Did you call in Mexican? The racial politics of Jay Leno immigrant jokes

2009 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
OTTO SANTA ANA

ABSTRACTThis article analyzes a set of anti-immigrant jokes with which Jay Leno entertained his national television audience in 2006, when the U.S. public was focused on unprecedented demonstrations urging justice for immigrants. Leno adroitly mocks immigrants and their cause to give his audience emotional release by distancing them from immigrants. It is argued that political comedy can be an insidious discursive practice that reduces its audience’s critical judgment as it signifies social boundaries. It should be carefully scrutinized because, with a few laughs, Leno can steer sentiment about public policy and instantiate divisiveness for an audience of 6 million who, in the words of Leno’s official website, “are drifting off to dreamland.” (Humor, political comedy, late-night television, immigrant rights marches)*

Author(s):  
Gordon Moore ◽  
John A. Quelch ◽  
Emily Boudreau

Choice Matters: How Healthcare Consumers Make Decisions (and Why Clinicians and Managers Should Care) is a timely and thoughtful exploration of the controversial role of consumers in the U.S. healthcare system. In most markets today, consumers have more options and autonomy than ever before. Empowered consumers easily shop around for products and services that better meet their needs, and they widely share their reviews on social media to inform and influence other consumers. Businesses have responded with better experiences and prices to compete for consumers’ business. Though healthcare has lagged behind other industries in this respect, there is a rising tide of interest in consumer choice and empowerment in healthcare markets. However, most healthcare provider organizations, individual doctors, and health insurers are unprepared to consider patients as consumers. The authors draw upon the fields of medicine, marketing, management, psychology, and public policy as they take a substantive, in-depth look at consumer choice and point out its appropriate use, as well as its limitations. This book addresses perplexing issues, such as how healthcare differs from other consumer-driven markets, how consumers make healthcare decisions, and how increased consumer choice in healthcare can not only aid and empower American consumers but also improve the overall healthcare system.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Kate Williamson ◽  
Belinda Luke

AbstractThis paper examines advocacy, agenda-setting and the public policy focus of private philanthropic foundations in Australia. While concerns have been raised regarding advocacy and public policy influence of foundations in countries such as the U.S., less is understood on this issue in other contexts. Interviews were conducted with 11 managers and trustees of 10 Private Ancillary Funds (PAFs) in late 2014. Analysis of publicly available data on the participating PAFs was then undertaken comparing PAF information available at the time of the interviews with that available approximately five years later, to consider any changes in the public communication of their agendas. Findings reveal PAFs’ agendas were largely consistent with public policy but may vary in the approaches to address social causes. Further, a preference for privacy indicates the PAF sector may be characterised as ‘quiet philanthropy’ rather than having a visible public presence. As such, PAFs’ advocacy focused on promoting philanthropy, rather than altering or influencing public policy. Our main contention is that the conceptions of advocacy in structured philanthropy are dominated by the obvious, the outliers and the noisy. Our contribution to the philanthropic literature is a more nuanced and broader discussion of how advocacy and agenda-setting occurs and is understood in the mainstream.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Dunn ◽  
Moriah Moore ◽  
Brian A. Nosek

In four studies, we demonstrate that subtle linguistic differences in news reporting are sufficient to influence whether people interpret violent acts as patriotism or terrorism. In Study 1, a content analysis of newspaper articles describing violence in Iraq revealed that words implying destruction and devious intent were typically used in reference to violent actions associated with Iraq and opponents of the U.S., while more benign words were used in reference to the U.S. and its allies. These observed differences in word usage establish schemas that guide perception of violence as terrorism or patriotism, thereby affecting people’s attitudes toward (Study 2) and memory for (Studies 3 and 4) violent events. Implications for the media’s impact on public policy are discussed.


Author(s):  
Timothy P. Johnson ◽  
Mary K. Feeney ◽  
Heyjie Jung ◽  
Ashlee Frandell ◽  
Mattia Caldarulo ◽  
...  

