"Life must be something more than dilettante speculation. And religion a great deal more than mere gratification of the instinct for worship linked with the straight-teaching of irreproachable credos. Religion must be life made true, and life is action, growth, development—begun now and ending never."In September 2016, a first-year student at East Tennessee State University interrupted a Black Lives Matter protest on campus, parading in a gorilla mask. Clad in overalls and barefoot, the young man offered bananas to the protesting (...) students, heckling them.2 When set within a wider historical context, this student's actions evoke a legacy of intimidation in which perceived differences... (shrink)

During much of U.S. history, Black women had higher employment rates than white women. But by the late twentieth century, women in more privileged racial/ethnic, national origin, and education groups were more likely to work for pay. The authors compare the employment of white women to Blacks and three groups of Latinas—Mexicans, Cubans, and Puerto Ricans—and explain racial/ethnic group differences. White women work for pay more weeks per year than Latinas or Black women, although the gaps are small for (...) all groups but Mexicans. In all groups, education encourages and children reduce employment. Having a husband does not reduce employment, and husbands’ earnings have little effect. The higher fertility of Mexicans and the large number of recent immigrants among Mexican women reduce their employment relative to that of white women. The higher education of white women explains large shares of the employment gap with each group of women of color because, in today’s labor market, education strongly predicts employment. (shrink)

Through examining the BBC television series, Black and British: A Forgotten History, written and presented by the historian David Olusoga, and in extending Paul Gilroy’s assertion that the everyday banality of living with difference is now an ordinary part of British life, this article considers how Olusoga’s historicization of the Black British experience reflects a convivial rendering of UK multiculture. In particular, when used alongside Žižek’s notion of parallax, it is argued that understandings of convivial culture can be supported by (...) a historical importance that deliberately ‘shocks’, and subsequently dislodges, popular interpretations of the UK’s ‘white past’. Notably, it is parallax which puts antagonism, strangeness and ambivalence at the heart of contemporary depictions of convivial Britain, with the UK’s cultural differences located in the ‘gaps’ and tensions which characterize both its past and present. These differences should not be feared but, as a characteristic part of our convivial culture, should be supplemented with historical analyses that highlight but, also, undermine, the significance of cultural differences in the present. Consequently, it is suggested that if the spontaneity of conviviality is to encourage openness, then understandings of multiculturalism need to go beyond reification in order to challenge our understandings of the past. Here, examples of ‘alterity’ are neither ‘new’ nor ‘contemporary’, but instead, constitute a fundamental part of the nation’s history: of the ‘gap’ made visible in transiting past and present. (shrink)

Purpose: To show that the idea of non-dualistic thinking is of great value for some of the core problems of media philosophy (which often lacks the radical approach of Josef Mitterer's concept). Method: Non-dualistic philosophy, introduced by Mitterer, has a lot in common with other thinkers' discontent with the traditional way of describing the subject-object relation. Their differences and the impasses of phenomenological, structuralist and psychoanalytic media theory shall be examined to show whether and to what extent non-dualism could (...) do better. Findings: As sociologists and some media-philosophers are already adopting some principles of non-dualism without a real framework, non-dualistic thinking offers a new insight into the way that consent/dissent is manufactured in a world where most descriptions are given in a mediated (i.e., non-interpersonal) form. Implications: If we re-establish the personal freedom of gathering knowledge individually instead of "getting nearer to the truth," the way of looking at the escapist power of media also has to be reinterpreted. The early distinction between Lumiére-like "documentation" (= truth) and Méliès-like "fiction" (= perception open to alternatives) could be another dualism, which should be expurgated by the application of Mitterer's concepts. (shrink)

John Griffi n’s classic on racism, Black Like Me (1960), provides an interesting text with which to investigate the development of a dialogical self. Griffi n becomes a black man for only a short period of time, but during that time he develops a black social identity and sense of personal identity, that contrasts radically with his former white identity. When he looks into a mirror on several occasions he engages in a dialogue with himself, as both a black and (...) a white person. At fi rst these two identities are so different that there is no “sympathy” between them. But through his experience, he eventually overcomes the dichotomy of two opposing selves, and acquires a personal identity, neither white nor black, but just human. In this article, I trace the development of these dialogical selves and the emergence of this new human identity. Key words: identity, racism, self, black, white.. (shrink)

Forty-nine commentators have reviewed the theory that needs-based stresses and freedoms are shaped differently in threatening, comforting, and challenging climato-economic habitats. Their commentaries cover the white domain, where the theory does apply (e.g., happiness, collectivism, and democracy), the gray domain, where it may or may not apply (e.g., personality traits and creativity), and the black domain, where it does not apply (e.g., human intelligence and gendered culture). This response article provides clarifications, recommendations, and expectations.

