Browsing by Subject "Racial justice"
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Item A different world [than where you come from] : examining the experiences of Black undergraduate students at predominately White institutions amid the dual pandemics(2023-04-18) Webster, Travette Ann; Garces, Liliana M.; Brownson, Chris; Pierce Burnette, Colette; Reddick, Richard JIn 2020, society as we knew it changed drastically. A global health crisis that highlighted negative disproportionalities for people of color was exacerbated by a front-row seat to our generation's racial awakening. COVID-19 along with the public murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless others became known as the "dual pandemics" (Jones, 2021). Prior research identifies a relationship between racial discrimination at predominately White institutions (Feagin, 1992; Grier-Reed et al., 2021; Harper & Hurtado, 2007; Hurtado, 1992; E. Morales, 2021; Swim et al., 2003) and adverse psychological effects on Black (K. F. Anderson, 2013; Carter & Forsyth, 2010; Nadal et al., 2014). However, an extensive analysis of recent literature reveals that research has yet to consider how the current COVID-19 and racial justice pandemics (Madrigal & Blevins, 2021; J. Miller, 2020) affect Black undergraduate students. To this end, this research study explored the experiences and coping strategies of Black undergraduate students in the aftermath of the dual pandemics. The study used Racial Battle Fatigue (W. A. Smith et al., 2007) and coping (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) as conceptual frameworks, and employed qualitative methods – interviews and a written reflection – to examine seven Black undergraduate students enrolled at predominately White institutions. Analysis of the data reveals that the dual pandemics caused severe disorientation and isolation in Black college students. These students are not sheltered by their campus walls. Compounded by an anti-Black institutional climate is the awareness of everyday racism felt by simply being Black in America. As a result, participants described significant levels of anxiety, fatigue, and hypervigilance characterized by intense fear over the past three years. In response to race-based trauma, participants employed various effective coping strategies including cultural identity and collective activism, hope, talking with friends or family, and imitating modeled behavior. Avoidance was noted as an ineffective coping strategy. As a result of the pandemics, Black students showed an increase in problem-focused coping driven by a strong sense of responsibility and high cultural identity. Findings will raise awareness and guide university administrators, Black student organization advisors, faculty, and mental health personnel to taking a proactive role in helping students to mitigate the detrimental effects of race-based trauma at the college level.Item Activism and identity in the Somali community(2023-05-04) Nimmons, Elizabeth A.; Rodriguez, Néstor; Auyero, Javier; Weitzman, Abigail; Abdi, SaidaIn the wake of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department, the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan community quickly mobilized for racial justice. Critical to this uprising was the role of the Somali community in the Twin Cities. Once conscious of distancing themselves from Black Americans, Somalis began taking an active role in advancing the Black Lives Matter movement in Minnesota. This dissertation is a study of the connections between identity and activism in the Somali community following the rise of Black Lives Matter, and particularly, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. The project considers how race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, and generation intersect to shape the experiences of Somalis in the Twin Cities and how these various identities impact participation in activist causes. I find that that Somali identity is kaleidoscopic in nature, and while others (e.g., law enforcement) may perceive Somalis in a relational way, Somalis themselves understand their own identities to be constantly multifaceted and intersectional. Furthermore, Somalis do not reject their Blackness, but rather openly acknowledge the role of race in their own lives and those of their children. Critically, Somalis are keenly aware of the ways their race puts them at risk of violence from law enforcement. Data also show that while young Somali-American adults may not explicitly embrace an American identity, they embody this identity socio-politically, as evidenced by their inclusion in what sociologist Ruth Milkman calls the New Political Generation. In addition, my analyses point to intersections of identity and activism, particularly regarding Somalis’ Black and Muslim identities and the ways they influence ideological affinity with Black Lives Matter. By using the case of Somalis to examine activism through the lens of identity, I expand what we know about immigrant participation in social movements and bring new voices to the struggle for racial justice.Item Cultivating community : socially responsible pedagogy in the devising process(2015-05) Thomas, Emily Aguilar; Schroeder-Arce, Roxanne; Dawson, Kathryn; González-López, GloriaAccording to the U.S. Department of Justice, statistics show that young people are experiencing sexual violence at the hands of adults and often do not tell anyone about their experiences ("Reporting of Sexual Violence Incidents"). Weaving research and practice in sexual violence and Applied Theatre, this case study explores the process of building community among participants while learning through and about these key content areas. Through a devising process that worked toward creating an original Applied Theatre program for young audiences, the researcher interrogates how enacting socially responsible pedagogy informed the process and nurtured a learning community. Enacting a critically-engaged pedagogy, this document invites artists, practitioners and pedagogues to consider how a feminist pedagogy might shape a socially-engaged art-making process and incite participants to take constructive action in their communities.Item The dialectic of blackness and full citizenship : a case study of Haitian migration to the Dominican Republic(2016-05) Romain, Jheison Vladimir; Smith, Christen A., 1977-; Arroyo, JossiannaIn 2015 the Dominican Republic enforced a series of measures to expel undocumented Haitian immigrants and unregistered Dominicans of Haitian descent. As a result, thousands of people of Haitian descent became "illegal", deportable subjects forced to either return to Haiti or live in hiding in the Dominican Republic. This thesis presents a theoretical and ethnographic reflection on this most recent citizenship crisis between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Migration carried out despite legal restrictions can be considered a modern form of resistance against racialized and historically defined social structures that disproportionately affect impoverished black people of Haitian descent. How have restrictions on migration and immigration gradually crystallized the lives of black people as less valuable than those of whites and others who fit-in with white, Eurocentric values? During a time in which international migration has gained a great deal of worldwide prominence, the question of citizenship and belonging for people of Haitian descent living in the Dominican Republic is a window that provides insights into the politics of illegality that have been mobilized to justify the abuse and even the killing of people who have violated established rules of border crossing. Grounded in ethnographic research carried out in the Dominican Republic and Haiti from May to July of 2015, this thesis draws on the work of Sylvia Wynter (2007), Charles W. Mills (1999), and John Rawls (1971) to contemplate the ways in which the social and economic exclusion of black people of Haitian descent has been historically promoted and justified. Further, engaging the theories of Aviva Chomsky (2004), Abdias do Nascimento (1980) and Neil Roberts (2015), the thesis argues that undocumented migration is 21st century marronage – a mode of resistance, through flight, against oppressive socio-economic structures.