scholarly journals African American Exposure to Prescribed Fire Smoke in Georgia, USA

Author(s):  
Cassandra Johnson Gaither ◽  
Sadia Afrin ◽  
Fernando Garcia-Menendez ◽  
M. Talat Odman ◽  
Ran Huang ◽  
...  

Our project examines the association between percent African American and smoke pollution in the form of prescribed burn-sourced, fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in the U.S. state of Georgia for 2018. (1) Background: African Americans constitute 32.4% of Georgia’s population, making it the largest racial/ethnic minority group in the state followed by Hispanic Americans at 9.8%. African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and lower wealth groups are more likely than most middle and upper income White Americans to be exposed to environmental pollutants. This is true because racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to live in urban areas where pollution is more concentrated. As a point of departure, we examine PM2.5 concentrations specific to prescribed fire smoke, which typically emanates from fires occurring in rural or peri-urban areas. Two objectives are specified: a) examine the association between percent African American and PM2.5 concentrations at the census tract level for Georgia, and b) identify emitters of PM2.5 concentrations that exceed National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for the 24-h average, i. e., >35 µg/m3. (2) Methods: For the first objective, we estimate a spatial Durbin error model (SDEM) where pollution concentration (PM2.5) estimates for 1683 census tracts are regressed on percent of the human population that is African American or Hispanic; lives in mobile homes; and is employed in agriculture and related occupations. Also included as controls are percent evergreen forest, percent mixed evergreen/deciduous forest, and variables denoting lagged explanatory and error variables, respectively. For the second objective, we merge parcel and prescribed burn permit data to identify landowners who conduct prescribed fires that produce smoke exceeding the NAAQS. (3) Results: Percent African American and mobile home dweller are positively related to PM2.5 concentrations; and government and non-industrial private landowners are the greatest contributors to exceedance levels (4) Conclusions: Reasons for higher PM2.5 concentrations in areas with higher African American and mobile home percent are not clear, although we suspect that neither group is a primary contributor to prescribed burn smoke but rather tend to live proximate to entities, both public and private, that are. Also, non-industrial private landowners who generated prescribed burn smoke exceeding NAAQS are wealthier than others, which suggests that African American and other environmental justice populations are less likely to contribute to exceedance levels in the state.

Author(s):  
Seth Kotch

focuses on the transition from local public hangings to state-controlled electrocutions in North Carolina in the early twentieth century. The chapter addresses the impact of this shift on African American communities. Although the death penalty had long served as an instrument of racial control, the ritual of a local hanging nevertheless had allowed the condemned and black witnesses a public space to express religious convictions and honor the condemned’s suffering. Once the state seized control of this ritual, African Americans were largely excluded as witnesses. The modern death penalty thus came to represent the racial subjugation of Jim Crow, indeed having more in common with lynchings than legal hangings had.


Author(s):  
James W. Miller

This chapter describes how Louisville interests tried to persuade the KHSAA board to return the state high school basketball tournament to Louisville, over the objections of Lexington supporters. Louisville experienced racial unrest after African Americans boycotted a local movie theater that refused to admit blacks to a showing of Porgy and Bess, which featured an all-black cast. For this and other reasons, Lexington was the preferred site for the state tournament, and it took a secret vote of KHSAA board members to return the event to Louisville. The Lincoln players were hoping for a rematch with Louisville Central, but the Yellowjackets were upset in the regional tournament by Flaget High School. Flaget's African American point guard John McGill was also an outstanding tennis player who had spent the previous summer traveling as Arthur Ashe's doubles partner.


Author(s):  
Gabriel Estrada ◽  
Maurice Dawson ◽  
Jose Antonio Cárdenas-Haro

Abstract African Americans and Hispanic Americans historically have been underrepresented in U.S. jobs in the fields of STEM in large part because of the usability of technology. In this research, the goal was to discover the usability factors relative to operating systems that may limit African Americans and Hispanic Americans from pursuit of computer science higher education. For the purpose of this study, “usability” refers to the “appropriateness of purpose.” Categorized by three factors, appropriateness of purpose can be defined as (i) the effectiveness of the users’ ability to complete tasks while using technology and the quality or output of those tasks, (ii) the efficiency and the level of resources used in performing tasks, and (iii) the satisfaction or users’ reaction to the use of technology (Brooke, 2014). This research examined quantitative analysis based on students’ routine computer task knowledge using a survey questionnaire and the SUS. The population included high school students responding to questions on common tasks and usability. A web survey was conducted to assess the measurement and understanding pattern demonstrated by the participants. The quantitative analysis of the computer usability included ANOVA, independent t-tests and orthogonal contrasts. The analysis of the SUS measured usability and learnability. The results of the data analysis showed that the combined African American and Hispanic group has a mean computer usability score that is significantly lower when compared with the other ethnicities and the SUS findings included the highest gap among this most underrepresented group in the STEM field.


