Showing papers in "Journal of Black Studies in 2015"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the major predictors of smartphone and Facebook overuse, including demographic and personality traits, and further explored the effect of heavy utilization of smartphones and Facebook on the academic performance of African American college students.
Abstract: This article quantifies the heavy use of smartphone and Facebook among African American college students. It examines the major predictors of smartphone and Facebook overuse, including demographic and personality traits. It further explores the effect of heavy utilization of smartphone and Facebook on the academic performance of African American college students. Younger and female users spent significantly more time on their smartphones. However, excessive Facebook use was not related to gender of our participants. In terms of the prevalence rate, about 11% of the sample showed a high level of smartphone addiction and 10% scored a high level of Facebook addiction. Among personality and psychological traits, social interaction anxiety was the most important predictor of heavy utilization of smartphone and Facebook, not extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, or conscientiousness. As expected, multitasking was significantly and positively correlated with excessive smartphone and Facebook use. Surprisingl...
98 citations
TL;DR: This article provided an overview of the current status of research about African American girls and demonstrated the need for a theoretical perspective that can be used to produce research that accurately examines the lives of African American women.
Abstract: Black Feminist and Womanist theories are culturally based perspectives that take into consideration the contextual and interactive effects of herstory culture, race, class, gender, and other forms of oppression. These frameworks provide a contextualized understanding of African American girls’ experiences and perspectives. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the current status of research about African American girls. In addition, this article demonstrates the need for a theoretical perspective that can be used to produce research that accurately examines the lives of African American girls. Major themes of Black Feminist Thought and Womanism will serve as a viable theoretical framework for studying this population. Last, principles of a Black Feminist-Womanist research model will be defined.
63 citations
TL;DR: The grim news about the state of Black heterosexual marriage can be found in headlines that bemoan the lack of marriageable Black me... as discussed by the authors, which is a major life goal in the United States.
Abstract: Marriage continues to be a major life goal in the United States. The grim news about the state of Black heterosexual marriage can be found in headlines that bemoan the lack of marriageable Black me...
43 citations
TL;DR: The quest for a comprehensive understanding of Africa's indigenous technology has been an important intellectual agenda in Black Studies as discussed by the authors, however, this interest has tended to be speculative and derivative because most Black Studies scholars are not trained in the disciplinary fields that are relevant for investigating Africa’s indigenous technology through primary field and laboratory research.
Abstract: The quest for a comprehensive understanding of Africa’s indigenous technology has been an important intellectual agenda in Black Studies. In some instances this interest has tended to be speculative and derivative because most Black Studies scholars are not trained in the disciplinary fields that are relevant for investigating Africa’s indigenous technology through primary field and laboratory research. Collaboration between Black Studies scholars and those in the physical sciences is therefore important in order to develop new insights into Africa’s indigenous technology. One of such collaborations has led to a new archaeological and geochemical evidence for primary glass manufacture in Yorubaland. Based on the recent archaeological finds of glass artifacts from Osun Grove (Osogbo, Nigeria), we present the laboratory data that lead us to the conclusion that the Yoruba of West Africa developed a unique glassmaking technology that lasted till the seventeenth century.
35 citations
TL;DR: This paper investigated racial/ethnic differences in religious non-involvement using data from three national probability surveys: 2000 Social Capital Survey, 2004 National Politics Study, and the 2nd National Politics Survey.
Abstract: Our study investigates racial/ethnic differences in religious non-involvement using data from three national probability surveys: 2000 Social Capital Survey, 2004 National Politics Study, and the 2...
34 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a correlation survey examination of self-esteem among African American college students was conducted and the constructs of racial socialization, parental involvement, social support, family support, etc.
Abstract: The present study was a correlation survey examination of self-esteem among African American college students. The constructs of racial socialization, parental involvement, social support, family s...
28 citations
TL;DR: This paper examined the ways in which African American college students perceive family structure, relationships, and support as impacting their academic persistence and collegiate experiences, and concluded that family structures, relationships and support do indeed influence the collegiate experiences and academic outcomes of African American students.
Abstract: This qualitative study examined the ways in which African American college students perceive family structure, relationships, and support as impacting their academic persistence and collegiate experiences. Participants included nine females and five males attending a Historically Black University. Participants described family structure and relationships in a variety of ways. Furthermore, some participants experienced a change in relationships with immediate family members while attending college. Family issues occurring at home, being a financial burden on family members, the importance of family support, and being a role model for other family members were also cited as influencing collegiate experiences. The study concluded that family structures, relationships, and support do indeed influence the collegiate experiences and academic outcomes of African American college students.
