scholarly journals Interracial Dialogues in Dixie: Expressing Emotions to Promote Racial Reconciliation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeneve Brooks ◽  
Sharon Everhardt ◽  
Samantha Earnest ◽  
Imren Dinc
Keyword(s):  
Race Relations ◽  
Residential Segregation ◽  
Racial Profiling ◽  
Educational Inequality ◽  
The United States ◽  
Interracial Relationships ◽  
Racial Reconciliation ◽  
Institutionalized Racism ◽  
Racial Injustice ◽  
Qualitative Exploration

Given the legacy of racial injustice and mistrust that continues to plague race relations in the United States, it is important that citizens of different racial backgrounds come together to share their feelings and thoughts about race issues in order to advance racial reconciliation in their own communities. Saunders (1999) asserts that such dialogues can transform interracial relationships that could inspire the larger community to change itself. This study presents the results of nine interracial focus groups from two dialogues on race relations events held in Dothan, Alabama in 2015 and 2016. Our findings illustrate that many Black respondents displayed both anger and sadness as they provided stories of the institutionalized racism (e.g., racial profiling, educational inequality, residential segregation, etc.) as well as the more personalized racism that they had experienced. White respondents too demonstrated anger and sadness when relating their own experiences of strained race relations. This mixed-methods study also employed API analysis to further strengthen our original qualitative exploration of emotions. We argue that interracial dialogues can hold the potential for racial reconciliation as participants’ stories elucidate our most intransient race problems while also highlighting the emotions that connect discussants through the dialogic process.

Brain Drain and Brain Gain: Rising Educational Segregation in the United States, 1940–2000

2006 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 387-407 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thurston Domina
Keyword(s):  
Residential Segregation ◽  
College Graduates ◽  
High School Graduates ◽  
Educational Inequality ◽  
The United States ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Economic Segregation ◽  
Highly Educated ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Recent Trends

The post‐industrialization of the American economy, combined with the expansion of American higher education, has created a new form of residential segregation. This paper examines recent trends in residential segregation between college graduates and high school graduates, demonstrating that America's educational geography became increasingly uneven between 1940 and 2000. During this period, educational inequality between American census divisions, metropolitan areas, counties, and census tracts increased dramatically. This trend is independent of recent developments in racial and economic segregation. Segregation between the highly educated and the less educated increased dramatically in the late 20th century, even as racial segregation declined, and economic segregation changed very little.

Mobility, Skepticism, and Counter-storytelling in African American Travel Writing: Carl Rowan's South of Freedom

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
GARY TOTTEN
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Race Relations ◽  
Travel Writing ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
The United States ◽  
Willingness To Participate ◽  
Individual Action ◽  
Us South ◽  
Institutionalized Racism ◽  
The Us

In South of Freedom (1952), Carl Rowan frames his travels through an investigation of the US South in terms of his doubts about cultural change, his safety, and whites’ and blacks’ willingness to participate in racial reform, among other things. His skepticism about improvements in race relations and his critique of the country's inadequate progress toward such goals inform his examination of various states of freedom and unfreedom existing in the United States. Rowan's narrative and specific descriptions of his and others’ mobility operate as instances of counter-storytelling that incorporate such skepticism and critique. Ultimately, his theorizing of modes of resistance to institutionalized racism through individual action serves as a model for understanding African American travel writing and mobility more generally.

Study Abroad in Africa: Learning about Race, Racism, and the Racial Legacy of America

2000 ◽  
Vol 28 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 112-116
Author(s):  
Derise E. Tolliver
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Racial Identity ◽  
Study Abroad ◽  
American Association ◽  
The United States ◽  
Racial Reconciliation ◽  
Race And Racism ◽  
Institutionalized Racism ◽  
Transatlantic Slave Trade ◽  
The Impact

In 1998, the American Association of Colleges and Universities raised the question of what higher education could do to prepare graduates to address “the legacies of racism and the opportunities for racial reconciliation in the United States.” One of the most powerful and pedagogically rich approaches to facilitate learning about race, racial identity, and the impact of racism in America today is study abroad in Africa. With a history that includes dynasties and empires; the capture and enslavement of Africans and the transatlantic slave trade; and the structures of colonialism, neocolonialism, and apartheid (which have often been conceptualized as parallel to the institutionalized racism of America), the continent of Africa can be a wonderful classroom for this type of learning. This is particularly the case when the location of study is West Africa, by most accounts where the majority of people of African descent living in the United States have ancestral ties. Visits to and interactions around the monuments to and symbols and physical remnants of the complex historical relationships between Europeans and Africans can be a catalyst for stimulating challenging but ultimately rewarding discussions and growth with regard to issues of race and racism.