Revisiting James Baldwin's under-engaged contribution to heated debates over Black (Christian)-(white) Jewish relations in New York City in the late 1960s, “Blacks Are Anti-Semitic Because They Are Anti-White,” in what follows I explore the surprising ways in which two European Jewish women political theorists, Emma Goldman and Hannah Arendt, otherwise celebrated for their rigorous sobriety, enacted the very blindness that framed their Jewishness as a form of whiteness worthy of Baldwin's criticism. I close by considering the ways of envisioning being (...) Jewish that we might build from Baldwin's reflections, ones that would, in enlarging the distance of Jewishness from whiteness, invite transformative brands of solidarity rather than specifically black forms of anti-Semitism. Ironically, this path would have entailed American Jews' becoming more fully themselves rather than indexing their advancement or flourishing through a white, Christian index. Put slightly differently, this essay turns backward to look forward, aiming to understand what I consider missed opportunities worth lamenting so we might proceed differently. (shrink)

How to create stunning black and white photos in a digital format Shooting pictures in black and white presents unique challenges for beginners and experienced digital photographers alike. A strong understanding of photography’s fundamentals is crucial to capturing great black and white images, and factors such as contrast and lighting are much more integral to black and white photography than to color. Black and White Digital Photography Photo Workshop teaches digital photographers the skills they need to master black and white (...) photography. Focuses on the rules of photography and how they apply differently to black and white photography Offers guidance for properly uploading digital images to a computer Explains insider tips and tricks for using Photoshop and Lightroom to successfully enhance black and white images Black and white photography presents different challenges than color photography. In Black and White Digital Photography Photo Workshop, photographers learn how to identify great opportunities for black and white photographs and how to turn those opportunities into stunning monochrome images they can be proud to display. (shrink)

George Yancy writes that he edited White on White/Black on Black in order “to get white and Black philosophers to name and theorize their own raciated identities within the same philosophical text. … My aim was to create a teachable text, that is, to create a text whereby readers will be able to compare and engage critically the similarities and differences found within and between the critical cadre of both white philosophers and Black philosophers” (7-8). White on White/Black on (...) Black collects together essays by fourteen philosophers—seven identified as white, seven Black—who explore, by turns, their identities, the natures of whiteness and Blackness, and conceptualizations of race more generally. (shrink)

This article explores the contribution of South African missiologist and theologian Klippies Kritzinger to a critical and anti-racist white theology. It analyses his academic work in response to Black Consciousness and Black Theology from publications during his doctoral studies, throughout the transition to democracy and into the present, where this theme remains a constant presence in his work. The article explores his use of liberation, conversation and re-evangelisation in constructing a white response to Black Theology and a suggested ministry to (...) the white community. In analysing his contribution various models of contextual theology, in particular that of Steven Bevans, are used in order to position Kritzinger and illuminate Kritzinger's approach. Bevans' praxis, counter-cultural and translation models are used to emphasize different aspects of Kritzinger's theology for liberating whiteness. (shrink)

This phenomenological research investigates how it is possible to determine the extent to which a chromatic colour appears white and black in order to use it to build a new Colour Rendering Index. We tested two methods of subjective evaluation; in the first, the perceptual presence of white (and black) in a colour alone was assessed on a unipolar intensity scale, independently for the two attributes. In the second method, evaluations of whiteness (and blackness) were conducted for colours presented in (...) a sequence ordered from the least to the greatest presence of the respective attribute. In both tests evaluations were made either by moving an arrow on a slider from left (minimum) to right (maximum) or by choosing a grey cylinder that matched the same degree of similarity to white (and black) as the test colour. In four experiments, 16 colours of 4 hues and 4 different shades were studied; in a fifth experiment, 48 colours, 12 for each quadrant of the colour wheel, were studied; finally, in another test, 10 greys were studied. In the first three experiments, the results were unexpected, as the evaluations of whiteness and blackness were complementary, adding up to 100%, while in the current NCS, 100% includes not only the evaluation of white and black but also that of chromaticness, therefore white and black are not complementary. In the fourth and fifth experiments, the sum of the evaluations of white and black was always less than 100%, in accordance with the present NCS. In the last experiment, the evaluations of white and black given independently to the 10 greys samples were complementary, confirming the bipolar nature of white-black continuum. Suggestions have been provided to resolve the discrepancy between the results of this research and the structure of the current NCS. (shrink)

