Daily Show report on the situation in Ferguson

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/ufqeuz/race-off?xrs=synd_facebook_112414_tds_89

Revised Elevator Pitch:

Title: Neanderthal: The ‘New’ Race

Elevator Pitch: Race is a burdensome word when used in relation to human populations.  Despite the pain and negative connotations attached to the word Race it is a permanent part of our lexicon. However, culture induced semantic shift in the past has changed the ideologies surrounding Race.  With new information from the scientific community the biological definition of Race has been proven false.  By inducing a controlled narrowing of the word Race the lexical field that surrounds Race will also be changed.  Science will once again inform the public while shaping our racial ideologies.

 Through the research presented here I will show H.s. neandertalensis and H.s. denisovans are worthy of inclusion in modern racial categories. The purpose of this inclusion is to re-write our cultural perceptions of race and to further blur perceived racial distinctions in an effort to create cultural accord

Theory/Model: The theoretical framework for the semantic shift of the word ‘Race’ will be the Lexical Field theory.  To prove that H.s. neandertalensis and H.s. denisovans are in fact races of humanity the Out of Africa African hybridization-and-replacement model will be used with support from current research in genomics.  

Bibliography

Cotterman, Robert F.

2002.     New Evidence on the Relationship Between Race and Mortgage Default: The Importance of Credit History Data. Economic, Washington D.C.: Office of Policy Development and Research U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

DeNavas-Walt, Carmen and Proctor, Bernadette D.

2014.     Income and Poverty in the United States. Current Population Reports US Census, Washington DC: US Government.

Facchini, François and Melki, Mickaël.    

2011.     "Ideology and Cultural Change: A Theoretical Approach." Association for the Study of Religion, Economics & Culture, ASREC. Washington, DC: Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne, Paris 1 France. pp.1-9.

Hawks, John.

2013.    "Significance of Neandertal and Denisovan Genomes in Human Evolution." Annual Review in Anthropology pp.433-449.

Kena, Grace et. al.

2014.     The Condition of Education 2014. Education Statistics, Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Education.

Kleparski, Grzegorz A and Rusinek Angelina.

2007.     "The Tradition of Field Theory and the Study of Lexical Semantic Change." Seria Filologigiczna Studia Anglica Resoviensia issue 47 (vol. 4): pp. 188-205.

Meijs, Willem and Vossen, Piek.

1991.     "In So Many Words: Knowledge as a Lexical Phenomenon." In Lexical Semantics and Knowledge Representation, by James and Bergler, Sabine Pustejovsky, edited by James and Bergler, Sabine Pustejovski, pp. 137-153. Berkley: Springer Berlin Heiderberg.

O'Grady, William.

2005.     Contemporary Linguistics 5th Edition. Gordonsville: Bedford/St. Martins.

Programs, Office of Justice.

2010.    Correctional Populations in the United States. Census, Washington DC: U.S. Department of Justice .

Sapir, Edward.

1912.     Language and Environment. Ottawa: Geological Survey of Canada.

Schillaci, Michael A and Froehilich, Jeffery W.

2001.     "Nonhuman Primate Hybridization and the Taxanomic Status of Neandertals." AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY. Issue 2. vol. 115. pp. 157-166.

Smedley, Audrey.

2007.     Race in North America. 3. Boulder: Westview Press.

Smith, Earl and Hattery, Angela.

2006.     "Prison Industrial Complex." Edited by George H Conklin. Scoiation Today.

Williams, Johnny E.

2011.     "They Say It's in the Genes: Decoding Racial Ideology in Genomics." Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, vol. 40, 5: pp. 550-581.

Guide on Posters

Hey guys here is a guide I came across for creating anthropology posters. Hope it helps.

http://www.aaanet.org/meetings/upload/how-to-create-anthropology-posters.pdf

"Diet Racism"

I hope this gives everyone a laugh or giggle during this stressful week.

Final Paper Topic

Working Title: The Impact of Race on Educational Outcomes

Bibliography:

Andrews, Rodney and Omari Swinton

   2014     The Persistent Myths of ‘Acting White’ and Race Neutral Alternatives to

   Affirmative Action in Admissions. Review of Black Political Economy 41(3): 357-371.

Cashin, Sheryll

   2014     Place, Not Race: Affirmative Action and the Geography of Educational

   Opportunity. University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform 47(4): 935-965.

Donner, Jamel K.

   2012     Whose Compelling Interest? The Ending of Desegregation and the Affirming

   of Racial Inequality in Education. Education & Urban Society 44(5): 535-552.

Murnane, Richard J.

   2013     U.S. High School Graduation Rates: Patterns and Explanations. Journal of

   Economic Literature 51(2): 370-422.

