Savior of the Race: The Messianic Burdens of Black Masculinity

Exchange ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald B. Neal
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
North America ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Black Masculinity ◽  
Protestant Christianity ◽  
African American Communities

Abstract This paper is concerned with the messianic construction of manhood within African American communities in North America and its normative imprint in shaping and measuring masculinity among African Americans. In this essay, messianic manhood is treated as a utopian construction of masculinity that is found in liberal and conservative constructions of Protestant Christianity. In examining this tradition of manhood, representative messianic men are interrogated who have participated in and have been shaped by this tradition. Overall, messianic manhood is inconceivable apart from an oral tradition of preaching and singing where the person of Jesus is understood as Lord, savior, and ally of the oppressed.

Reducing Police Brutality in African American Communities: Potential Roles for Social Workers in Congregations

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 66-84
Author(s):  
Betty Wilson ◽  
Terry A. Wolfer
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
General Public ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
Police Brutality ◽  
Religious Congregations ◽  
Predominantly Black ◽  
African American Communities ◽  
White Congregations

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.

The 7th Lawrence R. Schehr Memorial Award Winning Essay

2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Katelyn Knox
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Black Male ◽  
Black Masculinity ◽  
Young Black Male ◽  
Award Winning ◽  
African American Communities ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Memorial Award ◽  
Musical Elements

Popular music abounds in Afropean literature, yet to date scholars have primarily read novels’ musical elements through author biography. In this article, I focus narrowly on the rich musical peritexts and musico-literary intermediality of two novels by Insa Sané: Du plomb dans le crâne (2008) and Daddy est mort…: Retour à Sarcelles (2010). In addition to the abundant diegetic musical references, both novels also feature two structural musical layers. I argue that these three musical elements constitute critical sites through which the novels’ narratives, which center around young, black, male protagonists who seek to escape vicious circles of violence through recognition, emerge. Ultimately, these novels’ musical elements situate the narratives’ discussions of black masculinity within much broader conversations transpiring between French and African American communities, thereby providing a much larger cultural genealogy to supplement the characters’ fraught literal ones.

The Formation of the Black Medical Movement and Its Implications for Social Work, Part I: African American Physicians

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabienne Snowden
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Social Work ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Medical Training ◽  
Historical Review ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
The United States ◽  
Practice Research ◽  
The World ◽  
African American Communities

“The world cannot progress beyond its present impasse...unless we begin to learn again what really happened in the world...to give credit where credit is due and have a different conception of the human being regardless of the race or color of that human.”-Sertima, 1986Background:Health deficits have been present among Black and African American communities since having been brought to and enslaved in the United States. Black Americans have a legacy of finding ways to make ways to acquire the resources and access to medical care desperately needed among their communities. However, the narrative of how these communities gained access to medical methods, education, and training is largely neglected in the context of social work or in social work education.Objective:This historical review examines the efforts and accomplishments of African Americans to acquire medical training and resources to address the health disparities among their own and neighboring communities in need.Methods:Thematic analysis is used to investigate the existence of efforts of African Americans to acquire access to medical resources.Findings:The findings of this analysis identify that the efforts and achievements of Blacks and African Americans to acquire medical training and resources culminate in the Black Medical Movement (1788-Present).Conclusions:This existence of the Black Medical Movement presents at least four implications for the social work profession. A brief background of the genesis of health deficits among African American communities of provided, then followed by a description of the Black Medical Movement from its inception to present. This analysis concludes with a call to interrupt systems of oppression by using the presented findings to inform social work ways of knowing, practice, research, and approaches to social justice.

A Family Long Free

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally McKee
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
North America ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Emancipation Proclamation ◽  
History Of ◽  
High Level ◽  
Free African Americans ◽  
The City ◽  
And Training

This chapter argues that no family embodies the anomalous history of New Orleans better than the Dede family. Of all the towns and cities in North America with populations of free African Americans, the chapter goes on to argue, New Orleans was the city most likely to have produced a black man like Edmond Dede—possessed of enough talent, ambition, and training to launch himself up to a high level of accomplishment. Only in New Orleans could African American families trace their family's history back beyond 1864, the year the Emancipation Proclamation took effect. Contrary to later reports that Edmond Dede was the son of West Indian refugees, he in fact belonged instead to a long-established family with roots in North America.

scholarly journals Time to Tell

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-151
Author(s):  
Dennis Ray Knight
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
James Baldwin ◽  
African American Communities

If he is known for anything other than his writings, James Baldwin is best known for his work as a civil rights activist. What is often overlooked is Baldwin’s work toward uniting two under-represented and oppressed groups: African Americans and homosexuals. With his first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, Baldwin began a career of speaking about and for homosexuals and their relationship with the institutions of African-American communities. Through its focus on a sensitive, church-going teenager, Go Tell It on the Mountain dramatizes the strain imposed upon homosexual members of African-American communities within the Pentecostal Church through its religious beliefs.