In his reply to Heloise's complaints in the fourth of the so-called personal letters, Peter Abelard draws upon the figure of the Ethiopian queen from the biblical Song of Songs, who proclaims that she is black on the outside but beautiful on the inside. While some scholars have interpreted his discussion as a commentary on the persona of a nun, this article considers what Abelard's remarks might mean for understanding the development of the concept of race in Western thought. In (...) particular, it considers whether Abelard's discussion, both in the letter and in his metaphysical writings, challenges the common position that Europeans did not develop a concept of race until at least the early modern period. It examines these texts to determine the extent to which his remarks reveal congruities or differences with later more explicit conceptions of race. (shrink)

In this paper, I focus on the representations of Black women in contrast to Black men found within Frantz Fanon’s philosophical work Black Skin, White Masks. I propose that while Fanon’s racial dialectical work is very significant, he often lacks acknowledgment of the multidimensionality of the Black woman’s lived experience specifically. Drawing on the theory of intersectionality, coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, I argue that Fanon does not recognize the different layers of oppression operating in Black women’s lives to the degree (...) that he fails to include them within his framework of both liberation and resistance from racial oppression. (shrink)

An ancient and enduring cross-cultural mythology explores what the texts generally perceive as a paradox: the birth of white offspring to black parents, or black offspring to white parents. This mythology in the Hebrew Bible is limited to animal husbandry, but in Indian literature from the third century B.C.E. and Greek and Hebrew literature from the third or fourth century C.E. it was transferred to stories about human beings. These stories originally express a fascination with the dark skin of “Ethiopians” (...) , and a fantasy of white children born to them. But when ideas about human race arise in Europe after the sixteenth century, the stories reverse their color schemes and shift their emphasis to investigations of the paradox of black children born to white parents. In our day, racism is clearly a strong factor in the media fascination with court cases about in vitro fertilization in which black children are born to white parents. This development suggests that the symbolism of black and white was not originally, nor need be now, racist, but that, once racism is current, it is hard to reclaim the nonjudgmental innocence of the earlier texts. Many of these texts explained the paradox of children who differ from their parents in color by invoking the concept of parental impression , which argues that whatever a woman thinks of or sees at the moment of conception influences the physical form of the child. This doctrine, which was known in ancient Israel, in Greece, in ancient India, and in Europe well into the twentieth century, primarily addresses an entirely different obsession—the problem of paternal insecurity—and generally draws heavily on sexist and misogynist attitudes toward women. Yet, when it was appropriated into the narratives of off-color offspring, it offered, in place of the more obvious explanation , an alternative fantasy that softened the culpability of women. So, too, when applied to stories of color-contrasting offspring in European narratives, even after the sixteenth century,the idea of parental impression functioned as a force against racism ; the Lamarckian or Lysenkan idea of the inheritance of acquired characteristics—the privileging of nurture over nature—argues against the belief that one’s racial stock determines who one is. Thus this doctrine, farfetched as it seems to us , dulled the edge of ancient antagonism toward women and modern European antagonism toward the descendants of the “Ethiopians.” A study of the variations of this myth across cultures has much to tell us about the ways in which myths about women and myths about people of dark skin color are transformed under the pressure of later tropes of sexism and racism. (shrink)

The cinematographic successes of Craig Brewer’s Black Snake Moan and Lars Von Trier's Manderlay are contingent upon the palpability of tension and attraction created by their respective, many racial and sexual relations, thus both films aggressively bring them to the fore by excessively rehearsing old stereotypes and taboos, and inverting the expected agents therein, to reveal their persistent, still-relevant power. Both films similarly test our convictions and squeamishness, but do so from entirely different moral stances. Brewer explores how an act (...) of charity and humanitarian openness can save lives, literally and spiritually. Von Trier explores how similar acts of openness can smother appreciation of the other and reenact the worst oppression. The former tells a persuasive story with wide appeal, while the latter tells a story that will make even the most desensitized viewers cringe. Using these pictures as paradigms, is either approach better for bringing prejudice into the light for thought and film? (shrink)