Savas, Gokhan

   2014     Understanding Critical Race Theory as a Framework in Higher Educational

   Research. British Journal of Sociology of Education 35(4): 506-522.

Scott, Janelle and Rand Quinn

   2014     The Politics of Education in the Post-Brown Era: Race, Markets, and the

   Struggle for Equitable Schooling. Educational Administration Quarterly 50(5): 749-

   763.

Elevator Pitch: Schools were desegregated in 1954, yet 60 years later we still struggle with inequality throughout the education system. Depending on where a child lives—which is largely determined by socioeconomic status and, frequently, race—he gets assigned to a school which can offer him numerous opportunities, or to a school which can offer him very few. The abundance or lack of such educational opportunities impacts whether or not a child pursues higher education, and whether he graduates from high school at all. In a push to level the playing field for children assigned to low-opportunity schools, several plans have been proposed to increase minority college admissions, but there is heavy debate over which of these plans truly help the problems at hand.

Theory: To further my research, I will use critical race theory, which is taken from American law. I found a very informative book detailing it called Critical Race Theory: An Introduction by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic. Critical race theory examines the institutions already in place (such as the public education system) which negatively impact the opportunities available to racial minorities simply by existing as they do. Because the United States public education system was created with white students in mind, it primarily serves white students, thus white students are more likely than minorities to succeed in the system. The only way to truly achieve education equality, according to critical race theory, is to rebuild the current system.

Paper Topic

Title: BiDil and the Beginning of the Racialization of Pharmaceuticals
Elevator Pitch: In the past few decades pharmaceutical companies have made attempts at financial gains by the biologization of race. This paper is going to delve into the argument on the validity of race based pharmaceuticals, starting with the creation of BiDil and going into the further research the FDA has conducted in order to push for the biologization of race, and whether this is a applicable process, or if the companies are simply exploiting an archaic and invalid idea of a genetic separation of the races to promote their products.
Theory: Political economy of health theory is a theory that is shaped by political, economic, and socio-historical powers. The theory explains how these driving forces shape health problems in the world and how we also deal with these problems. Race is a very powerful political topic and since the United States was established there have been many disparities in the medical world for people of color. Using this theory to analyze the FDA’s choice at marketing pharmaceutical drugs towards one type of race, I am going to question what is the driving force behind this decision and why it is an ill-conceived notion to create medicines that only work at benefiting one specific race.
Bibliography:

Azoulay, Katya G.

2006 Reflections on Race and the Biologization of Difference. Patterns of Prejudice 40(4-5):353-79. 

Brody, Howard, and Lina Hunt

2006 BiDil: Assessing a Race-Based Pharmaceutical. Annals of Family Medicine 4(6):556-60.

Fujimura, Joan H., and Troy Duster, Ramy Rajagopalan

2008 Race, Genetics, and Disease: Questions of Evidence, Matters of Consequence. Social Studies of Science 38(5):643-56.

Harris, David E., and Eve A. Raimon

1998 What is “Race”? A Transdisciplinary Course / A Pedagogical Challenge. College Teaching 46(2):68-71.

Holden, Constance

            2003 Race and Medicine. Science 302:594-96.

Kahn, Johnathan

2013 Race in a Bottle: The Story of BiDil and Racialized Medicine in a Post-Genomic Age. New York: Columbia University Press. 

Melvin, Roxanne

2012 Open Door to Pharmaceutical Shortcuts: How the FDA can Regulate Race-Based Personalized Medicine. Health, Law, & Policy Brief 6(1):25-33.

Roberts, Dorothy

2006 Legal Constraints on the Use of Race in Biomedical Research: Toward a Social Justice Framework. Journal of Law, Medicine, & Ethics 24(3):526-34.

2008 Is Race-Based Medicine Good for Us?: African American- Approaches to Race, Biomedicine, and Equality. Journal of Law, Medicine, & Ethics 36(3):537-45.

2011 What’s Wrong with Race-Based Medicine?: Genes, Drugs, and Health Disparaties. Minnesota Journal of Law, Science, & Technology 12(1):1-21.

Van der Geest, Sjaak, and Susan R. Whyte, Anita Hardon

1996 The Anthropology of Pharmaceuticals: A Biographical Approach. Annual Review of Anthropology 25:153-78.

KKK Now Accepting Membership of Non-Whites

Ran across this article this morning.  It would make an interesting add campaign for state tourism boards.  "Washington State:  Where the Pot is Legal and even our Klan is Slightly Progressive!" One person quoted in the interview nailed it.  Pure farce.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ku-klux-klan-opens-its-doors-hispanic-blacks-jews-gays-1473907

Topic

Title:  Transforming Women of Color.

