scholarly journals Who Are the Homeless? Centering Anti-Black Racism and the Consequences of Colorblind Homeless Policies

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 340
Author(s):  
Earl James Edwards
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Black Men ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Black People ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
The United States ◽  
Homeless Population ◽  
Public Identity ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Persona

Since first becoming a major social issue in the 1980s, homelessness has been a racialized problem in the United States. Its disproportionate impact on Black Americans is primarily driven by structural racism and the limited housing and employment opportunities for Black Americans. The first major federal legislation to address the needs of the United States’ homeless population—the Stewart B. McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987 omitted the root causes of Black housing instability, thereby proving ineffective at mitigating Black homelessness. As a result, Black Americans remain disproportionately impacted today. In addition to being neglected by the McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act, Black men and women experiencing homelessness are more likely to be discriminated against than any other racial group. For example, Black men are more likely to be arrested than anyone else, and Black women are the most likely to experience hyper-surveillance. This paper uses the Public Identity Framework to argue that in the 1980s, advocates and opponents of homeless legislation created two contradictory public personas to shape public discourse and policies for the homeless. A colorblind public persona was used to pass the McKinney–Vento Homeless Act; meanwhile, the public persona of the “underclass” was used to criminalize and shame the homeless. Both personas operated concurrently to create a dual public identity for the homeless that influenced policy and ultimately harmed Black people.

Are Americans less likely to reply to emails from Black people relative to White people?

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (52) ◽  
pp. e2110347118
Author(s):  
Ray Block ◽  
Charles Crabtree ◽  
John B. Holbein ◽  
J. Quin Monson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Black People ◽  
Racial Bias ◽  
The United States ◽  
Simple Task ◽  
The Public ◽  
Medical Sector ◽  
Large Scale Field ◽  
Ethnic Subgroups

In this article, we present the results from a large-scale field experiment designed to measure racial discrimination among the American public. We conducted an audit study on the general public—sending correspondence to 250,000 citizens randomly drawn from public voter registration lists. Our within-subjects experimental design tested the public’s responsiveness to electronically delivered requests to volunteer their time to help with completing a simple task—taking a survey. We randomized whether the request came from either an ostensibly Black or an ostensibly White sender. We provide evidence that in electronic interactions, on average, the public is less likely to respond to emails from people they believe to be Black (rather than White). Our results give us a snapshot of a subtle form of racial bias that is systemic in the United States. What we term everyday or “paper cut” discrimination is exhibited by all racial/ethnic subgroups—outside of Black people themselves—and is present in all geographic regions in the United States. We benchmark paper cut discrimination among the public to estimates of discrimination among various groups of social elites. We show that discrimination among the public occurs more frequently than discrimination observed among elected officials and discrimination in higher education and the medical sector but simultaneously, less frequently than discrimination in housing and employment contexts. Our results provide a window into the discrimination that Black people in the United States face in day-to-day interactions with their fellow citizens.

The Optics of Liberian Emigration

2020 ◽  
pp. 145-167
Author(s):  
Aston Gonzalez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Black People ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
Political Leadership ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Colonization Society ◽  
Fugitive Slave

This chapter explores the life and work of Augustus Washington, the free African American photographer, who envisioned more rights and freedoms than those available in the United States. Anticipating a future in the United States bound by racial restraints, he packed up his successful photography studio in Hartford, Connecticut, and emigrated to Monrovia, Liberia. Washington worked closely with the American Colonization Society to convince black Americans to leave their homeland for Liberia and attempted to provoke viewers of his images to envision the potential of black rights in the United States that he enjoyed in Liberia. Washington’s images promulgating black Liberian political leadership and economic promise abroad offered a vision of freedom that belied a hierarchical, and often oppressive, Liberian society. In the wake of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, his images brought into focus the debates among African Americans about the uncertain, and perhaps imperiled, future of black people in the United States.

scholarly journals The American Democratic Deficit in Assisted Reproductive Technology Innovation

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 130-170
Author(s):  
Myrisha S. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Assisted Reproductive Technology ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Technology Innovation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Reproductive Technology ◽  
Public Consultation ◽  
Democratic Deficit ◽  
The Public ◽  
The United Kingdom

In many areas of innovation, the United States is a leader, but this characterization does not apply to the United States' position in assisted reproductive technology innovation and clinical use. This article uses a political science concept, the idea of the “democratic deficit” to examine the lack of American public discourse on innovations in ART. In doing so, the article focuses on America's missing public consultation in health care innovation. This missing discourse is significant, as political and ethical considerations may impact regulatory decisions. Thus, to the extent that these considerations are influencing the decisions of federal agency employees, namely those who work within the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the public is unable to participate in the decision-making process. This lack of a public discourse undermines the goals of the administrative state, which include democratic participation, transparency, and accountability.The United Kingdom, on the other hand, has had a markedly divergent experience with assisted reproductive technology innovation. Instead of ignoring the various ethical, social, and legal issues surrounding assisted reproductive technology innovation, the United Kingdom engaged in a five-strand public consultation on the topic of mitochondrial transfer, a form of assisted reproductive technology that uses genetic modification in order to prevent disease transmission. This article argues that after a multi-decade standstill in terms of the public discourse related to ethical issues associated with assisted reproductive technology and germline modification, it is time for the United States to institute a more democratic inquiry into the scientific, ethical, and social implications of new forms of assisted reproductive technology and ultimately, forthcoming medical innovations that involve genetic modification.