This study aimed to find out whether differences in the reported colour of dreams can be attributed to the influence of black and white media or to methodological issues. Two age groups, with different media experience, were compared on questionnaire and diary measures of dream colour. Analysis revealed that people who had access to black and white media before colour media experienced more greyscale dreams than people with no such exposure, and there were no differences between diary and (...) questionnaire measures of dream colour. Moreover, there were inter-group differences in the recall quality of colour and black and white dreams that point to the possibility that true greyscale dreams occur only in people with black and white media experience. (shrink)

This study investigates the differences in ethical beliefs between blacks and whites in the United States. Two hundred and thirty four white students and two hundred and fifty five black students were presented with two scenarios and given the Reidenbach-Robin instrument measuring their ethical reactions to the scenarios.Contrary to previous research, the results indicate that the two groups, which belong to different subcultures, have similar ethical beliefs.

We hypothesize that black women experience accelerated biological aging in response to repeated or prolonged adaptation to subjective and objective stressors. Drawing on stress physiology and ethnographic, social science, and public health literature, we lay out the rationale for this hypothesis. We also perform a first population-based test of its plausibility, focusing on telomere length, a biomeasure of aging that may be shortened by stressors. Analyzing data from the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN), we estimate that at (...) ages 49–55, black women are 7.5 years biologically “older” than white women. Indicators of perceived stress and poverty account for 27% of this difference. Data limitations preclude assessing objective stressors and also result in imprecise estimates, limiting our ability to draw firm inferences. Further investigation of black-white differences in telomere length using large-population-based samples of broad age range and with detailed measures of environmental stressors is merited. (shrink)

Attempts at formulating a dichotomous classification of nations and nationalisms have proliferated in the relevant literature over a long period of time. In this study some of the most influential instances of dual typologies of nationalisms are selected for interpretation and analysis. The examples include Renan's under?standing of differences between the "French" and the "German" concepts of nation; Kohn's distinction between "eastern" and "western" nationalisms; a revision of Kohn's dichotomy suggested by J. Plamenatz; and a more recent version of (...) dual typology propounded by L. Greenfield. By reconstructing the views of the selected theorists of nationalism, at the basis of all these typologies a dichotomous division into "civic" and "ethnic" nationalism is identified. Critical objections to this fundamental dual division are articulated at two levels. At the first, historical level, a socio-political contextualization of dual typologies points to their practical, political-ideological purposes. At the second, conceptual level, and drawing on the ideas of R. Brubaker, the author discusses analytical and normative weaknesses of the usual distinction between "civic" and "ethnic" nationalism. Literatura o nacijama i nacionalizmu svedoci o istorijski dugotrajnim pokusajima formulisanja dihotomne klasifikacije proucavanih fenomena. Stoga je autor u ovoj studiji interpretirao i analizirao neke od najuticajnijih primera dualnih tipologija nacionalizma. Predmet njegovog istrazivanja su Renanovo shvatanje razlika izmedju "francuskog" i "nemackog" pojma nacije, Konovo razlikovanje "istocnog" i "zapadnog" nacionalizma, Plamenceva revizija Konove dihotomije, kao i novija verzija dualnih tipologija Lie Grinfeld. Rekonstrukcijom stanovista izabranih teoreticara nacionalizma, autor u osnovi svih prikazanih tipologija identifikuje dihotomnu podelu na "gradjanski" i "etnicki nacionalizam". Kriticke primedbe ovoj osnovnoj dualnoj podeli formulisane su u dve razlicite ravni: istorijskoj i konceptualnoj. U prvoj, socijalno-politickom kontekstualizacijom dualnih tipologija naglasena je njihova prakticna, politicko-ideoloska funkcija. Oslanjajuci se na stavove R. Brubejkera, autor je u drugoj, teorijskoj ravni, istakao analiticke i normativne slabosti uobicajene podele na "gradjanski" i "etnicki nacionalizam". (shrink)