Free Black Communities and the Underground Railroad

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheryl Janifer LaRoche
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Black Communities ◽  
Oral Histories ◽  
Underground Railroad ◽  
Landscape Features ◽  
Fugitive Slaves ◽  
Free Black ◽  
African American Communities

This enlightening study employs the tools of archaeology to uncover a new historical perspective on the Underground Railroad. Unlike previous histories of the Underground Railroad, which have focused on frightened fugitive slaves and their benevolent abolitionist accomplices, this book focuses instead on free African American communities, the crucial help they provided to individuals fleeing slavery, and the terrain where those flights to freedom occurred. This book foregrounds several small, rural hamlets on the treacherous southern edge of the free North in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. It demonstrates how landscape features such as waterways, iron forges, and caves played a key role in the conduct and effectiveness of the Underground Railroad. Rich in oral histories, maps, memoirs, and archaeological investigations, this examination of the “geography of resistance” tells the new, powerful, and inspiring story of African Americans ensuring their own liberation in the midst of oppression.

scholarly journals The Excess Burden of Cytomegalovirus in African American Communities: A Geospatial Analysis

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul M. Lantos ◽  
Sallie R. Permar ◽  
Kate Hoffman ◽  
Geeta K. Swamy
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Opportunistic Infections ◽  
Cmv Infection ◽  
Lower Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Lower Socioeconomic ◽  
High Prevalence ◽  
Duke University ◽  
African American Communities

Abstract Background.  Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is a common cause of birth defects and hearing loss in infants and opportunistic infections in the immunocompromised. Previous studies have found higher CMV seroprevalence rates among minorities and among persons with lower socioeconomic status. No studies have investigated the geographic distribution of CMV and its relationship to age, race, and poverty in the community. Methods.  We identified patients from 6 North Carolina counties who were tested in the Duke University Health System for CMV immunoglobulin G. We performed spatial statistical analyses to analyze the distributions of seropositive and seronegative individuals. Results.  Of 1884 subjects, 90% were either white or African American. Cytomegalovirus seropositivity was significantly more common among African Americans (73% vs 42%; odds ratio, 3.31; 95% confidence interval, 2.7–4.1), and this disparity persisted across the life span. We identified clusters of high and low CMV odds, both of which were largely explained by race. Clusters of high CMV odds were found in communities with high proportions of African Americans. Conclusions.  Cytomegalovirus seropositivity is geographically clustered, and its distribution is strongly determined by a community's racial composition. African American communities have high prevalence rates of CMV infection, and there may be a disparate burden of CMV-associated morbidity in these communities.

scholarly journals Dementia-Friendly America Recognition: Strategies for Urban, African American Communities

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 268-268
Author(s):  
Susan Frick ◽  
Raj Shah ◽  
Tarisha Washington
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Urban Communities ◽  
The United States ◽  
Rural Regions ◽  
Key Characteristics ◽  
Diverse Communities ◽  
African American Communities ◽  
Workforce Engagement

Abstract Dementia-Friendly America is a network of communities across the United States who have committed to a process to support people living with dementia and their caregivers. Through technical support from Dementia Friendly Illinois, CATCH-ON, a HRSA Geriatric Workforce Engagement Program, has identified key characteristics for the 17 communities in Illinois achieving national recognition and for communities that have engaged but not yet achieved national recognition. In addition to communities in rural regions, urban communities with a large number of African Americans residents have necessitated more grassroots engagement than other communities. Partnerships are vital for providing information and education about the movement and for supporting multi-sectoral engagement. This presentation highlights barriers and facilitators in diverse communities, particularly urban African American communities, becoming recognized by Dementia Friendly America.

scholarly journals Hidden Voices and Gothic Undertones: Slavery and Folklore of the American South

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Dos Reis Dos Santos
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
American South ◽  
West African ◽  
Joel Chandler Harris ◽  
American Folklore ◽  
The American South ◽  
Enslaved African Americans ◽  
Folk Stories

African American folklore embodies themes of the Tropical Gothic. It has an air of mystery as it has a deeper meaning underneath the different layers of plot. Folklore of the American South represents the darkness of the slavery period and its implications for African Americans. This article discusses two folklore collections: Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings: The Folk lore of the Old Plantation by Joel Chandler Harris, and From My People: 400 Years of Folklore by Daryl Cumber Dance. Both collections illuminate the ways in which West African oral tradition became a source of empowerment, courage and wisdom for the enslaved African Americans. Folk stories served as a means of silent resistance and preserved the cultural heritage of African Americans.

scholarly journals “Place” in the Small Stories of African American Elders: A Narrative Case Study

2019 ◽  
Vol 60 (5) ◽  
pp. 821-830 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate De Medeiros ◽  
Gwendolyn Etter-Lewis
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Place Identity ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
The Great Migration ◽  
Small Stories ◽  
Dominant Narratives ◽  
Design And Methods

Abstract Background and Objectives Although there is a rich literature on place and home within gerontology, few studies have considered how place acts as identity markers for older African Americans. Since narratives and stories represent ways of expressing self and identity through ordered talk, they offer an interesting way to consider how people age biographically such as through links between place and self. Research Design and Methods We analyzed small stories (i.e., stories that can appear as snippets of talk immersed within a larger narrative) from five African Americans (three women, two men, ages 78–93 years) to better understand “place” in the context of their lives. Results Overall, place in participants’ small stories was linked to the African American oral tradition and, for some, the Great Migration (1915–1970) from south to north. Place identity in the small stories therefore went beyond fond reminisce and instead became a type of resistance to dominant narratives of place. Discussion and Implications Studying small stories can therefore be an important tool in better understanding deeply personal experiences of place for under-represented elders.

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