The Wiz Redux; or, Why Queer Black Feminist Spectatorship and Politically Engaged Popular Entertainment Continue to Matter

I don't remember the very first time I watched The Wiz (1978). Growing up in a black household during the 1980s, the film was as much a part of my upbringing as the countless hours I spent removing my Jheri curl activator from the sofa, practicing the moonwalk, or listening to my mother and sister's annual Thanksgiving argument about how much salt should go into the collard greens. What I do remember is how much I enjoyed watching The Wiz. Each Thanksgiving Day my six sisters and I would gather around the television set and watch our heroine Dorothy (Diana Ross) travel from her aunt's Harlem apartment to the magical land of Oz. We celebrated the fact that Dorothy ultimately vanquishes her seemingly more powerful foe Evillene, the Wicked Witch of the West (Mabel King). As young black girls, we identified with Dorothy's plight. While we were not battling powerful witches, we were constantly resisting our mother's attempts to socialize us into “respectable” young women. As such, we were fascinated by Evillene, the most oppressive force within Dorothy's life. The gargantuan size of Evillene's body, the hideousness of her face, and the force of her supernatural powers both excited and repulsed us. We eagerly anticipated her first appearance in the film, bursting through the doors of her sweatshop belting, “Don't Nobody Bring Me No Bad News.” We reveled in drawing comparisons between Evillene and our mother, hoping that one day we too could defeat her.

Protecting the Household

Antebellum racial policing also extended to the household, as Chapter 4 demonstrates. Police reform was implemented in the name of property, and in a patriarchal world, households often counted as male property. Thus the new policemen were supposed to protect good householders. And they often did. But free black households fit into this system uncomfortably. Beliefs in black household disorder, and subsequent police regulations targeted at black families, combined with the prohibition of black testimony against white people both to undermine black men’s household autonomy and heighten white male power over black households. When a white person entered a black home, there was not much a policeman could do, even if he wanted to. As a result, free black Baltimoreans’ home lives were uniquely susceptible to white violence. Once again, policemen confirmed the disparity.

Abstract MP021: Identification of “At Risk” and “Resilient” CVD Census Tracts in the Morehouse-Emory Cardiovascular (MECA) Study

The MECA study is unique in that it will study CVD resilience in blacks at both the individual and community (census tract) level in the Atlanta Metropolitan Area. It is well established that blacks suffer from greater cardiovascular morbidity and mortality than whites in the United States. Not all blacks suffer from poor cardiovascular health, some individuals manage to live long healthy lives without ever developing cardiovascular conditions. The causes of this resilience are not known. Both individual and community level factors may be responsible for cardiovascular risk and resilience in blacks. The first stage of the MECA study was to identify “at risk” and resilient communities based on their rates of CVD related ED visits, hospitalizations and mortality. Objectives: To determine if in fact a wide distribution of CVD rates exist among Blacks in census tracts in Metro Atlanta. To determine if there were still large differences in rates when black household income was controlled for. Methods: Count data on CVD related emergency department and hospitalizations for blacks aged 35-64 living in census tracts in the Atlanta--Athens-Clarke--Sandy Springs combined statistical area during 2010-2014 were obtained from the Georgia Hospital Association. CVD mortality data for the same population for the same time period were obtained from the Georgia Department of Public Health. In order to control for the socioeconomic status, age and gender distribution of the neighborhoods, negative binomial regression models controlling for median black household income, percent of 5-year age groupings, and percent male were estimated for each of the outcomes. Residuals in top 25% were considered to be “at risk tracts (high rate) while residuals in the bottom 25% were considered resilient (low rate tracts). Results: 106 tracts were resilient for at least 2 of the 3 outcomes, 188 were “at risk” for 2 out of 3 outcomes. Both types of tracts were located throughout the Atlanta metropolitan area. Mean black household income in the tracts are similar (resilient: $46,335, “at risk”: $44,721). Black CVD hospitalization event rate was 28 vs. 132 per 1000 population(p<.0001) for resilient tracts vs “at risk” tracts. Black CVD ED visit event rate and CVD mortality rate was also lower in resilient (ED: 33 per 1000 pop; Mortality: 8 deaths per 1000 pop) than “at risk” (ED: 147/ 1000 pop; Mortality: 14 deaths per 1000 pop) census tracts. Conclusion: We have identified census tracts in Metro Atlanta that have large differences in premature CVD outcomes for Blacks despite having similar mean income levels. The next phase of the MECA study will examine census tract and survey data to elucidate what contextual (demographic, food environment, reported neighborhood characteristics) and individual level (behavioral, psychological, social) factors may be associated with the different rates of CVD in resilient and “at risk” census tracts.

More on the Impact of Economic Freedom on the Black–White Income Gap

Using household-level data from 1980 to 2010, we examine whether economic freedom, as measured by the Economic Freedom of North America Index, has similar effects on white household income as it does on black household income. Our findings suggest that the positive effect of economic freedom found in most studies affects black households less than white households. Further, using the Oaxaca decomposition, our results show that economic freedom is an important factor explaining the gap between black and white household incomes.

Changes in the Level and Distribution of Income in Michigan, 1976–2013, with Comparisons to Other States

ABSTRACT We study the changes in the distribution of household income in Michigan from 1976 to 2013, with comparisons to the other 49 states and the District of Columbia. In Michigan, the gap between the 90th and the 50th percentiles increased substantially, but the gap between the 50th and the 10th percentiles decreased slightly. Thus in Michigan (and in most other jurisdictions), the increases in overall inequality were dominated by changes in the upper half of the income distribution. If we include in-kind transfer payments in the income definition, our measures of income inequality are reduced, typically by from five to fifteen percent. The income of the median black household increased very slightly compared to median white household income, but the rate of increase was much less than that of the US as a whole. Panel regression analysis for the 50 states and DC indicates that an increase in high school graduates as a percent of the population is associated with a decrease in income inequality, while an increase in the percentage with education beyond a Bachelor's degree is associated with an increase in inequality. An increase in the unemployment rate tends to be associated with an increase in inequality. An increase in the percent of income from transfer payments tends to be associated with a reduction in income inequality, as does an increase in the percentage of the jurisdiction's economy in manufacturing.