It is widely believed that gendered expectations are communicated to children in the process of socialization. However, there is reason to ask whether and how gender is constructed in Black families. An early perspective that still continues to inform some contemporary research is assimilationism, which assumes that Black people embrace and pass on to their children the gender norms of the dominant white society. The Afrocentric perspective challenges this view, maintaining that the unique historical experiences of Blacks have militated against (...) an emphasis on rigid gender distinctions, and that relative gender neutrality exists in Black families' child-rearing practices. The development of multicultural feminist theory, which argues that the impact of race on gender varies by social class, implies that both assimilationism and Afrocentrism may be overgeneralizations. Yet, little systematic research has been done on whether race makes a difference in how parents view gender. The authors use data from surveys completed by a nonrandom sample of parents in 202 African American and 204 white families in two large metropolitan school districts to examine the impact of gender, race, and class on parents' self-reports of their immediate priorities and long-term goals for their children, their view of the parenting role, and their discipline strategies. The findings are consistent with multicultural feminist theory: Race and social class interact to shape the intergenerational construction of gender in families. (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)

In the field of modern photography, aesthetic recreations to varying degrees through the content of the images presented by photography, while forming a certain degree of philosophical aesthetic awareness, can awaken people's emotions and philosophical cognition. As a modeling language, the tone in photography is crucial in embodying the contrasting relationship between light and shade, virtual reality, and the different levels of black and white in black and white portrait photography. It is the most basic factor that constitutes a character's (...) image. Based on the unique performance characteristics of the art of black and white portrait photography, and based on the art of tone in photography and cognitive and aesthetic perspectives in philosophy, this article discusses the role, classification, and influencing factors of tone in black and white portrait photography, and expounds the different philosophical concepts of the East and the West represented by the differences in tone in black and white portrait photography. By analyzing the philosophical concepts and expressions of tone in black and white portrait photography, it can be seen that black and white portrait photography has simple and highly generalized artistic characteristics. It represents the characteristics, connotations, and aesthetic characteristics of black and white portrait photography with a unique art, and at the same time builds a bridge between the photographer and the viewer at the philosophical and aesthetic levels. (shrink)

Ice Cube "What's a brother gotta do to get a message through to the Red, White, and Blue?" Ice-T Rap music has emerged as one of the most distinctive and controversial music genres of the past decade. A significant part of hip hop culture, [1] rap articulates the experiences and conditions of African-Americans living in a spectrum of marginalized situations ranging from racial stereotyping and stigmatizing to struggle for survival in violent ghetto conditions. In this cultural context, rap provides a (...) voice to the voiceless, a form of protest to the oppressed, and a mode of alternative cultural style and identity to the marginalized. Rap is thus not only music to dance and party to, but a potent form of cultural identity. It has become a powerful vehicle for cultural political expression, serving as the "CNN of black people", or upping the high-tech ante, as their "satellite communication system". It is an informational medium to tune into, one that describes the rage of African-Americans facing growing oppression, declining opportunities for advancement, changing moods on the streets, and everyday life as a matter of sheer survival. In turn, it has become a cultural virus, circulating its images, sounds, and attitude throughout the culture and body politic. (shrink)

Theorists have posited that investment in production has a radical impact on women's gender-role attitudes, whereas investment in reproduction exerts a conservative influence. Informed by an interactive approach to understanding the effects of racism and sexism, this article explores the commonalities and differences in Black and White women's gender-role attitudes, and assesses the applicability to Black women of the investment-in-production and investment-in-reproduction hypothesis. The data in part supported the contention that this hypothesis would be more valid for White than (...) Black women. The article concludes that the exclusion of race from our analyses impedes and distorts the development of feminist theory. (shrink)

The Implicit Association Test (IAT) was used to measure population levels of conceptual alignment among two polar sensory metaphors and clusters of concepts to which they are commonly applied. A total of 873 participants were tested online, to compare within- and between-cluster alignments of concepts associated with two different polar sensory metaphors (up/down and black/white). IAT results were sensitive to semantic alignments that were also picked up by Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) using a large-scale corpus of English. However, even with (...) these semantic alignments taken into account, the dual categorization results demonstrated strong metaphor-cluster alignments over and above the predictions of LSA. It is proposed that, rather than ontogenetic development of metaphoric concepts based on sensorimotor experience, conventionalized sensorimotor metaphors in language may be cognitive tools that provide language learners with insights supported by conceptual properties of a phylogenetically evolved perceptual interface. (shrink)

