Blacks and Violent Crime: A Psychoanalytically Oriented Analysis

1988 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. G. Schoenfeld
Keyword(s):  
Violent Crime ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
Psychological Consequences ◽  
Self Worth ◽  
Psychological Difficulties ◽  
Disproportionate Number ◽  
American Cities

This article offers a psychoanalytic explanation of why blacks commit a disproportionate number—half—of violent crimes in the United States. Slavery and its crippling psychological effects are discussed, as are the devastating psychological consequences of the hundred years of discrimination, segregation, and antiblack terror that followed. The conclusion reached is that black aggression was stimulated inordinately by all this, while simultaneously the black superego was decisively weakened and rendered incomplete and conflicted. These psychological difficulties have persisted and become endemic among the poor, uneducated, lower-class blacks who populate the rotting core of many American cities. Unlike their parents and grandparents, however, they no longer fear imminent bodily harm or death at the hands of violent whites and no longer turn their aggression back upon themselves and become depressed, but feel free to externalize their aggression in periodic riots and violent crime. The solutions suggested in this article include the elimination of social policies that stimulate the aggression of blacks by threatening their sense of self-worth, and the promotion of social policies that help to strengthen their superegos; e.g., minimizing the number of fatherless black households. Ways of using the criminal law to reinforce the black superego are also considered.

Why Go a Fiji Voyage?

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Nancy Shoemaker
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
The United States ◽  
China Trade ◽  
British Colonization ◽  
Self Worth ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The U.S

This introductory chapter discusses why, despite the negative assumptions regarding the islands of Fiji during the nineteenth century, Americans still went there. Indeed, several thousand of them voyaged to Fiji on merchant, whaling, and naval vessels in the decades before British colonization of the islands in 1874. And more than a hundred Americans lived and died there. From a macro perspective, explaining the American presence in Fiji seems simple. Their rationale was economic: Americans went to Fiji to extract resources to sell in China. Fiji became one leg in the U.S.–China trade and a source of great wealth for the American merchants who gambled their fortunes on it. However, a closer inspection reveals that the foot soldiers of early U.S. global expansion, the individual Americans who ventured overseas, did so for more complicated reasons. An assortment of personal ambitions impelled Americans to travel to distant locales. Their motivations, albeit multiple and divergent, often derived from a desire to be respected by others and thereby attain a sense of self-worth. Their strivings to rise in others' estimation influenced the course of Fiji's history and, albeit more subtly, the history of the United States.

scholarly journals I Am Not Invisible: The Impact of Age Discrimination in the Workplace

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 25-25
Author(s):  
Jasmin Tahmaseb McConatha ◽  
Frauke Schnell ◽  
Lauren Stricker ◽  
Jacqueline Magnarelli
Keyword(s):  
Older Workers ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
Self Worth ◽  
The Media ◽  
Cultivation Hypothesis ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Ageism and age stereotypes are widespread. They shape the lived experiences of older workers. This presentation focuses on the results of responses to an online survey exploring the impact of ageist treatment in the workplace. The results of online surveys from 113 teachers over the age of 50 indicated that ageist treatment is widespread. An analysis of open ended questions addressing the stressful impact of being victimized by ageism indicated that feeling invisible, isolated, and helpless are the three most common responses to ageist treatment in the workplace. Being victimized by ageism presents a threat to older workers sense of self and feelings of competence. The cultivation hypothesis suggests that in technologically advanced societies such as the United States, people often rely on the media as a primary source of cultural information. Media images tend to depict older adults in ways that maintain and create ageist stereotypes. Our research suggests that the framing of media content significantly influences the self-worth of older workers. In this presentation, we discuss examples of ageism in the workplace, the family, and the media, and discuss ways of combating biased and discriminatory treatment. Based on our ongoing research, we make suggestions for ways of responding to and coping with ageist treatment.

scholarly journals Black Art: An Aesthetic Transformation for Freedom and Justice

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 91-99
Author(s):  
Lekha Nath Dhakal
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
World View ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Slave Narratives ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Artists ◽  
Black Art ◽  
Black Aesthetics ◽  
Self Worth

This paper attempts to explore African Americans’ world view and its roots in Black Aesthetics. It also reveals that Black art is an aesthetic transformation of African Americans for freedom and an expectation of a higher level of life. Supporters of Black Aesthetics appealed to black artists to establish a new standard of judgment and beauty based on African myths, spirituality, belief systems and music in opposition to Western aesthetic. However, the Black Aesthetics had its origins in those first artistic resonances of black slaves in the form of spirituals, coded singing and signifying, and later in writings. Black aesthetic theory in the United States traces its origin to the literature of slavery and freedom. The slave narratives depict African-Americans’ artistic and academic labors to show their humanity and critical moments in the development of Black aesthetics. Writing about their own communities in order to establish a sense of self-worth and claiming their identities as African Americans are crucial elements in the works of many Black writers.