It's Still Slavery by Another Name

2020 ◽  
pp. 40-50
Author(s):  
Michael D. Yates
Keyword(s):  
Black Men ◽  
Social Distance ◽  
Black People ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Black Americans ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
White People ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Black And White

As the long history, right to the present day, of police and vigilante violence against black people has shown with great clarity, the racial chasm between black and white people in the United States lives on. A few black men and women have climbed into the 1 percent, and a sizable African-American middle class now exists. But by every measure of social well-being, black Americans fare much worse than their white counterparts. Just as for the economic, political, and social distance between capitalists and workers, so too is there a differential between black and white people, for these same interconnected components of daily life continue because of the way our system is structured.

scholarly journals The Study’s Origins and Methodology

2021 ◽  
pp. 9-16
Author(s):  
Daniela Bandelli
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Women's Movement ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The United States ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
International Debate ◽  
The Public ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
The Subject ◽  
United States Mexico

AbstractThis chapter discusses the origin, spirit, objectives and methodology of this study on the surrogacy international debate. The aim of this study is to explain the politics of signification on surrogacy carried out especially by the women’s movement, verifying how it is contributing to the public discourse and policies on the subject, how it is being organized, as well as dividing, and how the proposed instances fit into global discourses and are recontextualized on the basis of social specificities. These aims are pursued through three case studies in the United States, Mexico and Italy. The key concepts of the theoretical framework of the research will also be described in this chapter, such as: the women’s movement, diagnostic and prognostic frames.

Peculiar Rhetoric

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bjørn F. Stillion Southard
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The United States ◽  
Abraham Lincoln ◽  
Free Blacks ◽  
Relative Power ◽  
American Colonization Society ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Effort

The African colonization movement plays a peculiar role in the study of racial equality in the United States. For white colonizationists, the movement was positioned as a compromise between slavery and abolition. For free blacks, colonization offered the hope of freedom, but not within America’s borders. Bjørn F. Stillion Southard shows how politics and identity were negotiated in middle of the public discourse on race, slavery, and freedom in America. Operating from a position of relative power, white advocates argued that colonization was worthy of support from the federal government. Stillion Southard analyzes the speeches of Henry Clay, Elias B. Caldwell, and Abraham Lincoln as efforts to engage with colonization at the level of deliberation. Between Clay and Caldwell’s speeches at the founding of the American Colonization Society in 1816 and Lincoln’s final public effort to encourage colonization in 1862, Stillion Southard explores the speeches and writings of free blacks who grappled with colonization’s conditional promises of freedom. The book examines an array of discourses to explore the complex issues of identity facing free blacks who attempted to meaningfully engage in colonization efforts. From a peculiarly voiced Counter Memorial against the ACS, to the letters of wealthy black merchant Louis Sheridan negotiating for his passage to Liberia, to the civically-minded orations of Hilary Teage in Liberia, Peculiar Rhetoric brings into light the intricacies of blacks who attempted to meaningfully engage in colonization.

Aliens in the Academy: A Paradisciplinary Discourse

Prospects ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Bridget Roussell Cowlishaw
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The United States ◽  
Professional Expertise ◽  
The Public ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Alien Abduction ◽  
Objective Reasoning

In the last decades of the 20th century, authors touting academic credentials made their way into the public discourse on alien abduction. In the process, these academics have manufactured a rhetorical space in which to speak from professional expertise while at the same time enacting rhetorical conventions of contemporary public discourse in the United States that limit the validity of expertise. The authors accomplish this by appealing to the contemporary American taste for democratic discourse. By democratic, I mean discourse that privileges knowledge derived from personal experience rather than from objective reasoning — a way of knowing that requires no credentials but the ability to render oneself a speaking subject.

The Power of Storytelling: a Quest for a Public Discourse on Sexual Harassment

2005 ◽  
Vol 7 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 5-28
Author(s):  
Jenny Morgan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Generational Differences ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Legal Discourse ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Law ◽  
Law Reports

This article explores the possible reasons for the absence of a public discourse about sexual harassment in Australia, which can be contrasted with a relatively well-developed legal discourse. It also briefly compares the debate about sexual harassment in the United States and Australia that followed in the wake of controversial and very public sexual harassment cases in each country. It argues that the debate in the wake of the Clarence Hill-Anita Thomas hearings in the United States was much more productive than the debate in Australia after the publication of Helen Garner’s book, The First Stone. The discussion in Australia focused on whether the young women in the case had ‘over-reacted’ and whether there were generational differences in women’s reactions to sexual harassment. The more interesting (and I would argue, far more important) questions of what is sexual harassment is and what are its effects were ignored. This article goes on to explore one aspect of what sexual harassment is and does by examining what women actually do in response to sexual harassment through an analysis of some of the stories of targets of harassment as they appear in the law reports. In this way it tries to make some of the legal discourse about sexual harassment a part of the public discourse about the phenomenon.

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