2) Philosophy in an important sense has no special subject-matter which stands to it as other subject-matters stand to other special disciplines…. What is characteristic of philosophy is not a special subject-matter, but the aim of knowing one’s way around with respect to the subject-matters of all the special disciplines. [370] [BB: It is not clear how this sits with the distinction between being a researcher (in a special discipline) and being an intellectual (caring about how it all fits together). (...) For, surely, not all intellectuals are philosophers, nor vice versa. One possibility is that he thinks that our research specialty is being intellectuals. But this is not plausible: sociologists, historians, journalist-pundits, culture critics, and so on have an equal claim to that distinction. WS might be thinking of philosophers as exclusively concerned with the cognitive enterprise, allowing intellectuals more generally to worry about, e.g., politics. But this is a pre- Hegelian way of thinking about things that is very implausible. I have my own take on this (cf. “Reason, Expression, and the Philosophic Enterprise”, Ch. 4 of RiP).]. (shrink)

Ethical scandals in business are all too common. Due to the increased public awareness of the transgressions of business executives and the potential costs associated with these transgressions, ethical leadership is among the top qualities sought by organizations as they hire and promote managers. This search for ethical leaders intersects with a labor force that is becoming more racially diverse than ever before. In this paper, we propose that the ethical leadership qualities of business leaders may be perceived differently depending (...) upon the race of the leader. Using two experimental studies in the USA, we examine the difference in ethical leadership perceptions between a Black hypocritical CEO and an ethical CEO. Next, we consider a Black ethically ambiguous CEO and an ethical CEO. The findings indicate that a Black leader faces larger negative impact in hypocritical and ambiguous conditions than a similar White leader. There were no significant race effects in the ethical conditions in which a leader demonstrated a personal commitment to ethics through words or actions. We discuss the implications of these findings. (shrink)

Public health care interventions—regarding vaccination, obesity, and HIV, for example—standardly take the form of information dissemination across a community. But information networks can vary importantly between different ethnic communities, as can levels of trust in information from different sources. We use data from the Greater Pittsburgh Random Household Health Survey to construct models of information networks for White and Black communities--models which reflect the degree of information contact between individuals, with degrees of trust in information from various sources correlated with (...) positions in that social network. With simple assumptions regarding belief change and social reinforcement, we use those modeled networks to build dynamic agent-based models of how information can be expected to flow and how beliefs can be expected to change across each community. With contrasting information from governmental and religious sources, the results show importantly different dynamic patterns of belief polarization within the two communities. (shrink)

Introduction: Vulnerability is a poorly understood concept in research ethics, often aligned to autonomy and consent. A recent addition to the literature represents a taxonomy of vulnerability developed by Kipnis, but this refers to the conduct of clinical trials rather than qualitative research, which may raise different issues. Aim: To examine issues of vulnerability in cancer and palliative care research obtained through qualitative interviews. Method: Secondary analysis of qualitative data from 26 black Caribbean and 19 white British patients with advanced (...) cancer. Results: Four domains of vulnerability derived from Kipnis’s taxonomy were identified and included: (i) communicative vulnerability, represented by participants impaired in their ability to communicate because of distressing symptoms; (ii) institutional vulnerability, which referred to participants who existed under the authority of others—for example, in hospital; (iii) deferential vulnerability, which included participants who were subject to the informal authority or the independent interests of others; (iv) medical vulnerability, which referred to participants with distressing medical conditions; and (v) social vulnerability, which included participants considered to belong to an undervalued social group. Participants from both ethnic groups populated all these domains, but those who were black Caribbean were more present among the socially vulnerable. Conclusions: Current classifications of vulnerability require reinterpretation when applied to qualitative research at the end of life. We recommend that researchers and research ethics committees reconceptualise vulnerability using the domains identified in this study and consider the research context and interviewers’ skills. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article excavates the meaning of Fanon’s declaration against Sartre in Black Skin, White Masks, “between the white man and me the connection was irremediably one of transcendence,” which is attached to a footnote that has received little attention from Fanon’s commentators: “In the sense in which the word is used by Jean Wahl in Existence humaine et transcendence.” The goal of this article is to clarify what Wahl meant by “transcendence,” and what such a conception might tell us (...) about Fanon’s disagreement with Sartre and his view of dialectics more broadly. Ultimately, the article shows that Wahl, following Kierkegaard, conceives of transcendence as a relationship of qualitative difference, which is constitutive of our subjectivity. It is thus this relationship of difference, of a nonreciprocal exclusion that cannot be sublated, that Fanon posits between white and Black. (shrink)