Psyche and Soul in America

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert H. Abzug
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Small Town ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
The United States ◽  
Inner Life ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The Relationship

Rollo May (1909‒1994), internationally known psychologist and popular philosopher, came from modest roots in the small town Protestant Midwest intending to do “religious work” but eventually became a psychotherapist and in best-selling books like Love and Will and The Courage to Create he attracted an audience of millions of readers in the United States, Europe, and Asia. During the 1950s and 1960s, these books combined existentialism and other philosophical approaches, psychoanalysis, and a spiritually-philosophy to interpret the damage bureaucratic and technocratic aspects of modernity and their inability of individuals to understand their authentic selves. Psyche and Soul in America deals not only with May’s public contributions but also to his turbulent inner life as revealed in unprecedentedly intimate sources in order to demonstrate the relationship between the personal and public in a figure who wrote about intimacy, its loss, and ways to regain an authentic sense of self and others.

Greenness and the Potential Resilience to Sexual Violence: “Your Neighborhood Is Being Neglected Because People Don’t Care. People With Power Don’t Care”

2021 ◽  
pp. 088626052110280
Author(s):  
Gibran C. Mancus ◽  
Andrea N. Cimino ◽  
Md Zabir Hasan ◽  
Jacquelyn C. Campbell ◽  
Phyllis Sharps ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Violent Crime ◽  
Green Space ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Community Resilience ◽  
The United States ◽  
Green Spaces ◽  
Traffic Density ◽  
Black Communities ◽  
Black Neighborhoods

There is increasing evidence that green space in communities reduces the risk of aggression and violence, and increases wellbeing. Positive associations between green space and resilience have been found among children, older adults and university students in the United States, China and Bulgaria. Little is known about these associations among predominately Black communities with structural disadvantage. This study explored the potential community resilience in predominately Black neighborhoods with elevated violent crime and different amounts of green space. This embedded mixed-methods study started with quantitative analysis of women who self-identified as “Black and/or African American.” We found inequality in environments, including the amount of green space, traffic density, vacant property, and violent crime. This led to 10 indepth interviews representing communities with elevated crime and different amounts of green space. Emergent coding of the first 3 interviews, a subset of the 98 in the quantitative analysis, led to a priori coding of barriers and facilitators to potential green space supported community resilience applied to the final 7 interview data. Barriers were a combination of the physical and social environment, including traffic patterns, vacant property, and crime. Facilitators included subjective qualities of green space. Green spaces drew people in through community building and promoting feelings of calmness. The transformation of vacant lots into green spaces by community members affords space for people to come together and build community. Green spaces, a modifiable factor, may serve to increase community resilience and decrease the risk of violence.

Health Care Cost Containment in Large American Cities

1989 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Perry Moore
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Cost Containment ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Health Care Cost ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Agencies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Survey Results ◽  
The Cost ◽  
American Cities

This research provides information about the health care cost containment efforts of local governments and agencies across the United States, particularly in large American cities. Survey results indicate that while the public sector lags behind the private sector, public agencies are beginning to match the cost containment efforts of private employers. While initiation of these efforts represents considerable recent progress, their tangible benefits are not yet apparent.

scholarly journals Population of American Cities: 1950-2009

2011 ◽  
Vol 16 (16) ◽  
pp. 153-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Witold Wilczyński ◽  
Piotr Wilczyński
Keyword(s):  
Structural Changes ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Population Change ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ethnic Composition ◽  
Continuous Growth ◽  
Historical Outline ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Contrasting View ◽  
American Cities

Population of American Cities: 1950-2009Contrary to the industrial epoch, cities have been interpreted in the last fifty years as the places facing the greatest economic and social problems. A contrasting view has emerged only recently that takes cities as sites of economic dynamism and social vitality. The paper offers evidence on population change for 118 greatest cities of the United States of America to assess how their fortunes have changed from the 1950s to 2009. Considerable diversity of experience was revealed and seven categories of cities have been distinguished as far as their population change patterns are concerned. These categories range from the continuous growth from 1950 until today to continuous decline. The most dynamic cities are located in the Sun Belt and they are relatively small and new.On the opposite, the biggest and old industrial centres of the Rust Belt have been losing inhabitants. In general, the pattern of population change shows close relationship with the economic situation and in particular, is connected with the structural changes in society and economy, namely the structural shifts toward more services-oriented economy, and smaller households.Essentially the paper offers the historical outline of the population changes in the biggest American urban centres. It should be seen as an introduction necessary for the more advanced studies concerning the issues of employment, incomes, ethnic composition, and various social problems which could explain the changing fortunes of particular cities.