20 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explored intra-urban mobilities and the depiction of the city in contemporary Zimbabwean literature as reflected in Valerie Tagwira’s Uncertainty of Hope.
Abstract: This article explores intra-urban mobilities and the depiction of the city in contemporary Zimbabwean literature as reflected in Valerie Tagwira’s Uncertainty of Hope. It shall be argued that intra-urban mobilities are closely related to the depiction of the city as a heterogeneous space that is unevenly constituted. This unevenness is influenced by economic and political factors and translates into the realm of the social and symbolic as some spaces are projected as “safe†and “respectable†while others are conceptualized as of “ill repute†and “threat†to the security, morals, and safety of its inhabitants. However, the boundaries between “safe†and “threatening†spaces are constantly transgressed by Zimbabwean urban dwellers in their day to day struggles for survival in a harsh and unrelenting economic and political climate. This political and economic environment has resulted in most Zimbabweans being insecure as testified by heightened intra-urban mobilities. Furthermore, the insecurity and intra-urban mobility are exemplified by the creation of unstable identities premised on fear, anxiety, and restlessness that characterize the lives of most urban dwellers.
20 citations
TL;DR: This paper argued that Vodou practitioners enhance progress in their attention to the planning and giving of ceremonies, in the hierarchical organization they establish in communities, in their ritual and language, and in the education imparted through inheritance, teaching, and initiation.
Abstract: Shortly after the catastrophic earthquake that crushed Port-au-Prince and the surrounding towns on January 12, 2010, The New York Times published an article in which columnist David Brooks claimed that “voodoo” is a “progress-resistant” cultural influence because it spreads the message that “life is capricious and planning futile.” Alongside Brooks, many authors promote similar views, especially Christians. I argue that Vodou does not negatively affect progress in Haiti. Rather, there are historical, linguistic, and governmental policies that limit progress. In reality, Vodou practitioners enhance progress in their attention to the planning and giving of ceremonies, in the hierarchical organization they establish in communities, in their ritual and language, and in the education imparted through inheritance, teaching, and initiation. The scapegoating of Vodou by Brooks and others perpetuates a racist colonial legacy, and it betrays an ignorance of the community and the abundant research about it.
20 citations
TL;DR: The sociological literature of the past several decades has emphasized two apparently contradictory perspectives as mentioned in this paper, the "declining significance of race" and persistent racialization of Blacks, which has led to a "profiling" of black people.
Abstract: The sociological literature of the past several decades has emphasized two apparently contradictory perspectives—the “declining significance of race” and persistent racialization of Blacks. This ar...
18 citations
TL;DR: One of the most outstanding initiatives that the African Union (AU) has taken that distinguishes it from its predecessor (the Organization of African Unity) is the adoption of the African diaspora.
Abstract: One of the most outstanding initiatives that the African Union (AU) has taken that distinguishes it from its predecessor (the Organization of African Unity) is the adoption of the African diaspora ...
TL;DR: This paper examined the racial and ethnic identity preferences of U.S.-born and foreign-born African Caribbeans, and the extent to which social contextual factors shape and alter these identities.
Abstract: This study examines the racial and ethnic identity preferences of U.S.-born and foreign-born African Caribbeans, and the extent to which social contextual factors shape and alter these identities. ...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the perceptions of African American police officers regarding the presence and impact of biased-based policing in their agencies, as well as their perceptions of the positive or negative effects of their presence in these small local police agencies.
Abstract: Most assessments of the impact and effects of biased-based policing have been reviewed from the aspect of officer-citizen interaction during traffic stops, with the majority of studies focusing on these occurrences in larger police jurisdictions. Yet police officers themselves, and particularly African American officers, bring a completely different perspective to this issue that has not been fully considered or developed, especially where it concerns the smaller agencies that make up the bulk of the nation’s police community. This study considers the perceptions of African American police officers regarding the presence and impact of biased-based policing in their agencies, as well as their perceptions of the positive or negative effects of their presence in these small local police agencies.
TL;DR: Black anarchism is seen as a radical outgrowth of the Black freedom struggle as discussed by the authors, and it has a number of contemporary manifestations for anarchism, including Anarchist People of Color caucuses within the movement, and, more indirectly, the many anarchist strategies and organizations that share similarities with the BPP, prior to its centralization.