Why do American Black people generally have worse health than American White people? To answer this question, “Black Health” dispels any notion that Black people have inferior bodies that are inherently susceptible to disease. This is simply false racial science that has been used to abuse Black people since our African ancestors were brought to America on slave ships. A genuine investigation into the status of Black people’s health requires us to acknowledge that race has always been a powerful social (...) category. Race largely predetermines individuals’ social and political power and access to resources needed for health and wellbeing. And as a group, Black people have been intentionally denied this power and access. Systemic racism, oppression, and White supremacy in American institutions have largely been the perpetrators of differing social power and access to resources for Black people. It is these systemic inequities that create the social conditions needed for poor health outcomes for Black people to persist. An examination of social inequities reveals that it is no accident that Black people have poorer health than White people, instead in America, almost every institution has been designed to withhold what Black people need for proper health and wellbeing. Black Health provides a succinct discussion of Black people’s health, including the social, political, and at times cultural determinants of their health. This book examines the ways that Black people’s multiple identities—social, cultural, and political—intersect with anti-Black institutions, such as housing and health care to determine their poor outcomes in pregnancy, pain management, sleep, and cardiovascular disease. (shrink)

Black people experience lower quality and lesser quantity of sleep than white people. Researchers, however, do not believe that racial disparities in sleep sufficiency are caused by biological differences, but rather by various social differences, such as differences in sleeping environments and socioeconomic status. Racial disparities in sleep sufficiency are a matter of social justice because sleep is important to mental and physical health, meaning racial disparities in sleep sufficiency can contribute to unequal and unjust disparities in (...) overall health. Racial disparities in sleep may also be linked to other racial disparities in health that black people disproportionately experience such as hypertension and obesity. Sleep hygiene, common therapeutic advice given to help induce sleep, is often the first step to helping people sleep. Sleep hygiene, however, does not address the social, legal, cultural, and economic causes of racial disparities in sleep sufficiency. Sleep hygiene, as an ideal theory, addresses sleeplessness under ideal circumstances, only which a small group of privileged people live. Sleep hygiene ignores the unequal circumstances that contribute to some black people’s sleeplessness. Nonideal theory, however, acknowledges the less than ideal circumstances of certain groups, including people of color, and gives us a framework to develop solutions to racial disparities in sleep sufficiency. (shrink)

The major aim of this research is to reopen the study of the subjective experience of upward mobility and to incorporate race and gender into our vision of the process. It examines evidence from a social science study of upward mobility among 200 Black and white professional-managerial women in the Memphis, Tennessee metropolitan area. The experiences of the women paint a different picture from the image of the mobility process that remains from scholarship conducted 20 to 30 years ago on (...) white males. Relationships with family of origin, partners, children, friends, and the wider community shaped the way these women envision and accomplish mobility and the way they sustain themselves as professionals and managers. (shrink)

An emerging body of research comparing body image disturbance and eating problems among African American and white women suggests that there are major ethnic differences in these areas. African American women appear to be more satisfied with their weight and appearance than are white women, and they are less likely to engage in unhealthy weight control practices, yet they are more likely to have high rates of obesity. Drawing on both Black and white feminist literature on eating problems, this (...) article advances three arguments that may account for these differences: Black women may develop a strong positive self-valuation and an alternative beauty aesthetic to resist societal stigmatization, Black women may be less likely to acquire eating disorders due to differences in the cultural construction of femininity in Black communities, and positive body image among Black women may sometimes reflect a defensive need to deny health problems such as compulsive overeating and obesity. (shrink)

Every day, Victoria Skillane wakes up bewildered. She has no idea where she is, but nevertheless has to run for her life from masked assailants while zombielike onlookers refuse to intervene. We later learn that she's the centerpiece of ‘White Bear Justice Park.’ The question is, what about this could be called just? In this chapter, we look to different theories of punishment in order to discern whether or not Victoria's punishment is justified. Does she deserve it? Does her sentence (...) deter people? Beyond these questions, we confront the most unsettling question raised by this episode of Black Mirror: why do people enjoy watching her suffer so much? (shrink)