Topic: The transformation of women of color through the liminal phase.

Theory:

My paper will focus on the theory of Liminality in accordance to liminality defined by Victor Turner.  In his research, Turner describes liminality as a period in which one lives in opposing realities. The realities that I will use in my paper, will be that of women identifying as a person of color while attempting to thrive in an opposing society.  It is in his research paper “Liminality and Communitas,”  That Turner further defines those in the liminal stage  as being “neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremony” (1969: 95). I will expand his theory of liminality by attributing it to how women of color use this liminal phase to secure a better socio economic status. I will also incorporate the theory of double bind described by Gegory Bateson. In his theory, Bateson defines double bind as an error in communication when an individual receives two opposing messages. The two opposing messages received by women of color that I will expand on will be; pressures from their kin groups to maintain their culture identity and pressures from society to transform into an identity that is normalized by a collective social consciousness.

Elevator Pitch:

            The purpose of my research paper will be to assess the issues and effects of liminality in women of color; while also incorporating other theories. Historically, women of color have had to face many hardships, as a result of being not only women, but also of color; because of this, they have also been ascribed to a low socioeconomic status. It is in my paper that I will grasp a better understanding of how women of color are able to raise their socio-economic status through a period of liminality. I will also explore how women of color are able to maintain or abandon their identity of belonging to a distinctive cultural group while desiring to be a member in an opposing culture. In the attempt to fit into society standards, the liminal phase can either positive or negative.  My paper will examine the effects of liminality in women of color, the importance of liminality, how it is maintained and supported.

                                                                 

References/ Bibliography:

1.      Comas-Diaz, Lillian and Greene, Beverly

                        2013 Psychological Health of Women of Color: Intersections, Challenges, and                         Opportunities: Praeger Press

2.      Gabe, Jonathan and Warner, Joanne

                        2004 Risk and Liminality in Mental Heal Social Work Health, Risk& Society 6(4)                               387-399

3.      Jospeh, Gloria I. and Lewis, Jill

                        1999 Common Differences: Conflicts in Black and White Feminist Perspectives:                                  South End Press

4.      Mendible, Myra

                        2009 From Bananas to Buttocks: The Latina Body in Popular Film and Culture:                                   University of Texas Press

5.      Rubenstein, Jeffrey

                        1992 Purim, Liminality, and Communitas. AJS Review,17(2):247-277

6.      Turner, Victor

                        1969 Liminality and Communitas. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure                            94-113, 125:30

Creole Racial Identity: The creation and denotation of racial identity regarding the Louisiana creole

Creole Racial Identity: The creation and denotation of racial identity regarding the Louisiana creole

Bibliography:

Chaplin, Joyce E.

2006. Creoles in British America: From Denial to Acceptance. In Creolization: History, Ethnography, Theory. Stewart, Charles ed. pg 46-66. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press       

Dawdy, Shannon Lee

2000. Understanding Cultural Change Through the Vernacular: Creolization in Louisiana. Historical Archaeology 34(3): 107-123.

Jolivette, Andrew J.

2007    Including Native Identity in the Creole of Color Movement: Ethnic Renewal and Cultural Revival within a Black-Indian Population. In Louisiana Creoles: Cultural Recovery and Mixed-race Native American Identity. Pg 11-27. Lanham, MD: The Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

Loomba, Ania

1998    Colonialism-Postcolonialism. London: Routledge

Mosadomi, Fehintola

2000    The Origin of Louisiana Creole. In Creole: The History and Legacy of Louisiana’s Free People of Color. Kein, Sybil, ed. Pg 223-243. Lousiana State University Press.  

Zackodnik, Teresa C.

2004    Fixing the Color Line: The Mulatta, American Courts, and the Racial Imaginary. In                 Mulatta and the Politics of Race. pg 3-42. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

Elevator Pitch:
Although the term creole applies to many different cultures, the Louisiana creole carried definitive racial implications from it's very creation.  The historical and modern identities of the creole demonstrate the transformation of this term from negative to positive connotations. This brings into question who exactly can be labeled and identify with the term creole in Louisiana, as well as what it actually means to be creole.

Theory:

I will be utilizing the postcolonial theory as a basis for my research, as the development of creole culture is directly related to colonialism.  I will take much of my approach from Ania Loomba and her book “Colonialism-Postcolonialism”, in which she explains how colonialism created the identities of many different cultures through merging other cultures together, which resulted in the emergence and formation of postcolonial cultures. This will help to demonstrate how the creole culture was created, as well as the new racial identification which compose(d) the creole was created. 