Divergent effects of social media use on meaning in life via loneliness and existential isolation during the coronavirus pandemic

2022 ◽  
pp. 026540752110669
Author(s):  
Peter J. Helm ◽  
Tyler Jimenez ◽  
Madhwa S. Galgali ◽  
Megan E. Edwards ◽  
Kenneth E. Vail ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Meaning In Life ◽  
Media Use ◽  
The United States ◽  
Psychological Consequences ◽  
Social Media Use ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Media Usage ◽  
Emotional Loneliness

Stay-at-home orders issued to combat the growing number of infections during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 had many psychological consequences for people including elevated stress, anxiety, and difficulty maintaining meaning in their lives. The present studies utilized cross-sectional designs and were conducted to better understand how social media usage related to people’s subjective isolation (i.e., social loneliness, emotional loneliness, and existential isolation) and meaning in life (MIL) during the early months of the pandemic within the United States. Study 1 found that general social media use indirectly predicted higher MIL via lower existential isolation and social isolation. Study 2 replicated these patterns and found that social media use also predicted lower MIL via higher emotional loneliness, and that the aforementioned effects occurred with active, but not passive, social media use. Findings suggest social media use may be a viable means to validate one’s experiences (i.e., reduce existential isolation) during the pandemic but may also lead to intensified feelings concerning missing others (i.e., increased emotional loneliness). This research also helps to identify potential divergent effects of social media on MIL and helps to clarify the relationships among varying types of subjective isolation.

Masculinities and School Gun Violence in the United States

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha Deane
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
The United States ◽  
School Shootings ◽  
Gun Violence ◽  
Symbolic Violence ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Everyday Interaction ◽  
Foucauldian Theory ◽  
The Impact

Schools are sites of personal, political, and symbolic violence. In the United States acts of rampage school gun violence, themselves symbolic, are connected to acts of personal violence via the inscription of social gender norms. Carried out by White teenage boys rampage school shootings call us to grapple with the ways in which schools form and discipline gendered subjectivities. Central to the field of masculinity studies is R. W. Connell’s theory of masculinity which draws on a Gramscian theory of hegemony rather than a Foucauldian theory of power. Whereas Gramsci focuses the ways in which power moves down, Foucault studies the impact of small interaction on our subjective sense of self. When addressing the phenomena of rampage school gun violence where White teenage boys target their schools in acts of gendered rage, a Foucauldian theory of power helps us to take seriously the significance of everyday interaction in legitimating gendered ontologies. Jointly Foucault and the contemporary works of Jane Roland Martin, Amy Shuffelton, and Michel Kimmel point towards an avenue that may afford us the opportunity to root out practices and environments wedded to hegemonic masculinity (and thus rampage school gun violence): the everyday celebration of gender-inclusive and egalitarian ways of learning and living.

scholarly journals Dignity, religion and freedom of expression in South Africa

2011 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacobus C.W. Van Rooyen
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
National Pride ◽  
Form Part ◽  
Self Worth ◽  
Constitutional Right ◽  
The Republic

The issue that this article dealt with is whether, in South African law, speech that infringes upon the religious feelings of an individual is protected by the dignity clause in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. The Constitution, as well as the Broadcasting Code, prohibits language that advocates hatred, inter alia, based on religion and that constitutes incitement to cause harm. Dignity, which is a central Constitutional right, relates to the sense of self worth which a person has. A Court has held that religious feelings, national pride and language do not form part of dignity, for purposes of protection in law. The Broadcasting Complaints Commission has, similarly, decided that a point of view seriously derogatory of ‘Calvinistic people’ blaming (some of) them as being hypocritical and even acting criminally is not protected by dignity. It would have to be accompanied by the advocacy of hatred as defined previously. The author, however, pointed out that on occasion different facts might found a finding in law that religion is so closely connected to dignity, that it will indeed be regarded as part thereof.

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