When Black Feminist Thought by Patricia Hill Collins was published in 1990, reviewers called it "remarkable", "rich and valuable", and proclaimed, "with the publication of this book, Black feminism has moved to a new level". Now, in Fighting Words, Collins expands and extends the discussion of the "outsider within" presented in her earlier work, investigating how effectively Black feminist thought confronts the injustices African American women currently face. Collins takes on a broad range of issues -- poverty, mothering, white supremacy (...) and Afrocentrism, the resegregation of American society by race and class, the ideas of Sojourner Truth and how they can serve as a springboard for more liberating social theory. Contrasting social theories that support unjust power relations of race, class, gender, and nation with those that challenge inequalities, Collins investigates why some ideas are granted the status of "theory" while others remain "thought". "It is not that elites produce theory while everyone else produces mere thought", she writes. "Rather, elites possess the power to legitimate the knowledge that they define as theory as being universal, normative, and ideal". Collins argues that because African American women and other historically oppressed groups seek economic and social justice, their social theories may emphasize themes and work from assumptions that are different from those of mainstream American society, generating new angles of vision on injustice. Collins also puts such oppositional social theory to the test: while the words of these theories may challenge injustice, do the ideas make a difference in the lives of the people they claim to represent? Throughout,Collins provides an essential understanding of how "outsiders" resist mainstream perspectives, and what the mainstream can learn from such "outsiders". Historically situated yet transcending the specific, Fighting Words provides a new interpretive framework for both thinking through and overcoming social injustice. (shrink)

A range of themes—race and gender, sexuality, otherness, sisterhood, and agency—run throughout this collection, and the chapters constitute a collective discourse at the intersection of Black feminist thought and continental philosophy, converging on a similar set of questions and concerns. These convergences are not random or forced, but are in many ways natural and necessary: the same issues of agency, identity, alienation, and power inevitably are addressed by both camps. Never before has a group of scholars worked together to examine (...) the resources these two traditions can offer one another. By bringing the relationship between these two critical fields of thought to the forefront, the book will encourage scholars to engage in new dialogues about how each can inform the other. If contemporary philosophy is troubled by the fact that it can be too limited, too closed, too white, too male, then this groundbreaking book confronts and challenges these problems. -/- Table of Contents -/- Foreword Beverly Guy-Sheftall Acknowledgments Introduction: Black Feminism and Continental Philosophy Maria del Guadalupe Davidson, Kathryn T. Gines, and Donna-Dale L. Marcano -/- 1. Black Feminism, Poststructuralism, and the Contested Character of Experience Diane Perpich -/- 2. Sartre, Beauvoir, and the Race/Gender Analogy: A Case for Black Feminist Philosophy Kathryn T. Gines -/- 3. The Difference That Difference Makes: Black Feminism and Philosophy Donna-Dale L. Marcano -/- 4. Antigone’s Other Legacy: Slavery and Colonialism in Tègònni: An African Antigone Tina Chanter -/- 5. L Is for . . . : Longing and Becoming in The L-Word’s Racialized Erotic Aimee Carrillo Rowe -/- 6. Race and Feminist Standpoint Theory Anika Maaza Mann -/- 7. Rethinking Black Feminist Subjectivity: Ann duCille and Gilles Deleuze Maria del Guadalupe Davidson -/- 8. From Receptivity to Transformation: On the Intersection of Race, Gender, and the Aesthetic in Contemporary Continental Philosophy Robin M. James -/- 9. Extending Black Feminist Sisterhood in the Face of Violence: Fanon, White Women, and Veiled Muslim Women Traci C. West -/- 10. Madness and Judiciousness: A Phenomenological Reading of a Black Woman’s Encounter with a Saleschild Emily S. Lee -/- 11. Black American Sexuality and the Repressive Hypothesis: Reading Patricia Hill Collins with Michel Foucault Camisha Russell -/- 12. Calling All Sisters: Continental Philosophy and Black Feminist Thinkers Kathy Glass -/- Afterword: Philosophy and the Other of the Second Sex George Yancy Contributor Notes Index. (shrink)