AbstractMuch of the available evidence regarding COVID-19 effects on the scientific community in the U.S. is anecdotal and non-representative. We report findings from a based survey of university-based biologists, biochemists, and civil and environmental engineers regarding negative and positive COVID-19 impacts, respondent contributions to addressing the pandemic, and their opinions regarding COVID-19 research policies. The most common negative impact was university closures, cited by 93% of all scientists. Significant subgroup differences emerged, with higher proportions of women, assistant professors, and scientists at institutions located in COVID-19 “hotspot” counties reporting difficulties concentrating on research. Assistant professors additionally reported facing more unanticipated childcare responsibilities. Approximately half of the sample also reported one or more positive COVID-19 impacts, suggesting the importance of developing a better understanding of the complete range of impacts across all fields of science. Regarding COVID-19 relevant public policy, findings suggest divergence of opinion concerning surveillance technologies and the need to alter federal approval processes for new tests and vaccines.


1970 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-169
Author(s):  
Eliahu Hirschberg

Gold value clauses are rarely used in England. In the United States, before the Joint Resolution of both Houses of Congress of January 5, 1933, which abrogated gold clauses in the U.S. retrospectively and prospectively, declaring them to be against public policy, gold coin clauses were a common occurrence. In the past on the European continent much use has been made of gold value clauses.In England gold value clauses may assume greater importance in the future. Lately, the two-tier system of gold prices has been introduced, one between Central Banks and another at the free market price. In an individual gold value clause, the question of which price is recognized by the parties, who probably did not in fact foresee the possibility of the creation of a two-tier system, is one of construction. Even today, a party to a gold value clause which refers to the free market price may gain a profit, if there is an appreciation of the price of gold on the free market above the U.S. government minimum level of $35.00 per ounce.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sawsan Abutabenjeh ◽  
Stephen B. Gordon ◽  
Berhanu Mengistu

By implementing various forms of preference policies, countries around the world intervene in their economies for their own political and economic purposes. Likewise, twenty-five states in the U.S. have implemented in-state preference policies (NASPO, 2012) to protect and support their own vendors from out-of-state competition to achieve similar purposes. The purpose of this paper is to show the connection between protectionist public policy instruments noted in the international trade literature and the in-state preference policies within the United States. This paper argues that the reasons and the rationales for adopting these preference policies in international trade and the states' contexts are similar. Given the similarity in policy outcomes, the paper further argues that the international trade literature provides an overarching explanation to help understand what states could expect in applying in-state preference policies.


Author(s):  
Kenneth Prewitt

This chapter demonstrates how assumptions of racial superiority and inferiority tightly bound together statistical races, social science, and public policy. The starting point of this is constitutional language. The U.S. Constitution required a census of the white, the black, and the red races. Without this statistical compromise there would not have been a United States as it is today. In the early censuses slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person, a ratio demanded by slaveholder interests as the price of joining the Union. A deep policy disagreement at the moment of founding the nation was resolved in the creation of a statistical race. Later in American history the reverse frequently occurred. Specific policies—affirmative action, for example—took the shape they did because the statistical races were already at hand.


Author(s):  
Jimmy Patiño

The Conclusion is a brief analysis of how the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) both conceded to and fragmented the Chicano/Mexicano immigrant rights mobilizations facilitated in part by the CCR. Signed by a Republican, it was the first mass amnesty act revealing the influence of the human rights components of Chicano/Mexicano organizing that activists in San Diego had taken part in formulating beginning in the late 1960s. Yet the act also marginalized the abolitionist position of the movement, giving concessions by providing amnesty to a subsection of undocumented migrants, while further militarizing the U.S.-Mexico border. The chapter concludes with an analysis of two divergent responses by Chicano/Mexicano activists o the new law: those who invested their energies in politicizing and assisting undocumented migrants who qualified for the amnesty provisions of IRCA by working with immigration state mechanisms and other activists who continued to criticize the “carrot and stick” immigration policies and maintain the call to abolish immigration state apparatuses.


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