Religion and Mythology in the Chilembwe Rising of 1915 in Nyasaland and the Easter Rising of 1916 in Ireland: Preparing for the End Times?

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-66
Author(s):  
T. Jack Thompson
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Religious Motivation ◽  
Easter Rising ◽  
British Rule ◽  
The People ◽  
Head Of State ◽  
Interesting Difference ◽  
Racial Injustice ◽  
Book Of Daniel ◽  
End Times

Superficially there are many parallels between the Chilembwe Rising of 1915 in Nyasaland and the Easter Rising of 1916 in Ireland – both were anti-colonial rebellions against British rule. One interesting difference, however, occurs in the way academics have treated John Chilembwe, leader of the Nyasaland Rising, and Patrick Pearse, one of the leaders of the Irish Rising and the man who was proclaimed head of state of the Provisional government of Ireland. For while much research on Pearse has dealt with his religious ideas, comparatively little on Chilembwe has looked in detail at his religious motivation – even though he was the leader of an independent church. This paper begins by looking at some of the major strands in the religious thinking of Pearse, before going on to concentrate on the people and ideas which influenced Chilembwe both in Nyasaland and the United States. It argues that while many of these ideas were initially influenced by radical evangelical thought in the area of racial injustice, Chilembwe's thinking in the months immediately preceding his rebellion became increasingly obsessed by the possibility that the End Time prophecies of the Book of Daniel might apply to the current political position in Nyasaland. The conclusion is that much more academic attention needs to be given to the millennial aspects of Chilembwe's thinking as a contributory motivation for rebellion.

Racialization through Enforcement

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer M. Chacón ◽  
Susan Bibler Coutin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Racial Identity ◽  
Racial Profiling ◽  
The United States ◽  
Immigration Law ◽  
National Origin ◽  
Immigration Enforcement ◽  
Racial Hierarchy ◽  
Judicial Decisions

Immigration law and enforcement choices have enhanced the salience of Latino racial identity in the United States. Yet, to date, courts and administrative agencies have proven remarkably reluctant to confront head on the role of race in immigration enforcement practices. Courts improperly conflate legal nationality and ‘national origin’, thereby cloaking in legality impermissible profiling based on national origin. Courts also maintain the primacy of purported security concerns over the equal protection concerns raised by racial profiling in routine immigration enforcement activities. This, in turn, promotes racially motivated policing practices, reifying both racial distinctions and racial discrimination. Drawing on textual analysis of judicial decisions as well as on interviews with immigrants and immigrant justice organization staff in California, this chapter illustrates how courts contribute to racialized immigration enforcement practices, and explores how those practices affect individual immigrants’ articulation of racial identity and their perceptions of race and racial hierarchy in their communities.

Religion, Race, and Humanism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony B. Pinn
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Richard Wright ◽  
Institutional Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
Unitarian Universalist ◽  
Racial Injustice ◽  
History Of ◽  
Lorraine Hansberry

This chapter explores the history of humanism within African American communities. It positions humanist thinking and humanism-inspired activism as a significant way in which people of African descent in the United States have addressed issues of racial injustice. Beginning with critiques of theism found within the blues, moving through developments such as the literature produced by Richard Wright, Lorraine Hansberry, and others, to political activists such as W. E. B. DuBois and A. Philip Randolph, to organized humanism in the form of African American involvement in the Unitarian Universalist Association, African Americans for Humanism, and so on, this chapter presents the historical and institutional development of African American humanism.

How Time is More than Money: The Mural as a Labour of Love

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Struan Kennedy
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Race Relations ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
Cost Efficiency ◽  
The United States ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
Social Connections ◽  
Social Division ◽  
Central Argument

This article proposes that of all the different ways that social connections are formed the most important factor is time. Given how central it is to the development of relationships, the article argues that projects aiming to improve community relations should extend their duration rather than truncate it for the sake of cost-efficiency or quick and apparent success. The project of specific focus is the making of community murals which is laden with potential but only when it is conceived in the entirety of the process rather than simply as an end product. This potential is based on the idea that more time, if used carefully and critically, can play a greater role in fostering positive relations in contexts where civic engagement is strained. Several case studies will be referenced from the United States of America and Northern Ireland, two societies that share both a tradition of mural making and social division, in terms of race relations and ethnonational/religious sectarianism respectively. Practical insights from these cases substantiate the central argument that the mural process affords moments for valuable cross-community contact, critical discussion, and meaningful reflection. When this approach is adopted, time can be best served in repairing social connections, creating new bonds and even mitigating further tension.

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