Author(s):  
Artha L. Simpson Jr. ◽  
Kathryn Jones

The purpose of this chapter was to examine the factors influencing the mentoring and connectivism of retaining African American male students through participation in recreational sports programs. It is being reported that improvements in participation and success for African Americans are encouraging, particularly among males, but there is more to be done. The study was conducted at one regional university within the state of Texas that has an established recreational sports facility and programs. There were a total of six African American male participants chosen for this study. Findings from this study affirm that recreational sports provide opportunities for students to be connected, feel comfortable, and build relationships with their faculty as well as the staff.


Author(s):  
Leah Wright Rigueur

This chapter studies how, as the 1970s progressed, black Republicans were able to claim clear victories in their march toward equality: the expansion of the National Black Republican Council (NBRC); the incorporation of African Americans into the Republican National Committee (RNC) hierarchy; scores of black Republicans integrating state and local party hierarchies; and individual examples of black Republican success. African American party leaders could even point to their ability to forge a consensus voice among the disparate political ideas of black Republicans. Despite their ideological differences, they collectively rejected white hierarchies of power, demanding change for blacks both within the Grand Old Party (GOP) and throughout the country. Nevertheless, black Republicans quickly realized that their strategy did not reform the party institution.


2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 66-84
Author(s):  
Betty Wilson ◽  
Terry A. Wolfer

In the last decade, there have been a shocking number of police killings of unarmed African Americans, and advancements in technology have made these incidents more visible to the general public. The increasing public awareness of police brutality in African American communities creates a critical and urgent need to understand and improve police-community relationships. Congregational social workers (and other social workers who are part of religious congregations) have a potentially significant role in addressing the problem of police brutality. This manuscript explores and describes possible contributions by social workers, with differential consideration for those in predominantly Black or White congregations.


Author(s):  
Richard Archer

Except in parts of Rhode Island and Connecticut, slavery was a peripheral institution, and throughout New England during and after the Revolution there was widespread support to emancipate slaves. Some of the states enacted emancipation laws that theoretically allowed slavery to continue almost indefinitely, and slavery remained on the books as late as 1857 in New Hampshire. Although the laws gradually abolished slavery and although the pace was painfully slow for those still enslaved, the predominant dynamic for New England society was the sudden emergence of a substantial, free African American population. What developed was an even more virulent racism and a Jim Crow environment. The last part of the chapter is an analysis of where African Americans lived as of 1830 and the connection between racism and concentrations of people of African descent.


Author(s):  
William L. Andrews

In this study of an entire generation of slave narrators, more than sixty mid-nineteenth-century narratives reveal how work, family, skills, and connections made for social and economic differences among the enslaved of the South. Slavery and Class in the American South explains why social and economic distinctions developed and how they functioned among the enslaved. Andrews also reveals how class awareness shaped the views and values of some of the most celebrated African Americans of the nineteenth century. Slave narrators discerned class-based reasons for violence between “impudent,” “gentleman,” and “lady” slaves and their resentful “mean masters.” Status and class played key roles in the lives and liberation of the most celebrated fugitives from US slavery, such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, William Wells Brown, and William and Ellen Craft. By examining the lives of the most- and least-acclaimed heroes and heroines of the African American slave narrative, Andrews shows how the dividing edge of social class cut two ways, sometimes separating upper and lower strata of slaves to their enslavers’ advantage, but at other times fueling convictions among even the most privileged of the enslaved that they deserved nothing less than complete freedom.


Author(s):  
Topher L. McDougal

In some cases of insurgency, the combat frontier is contested and erratic, as rebels target cities as their economic prey. In other cases, it is tidy and stable, seemingly representing an equilibrium in which cities are effectively protected from violent non-state actors. What factors account for these differences in the interface urban-based states and rural-based challengers? To explore this question, this book examines two regions representing two dramatically different outcomes. In West Africa (Liberia and Sierra Leone), capital cities became economic targets for rebels, who posed dire threats to the survival of the state. In Maoist India, despite an insurgent ideology aiming to overthrow the state via a strategy of progressive city capture, the combat frontier effectively firewalls cities from Maoist violence. This book argues that trade networks underpinning the economic relationship between rural and urban areas—termed “interstitial economies”—may differ dramatically in their impact on (and response to) the combat frontier. It explains rebel predatory tendencies toward cities as a function of transport networks allowing monopoly profits to be made by urban-based traders. It explains combat frontier delineation as a function of the social structure of the trade networks: hierarchical networks permit elite–elite bargains that cohere the frontier. These factors represent what might be termed respectively the “hardware” and “software” of the rural–urban economic relationship. Of interest to any student of political economy and violence, this book presents new arguments and insights about the relationships between violence and the economy, predation and production, core and periphery.


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