Abstract: Racial justice social movements often fragment when their goals do not seem completely achievable. Former participants in the radical Black freedom struggles of the 1960s and 1970s, most of whom were Black Panther Party (BPP) members (and also participants in the Black Liberation Army) and identified with Marxist-Leninism, became disaffected with the hierarchical character of the Black Panthers and came to identify with anarchism. Through the lens of radical factionalization theories, Black anarchism is seen as a radical outgrowth of the Black freedom struggle. Black anarchists were the first to notably prioritize a race analysis in American anarchism. This tendency has a number of contemporary manifestations for anarchism, including Anarchist People of Color caucuses within the movement, and, more indirectly, the many anarchist strategies and organizations that share similarities with the BPP, prior to its centralization.
TL;DR: In this paper, the attachment needs of foster youth in the child welfare system are addressed by culturally competent, ethnically relevant treatment strategies, and hair is a fundamental element in the lives of foster children.
Abstract: Culturally competent, ethnically relevant treatment strategies are needed to address the attachment needs of foster youth in the child welfare system. Hair is a fundamental element in the lives of ...
TL;DR: The authors explored attitudes toward interracial marriage and related behavior patterns in the United States and examined these patterns longitudinally from the perspective of the genera of the interracial couples' families.
Abstract: This research effort explores attitudes toward interracial marriage and related behavior patterns in the United States. These patterns are examined longitudinally from the perspective of the genera...
TL;DR: In this article, a study of attitudes, gender, and prestige with respect to Kriol, the Afro-Belizean language of Belize, is presented. But gender status in two Belizean comm...
Abstract: This article reports on a study of attitudes, gender, and prestige with respect to Kriol, the Afro-Belizean language of Belize. We ask a fundamental question of whether genders in two Belizean comm...
TL;DR: This article pointed out the need for parent and community involvement in addressing school discipline policies and culturally sensitive approaches to reducing the pipeline of school-to-prison pipeline research and scholarship point to a need for parents to be involved in addressing discipline policies.
Abstract: School-to-prison pipeline research and scholarship point to a need for parent and community involvement in addressing school discipline policies and culturally sensitive approaches to reducing disp...
TL;DR: In this paper, the impact of increasing the number of Black male professional psychologists is explored, with a particular focus on how their work can affect outcomes for Black boys and men in clinical, academic, and research settings.
Abstract: The underrepresentation of Black men in professional psychology represents a critical issue, but this topic has received relatively limited coverage in the extant literature. Given the complex challenges facing many Black communities, we contend that increasing the number of African American male professional psychologists represents one component of the multi-pronged plan to tackle these problems. However, there is a dearth of scholarship that explicitly highlights the potential contributions Black men can make to professional psychology, particularly those with an African/Black psychology lens. We address this gap by exploring the impact of increasing the number of Black male professional psychologists. We detail the contributions Black male psychologists can make in clinical, academic, and research settings, with a particular focus on how their work can affect outcomes for Black boys and men in these three settings. Embedded in our analysis, we highlight the need to incorporate an African/Black psychol...
TL;DR: This paper explored how music provided the U.S. plantation slaves with a space in which the hegemony of the White ruling class could be subverted, adapted, and resisted, and argued that the tensions between these two spheres provided a crucial intimation of a life without slavery.
Abstract: The purpose of this article is to explore how music provided the U.S. plantation-slaves with a space in which the hegemony of the White ruling class could be subverted, adapted, and resisted. Consistent with the beliefs of slave religion, which saw the material and the spiritual as part of an intrinsic unity, I identify two tendencies in slave song: freedom as material practice and freedom as the “aesthetic imagination.” I argue that the tensions between these two spheres provided a crucial intimation of a life without slavery.
TL;DR: In Nigeria, violent criminality and insecurity are pervasive across Nigeria as private armies, ethnic militias, armed robbers, political assassins, ransom kidnappers, hostage takers, and serial bombers have go...
Abstract: Violent criminality and insecurity are pervasive across Nigeria as private armies, ethnic militias, armed robbers, political assassins, ransom kidnappers, hostage takers, and serial bombers have go...
TL;DR: The authors discusses the historical underpinnings of Ebonics as a product of linguistic influence of Bantu languages spoken in West Africa today, and concludes by defining it as a respectable variety of English with its own sophisticated grammar.
Abstract: This article discusses the historical underpinnings of Ebonics as a product of linguistic influence of Bantu languages spoken in West Africa today. Many teacher educators preparing White pre-service teachers for linguistic diversity in public schools tend to focus mostly on respecting culturally different students’ home languages without employing historical, lexical, grammatical, and phonological evidence to challenge students’ deficit thinking about Ebonics, which is often associated in the mainstream with a physiological deficiency. Thus, the study uses several Niger-Congo languages to explain the origin of Ebonics and the influences of the Niger-Congo languages on the grammatical and phonological structures of Ebonics, and concludes by defining it as a respectable variety of English with its own sophisticated grammar.
