborative volume that uplifts and explores the intellectual activism and scholarly contributions of Black social thinkers. It implores readers to integrate the research of Black scholars into their teaching and research, and fundamentally, to rethink the dominant epistemological claims and philosophical underpinnings of the Western social sciences. The volume features fifty chapters, written by fifty-five scholars who explore the diverse contributions of notable Black thinkers, both historical and (...) contemporary. Four thematic areas organize this work-Black epistemology, Black geopolitics, Black oppression and resistance, and Black families and communities. Through a close analysis of the fifty thinkers presented here, the chapters explore these themes while dismantling the whitewashed disciplinary histories, methodologies, and content that obscure and/or subjugate the significance of Black social thought. In addition to offering insightful and timely analysis, each chapter offers suggested readings for readers who would like to dive deeper into the work of Black social thinkers. This volume offers an accessible starting point for exploring the work of Black scholars past and present and their contributions to sociology and the social sciences more broadly. It is useful to students, academics, practitioners, and the lay public who are curious about Black social thought. (shrink)

Panel data from a survey of small-scale farmers in the North Carolina Piedmont are used to investigate the survival of black smallholders. Results of a multivariate analysis show that owning tobacco quota and having high gross farm income, high amounts of on-farm household labor and small household size increase the propensity to survive in agriculture. Over the five-year period studied, approximately 50 percent of the original respondents were no longer actively operating farms. These results point to the complex problems (...) that policies designed to assist minority and small-scale farmers must address. (shrink)

Recent studies on non-dominant or minority groups have begun to look at how their members reconstruct resistance, sculpt a positive identity for themselves and engage in solidarity formation for group empowerment. The present study contributes to this growing scholarship by examining the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement’s use of Twitter to promote an emancipatory agenda for Black communities/people. Based on the tweets produced by the BLM movement, I analyze various discursive mechanisms utilized by the movement to resist institutional (...) oppression and systemic racism with vehemence, while advocating freedom, liberation and justice for Black people. Three discursive strategies were identified: (1) critiquing oppressive institutions and systemic racism, (2) denouncing white supremacy and redefining demeaning racial narratives and (3) calling out racist attitudes and commending people who oppose such behavior. Through these strategies, the BLM movement amplifies the voice(s) of Black people and moves issues concerning their development, progress and welfare from the margins to the center. The paper illustrates the agentive power of discourse to stimulate action towards social change. (shrink)

This study of philanthropy among large Black-owned businesses provides insights into a sector of business giving which has not been studied. Results indicate that philanthropy and ethical justifications play a more important role in minority business enterprises than in non-minority firms studied previously.

This article investigates the agency of the architecture of the Temple of Apollo at Claros and its cognitive impact on the ritual of divination. In the comparison with Delphi, Claros represents a peculiar example of how architecture evolved to suit and shape at the same time the ritual it was hosting. The paper starts with the analysis of the exteriors of the building, highlighting the choice of the Doric style dictated by the desire of being associated to Delphi. A further (...) analysis of the internal layout gives the author a chance of describing the cognitive inputs that the peculiar structure sent to the ancient mind. Specifically, the paper studies how the narrow tunnels made of black marble that turned seven times and the underground cave like adyton created a situation of sensory confusion in the mind of the seekers and the oracle that found themselves prone to detect agencies in the surrounding space and specifically to identify the agent with Apollo. (shrink)

This book draws on case examples of contemporary black activism in South Manchester and contrasts them with events that surrounded C.L.R. James and his activism between 1935 and 1950. In doing so, the author considers what Brexit, the Labour Party and Theresa May's audit on racism in the UK have in common with the wartime decline of the British Empire, the rise and fall of the trade unions and the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. Clennon dialogues with James' theoretical frameworks (...) around capitalism, neoliberalism and post-colonialism, and uses this creative interplay of ideas to help make sense of contemporary events and issues of social justice from a UK ethnic minority perspective. Using Fanon, Gordon, Marx and Chakrabarty amongst others, the study explores James' take on dialectical materialism and uses this as an ongoing analytical tool throughout the volume with which he weaves an uneasy path between post-colonial and post-Marxist theories. The Polemics of C.L.R. James and Contemporary Black Activism will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of social science disciplines, including sociology, cultural studies, education and black studies. (shrink)

This study aims to examine the perceptions of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic staff in English local government on the ethical nature of their treatment at work, and its mediating effect on their Public Service Motivation. This is a particular imperative in a sector which itself delivers social justice within a strong regulatory system designed to ensure workplace equality and therefore is expected to be a model employer for other organisations. Employees place great importance on their fair treatment by (...) their employers and, in particular, the endeavour of managerial authority to implement equality at work based on their discretionary powers. 2580 valid responses were collected from 15,000 questionnaires sent to staff in five local councils in England. Our analyses show that BAME employees have a significantly stronger PSM than their white colleagues; however, this has been eroded by their perception of unfair treatment: being underpaid allied with a lack of effort from management to ensure an equal work environment, to be specific, to prevent discrimination, bullying, and racism at workplace. Most importantly, the perceived exertion made by management to ensure an equal work environment has a significantly strong mediating effect on PSM and a compensational effect on perceived lower pay. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)