The Stigmatization of Race and Diseases: How America's view on Epidemics have targeted immigrants and racialized minorities

1. Title: The Stigmatization of Race and Diseases: How America's view on Epidemics have targeted
immigrants and racialized minorities

2. Bibliography 

Castro, Arachu and Farmer, Paul 

            2005 Understanding and Addressing AIDS- Related Stigma: From Anthropological Theory                 to Clinical Practice in Haiti. American Journal of Public Heath 95(1): 53-59

Farmer, Paul 

             1996 Social Inequalities and Emerging Infectious Diseases. Emerging Infectious Disease                    2 (4):259-269

Farmer, Paul 

             2006 AIDS & ACCUSTATION: Hati and the Geography of Blame. California: University                  of California Press

Farmer, Paul 

             1999 Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues. California: University of California                  Press 

Ifedi, Rosarie I 

             Situating Our Racialized Beings in the Race Talk in the U.S: African-born Blacks, Our                                 Racializationand Some Implications for Education. Woodring College of Education; Journal of                      Educational Controversy.                                                         http://www.wce.wwu.edu/Resources/CEP/eJournal/v005n002/a003.shtml, 

           Accessed November 7^th, 2014 

Seay, Laura and Yi Dionne, Kim

             The long and ugly tradition of treating Africa as a dirty, diseased place. The Washington                       Post:August 25

3. Elevator Pitch

      With the recent media being placed on the Ebola outbreak in West African Countries, the  stigmatization of immigrants entering the United States and some who have already been in the country before the outbreak has caused the disease to become an issue about race instead of health. This stigmatization of diseases in race has occurred before with immigrant populations in the past. For my research presentation I would like to show how  stigmatizing diseases among racial groups has happened multiple times with epidemics causing many to get sick in the United States and how it has created a stigma among racial groups. I will be using much of Paul Farmers publications to compare how AIDS in Haiti caused a racialized stigma among black communities in the United States. Also past epidemics with Irish Immigrants with Tuberculosis, Asian Immigrants and the plague, and  I will compare it to the Ebola outbreak and how even in the past this disease has racialized and stigmatized African immigrants and black communities.

4. Theory


The theories I will be using in my presentation will come from Sociologist Erving Goffman. The social theory between stigma and disease. This theory was found in an article written by Paul Farmer in his own theory of the Stigma of AIDS in Hati."Goffman defined stigma as the identification that a social group creates of a person ( of group of people ) based on some physical, behavioral, or social trait perceived as being divergent from group norms. This  socially constructed identification lays groundwork for subsequent disqualification of membership from a group in which that person was originally included". (Paul 54) I also would like to incorporate the anthropological theories of Clifford Geertz and his study on symbols and meaning in cultures to explain how diseases are viewed in the racialized culture of America where looking at a person of color stigmatizes them for being a conduit of a disease they are less likely to contract. Where it is the study of socioeconomic levels that leave people more susceptible than the color of their skin.
While conducting further research I would like add that I will be including the anthropological theory of Structural Violence to explain how Africa has been racialized and stigmatized.

Research Topic

1. Title: Off to the Races: How Sports Have Shaped our Views of Race

2. References:

Burdsey, Daniel, ed.

2011 Race, Ethnicity and Football: Persisting Debates and Emergent Issues. New York: Routledge.

Carrington, Ben

2010 Race, Sport and Politics: The Sporting Black Diaspora. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.

Hoberman, John

1997 Darwin’s Athletes: How Sport has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Long, Jonathan, and Spracklen Karl, eds.

2011 Sport and Challenges to Racism. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Shropshire, Kenneth L.

1996 In Black and White: Race and Sports in America. New York: New York University Press.

3. Elevator Pitch: It is now widely accepted by anthropologists and biologists that there are no physical differences between races. However, heavy segregation is still present in some sports, even at a professional level. This segregation continues to fuel beliefs among the public that certain races are naturally better at some sports than others. The purpose of my research is to examine the causes of this continued segregation and identify the driving factors that influence the public’s perceived differences of professional athletes.

4. The theoretical position that is guiding my thinking is Critical Race Theory, which first appeared in American law schools during the 1980’s. Critical Race Theory focuses on examining race, law, and power as they are reflected in society and culture. An element of this theory is that it seeks to challenge ideas about color blindness, race neutrality, and equal opportunity. I will use this aspect and other aspects of Critical Race Theory to take a more in-depth approach to examining how athletes, managers, coaches and recruiters are affected by, and continue to perpetuate, the racialization of sport. Major advocates for this theory include Derrick Bell, one of the founders of Critical Race Theory, and Kevin Hylton, author of ‘“Race” and Sport: Critical Race Theory.’