TL;DR: This article analyzed representations of the Zimbabwean jikinya dance myth by Geoffrey Ndhlala and Musaemura Zimunya in the poetry anthology Kingfisher and other poems and argued that although both authors struggle to portray a clear picture of what the dance really is to the reader, they are able to portray the...
Abstract: This article analyzes representations of the Zimbabwean jikinya dance myth by Geoffrey Ndhlala in the novel Jikinya and Musaemura Zimunya in the poetry anthology Kingfisher, Jikinya and other poems. It examines the different social and historical settings considered in Ndhlala’s Jikinya (pre-colonial Zimbabwe) and Zimunya’s “Jikinya” (Dancer) and “Jikinya” (An African Passion) (the colonial period of the 1970s Zimbabwean anti-colonial war), and discusses how both texts attempt at describing the aesthetics of the jikinya dance and reinterpret Zimbabwe’s pre-colonial and colonial culture and politics. Of significance, however, is that, being aware of the fact that the nature and significance of dance representations in these texts has received less attention, we analyze the way both writers handle Zimbabwean jikinya in colonial contexts. As a result, we argue in this article that although both authors struggle to portray a clear picture of what the dance really is to the reader, they are able to portray the...
TL;DR: This paper explored the likelihood of physical violence perpetration against an intimate partner in same-race relationships in comparison with those in interracial relationships and found that there was little difference between racial groups in the percent who reported minor assaults but large differences in severe assaults.
Abstract: This study explores the likelihood of physical violence perpetration against an intimate partner in same-race relationships in comparison with those in interracial relationships. The sample consists of 1,174 students at four American universities and one Canadian university. RESULTS indicate little difference between racial groups in the percent who reported minor assaults but large differences in severe assaults. Students in interracial relationships did not report more intimate partner violence than same-race couples when controlling for demographic variables. Language: en
TL;DR: The Congress of Black Women of Canada (CBWC) is a social movement organization that has represented the interests of Black women in this country for more than four decades at the national and local level as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The Congress of Black Women of Canada (CBWC) is a social movement organization that has represented the interests of Black women in this country for more than four decades at the national and local...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on artists' endeavors to imagine, advocate, and/or articulate freedom in a "pigmentocra[tic],” 20th-century America.
Abstract: This article focuses on the above mentioned artists’ endeavors to imagine, advocate, and/or articulate freedom in a “pigmentocra[tic],” 20th-century America. As any definition of freedom is recipro...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors support the tendency among Egyptologists to classify ancient Kemet as a nation and challenge the modernist and post-modernist assertion that the nation first emerged in the West during the 18th and 19th centuries.
Abstract: This article supports the tendency among Egyptologists to classify ancient Kemet as a nation. In so doing, it challenges the modernist and postmodernist assertion that the nation first emerged in the West during the 18th and 19th centuries. It conceptualizes the nation in two ways: as the coincidence of common ethnicity and clearly defined territory—the nation-state; and more simply, as an entity that claims the right to control a state. Kemet’s war of national liberation—the expulsion of the Hyksos during the Second Intermediate Period—illustrates the former conceptualization of the nation. However, the common ethnic identity that had been nurtured since unification was not a major factor in the civil war during the First Intermediate Period. Consequently, this quest for reunification is an example of the nation as a political movement.
TL;DR: Herodotus view of Blackness is discussed only in relation to his 2.104 passage where he describes the Egyptian physical appearance as mentioned in this paper, which is a consequence of the modern debate on ancient Egyptian r...
Abstract: Herodotus’ view of Blackness is discussed only in relation to his 2.104 passage where he describes the Egyptian physical appearance. This is a consequence of the modern debate on ancient Egyptian r...
TL;DR: In choosing to teach African American literature at my community college, I learned a great deal about a topic for which I thought I was well prepared as mentioned in this paper, and the semester became a learning ex...
Abstract: In choosing to teach African American literature at my community college, I learned a great deal about a topic for which I thought I was well prepared. As a whole, the semester became a learning ex...
TL;DR: The authors explored the voices of five African American graduates of Kansas City’s Lincoln High School between 1955 and 1985, and found that an ethic of care supporting instituti cation was needed.
Abstract: Our purpose was to explore the voices of five African American graduates of Kansas City’s Lincoln High School between 1955 and 1985. It has been suggested that an ethic of care supporting instituti...