Obama the 'Magic Negro'
The Illinois senator lends himself to white America's idealized, less-than-real black man.
Sociologists Explore “Emotional Labor” of Black Professionals in the Workplace
BOSTON — Black professionals make extra efforts in the workplace to fulfill what they believe are the expectations of their white colleagues, according to research to be presented today at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA).
Sociologists Marlese Durr of Wright State University and her co-author Adia Harvey Wingfield of Georgia State University argue that black professionals engage in two types of “emotional performance” in the workplace: General etiquette and racialized emotion maintenance.
December 17, 2008
Growing Income Gap among U.S. Families Suggests Increasing Economic Insecurity, Threat to Middle Class
WASHINGTON, DC — The incomes of American families with children have become increasingly stratified since 1975, with income inequality increasing two-thirds during a 30-year period, according to findings published in the December issue of the peer-reviewed science journal American Sociological Review.
“The gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ is widening for families with children in the United States,” said Bruce Western, the study’s lead author and professor of sociology and director of the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy at Harvard University. “Inequality for these families has grown faster than the combined rates of inequality for all families and for men’s hourly wages.”
Anthony Greenwald, PhD
IN-PROGRESS MANUSCRIPTS & CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
American fourth- and eighth-grade students made solid achievement gains in math in recent years and in two states showed spectacular progress, an international survey of student achievement released on Tuesday found. Science performance was flat.
Their first observation was that the number of sexual partners an individual claimed did correlate with that individual’s “gender identity”. The more feminine a man, the more masculine a woman, the higher the hit rate with the opposite sex—though women of all gender identities reported fewer partners than men did. (This paradox is normal in such studies. It probably reflects either male boasting or female bashfulness, but though it affects totals it does not seem to affect trends.)
When the relationships between twins were included in the statistical analysis (all genes in common for identical twins; a 50% overlap for the non-identical) the team was able to show that both atypical gender identity and its influence on the number of people of the opposite sex an individual claimed to have seduced were under a significant amount of genetic control. More directly, the study showed that heterosexuals with a homosexual twin tend to have more sexual partners than heterosexuals with a heterosexual twin.
According to the final crunching of the numbers, genes explain 27% of an individual’s gender identity and 59% of the variation in the number of sexual partners that people have. The team also measured the genetic component of sexual orientation and came up with a figure of 47%—more or less the same, therefore, as that from previous studies. The idea that it is having fecund relatives that sustains homosexuality thus looks quite plausible.
American Religious Identification Survey
Principal Investigators
Professor Barry A. Kosmin & Professor Egon Mayer Study Director
Dr. Ariela Keysar
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to acknowledge the dedicated professional collaboration of ICR - International Communications Research Corp. (Media, PA). Our thanks go especially to John DeWolf, Christopher Dinardo, Dale Kulp and their associates, who provided matchless and untiring collegial assistance in all phases of sampling, data collection, and data file preparation, further enhancing the fine reputation for quality research they had established in carrying out the National Survey of Religious Identification (NSRI) 1990.
This study was made possible by the generous support of the Posen Foundation.
List of Exhibits
1. Self-Described Religious Identification of U.S. Adult Population - 1990 and 2001
2. Household Membership in Church, Temple, Synagogue, or Mosque for Selected Religious Groups
3. Outlook of U.S. Adult Population: Religious or Secular
4. Outlook of U.S. Adult Men and Women: Religious or Secular
5. Outlook of U.S. Adults by Age: Religious or Secular
6. Outlook of Selected Race & Ethnic Groups of U.S. Adults: Religious or Secular
7. Switching In and Out Reported by Adults for Selected Religious Groups: Number of Adults by Current and Prior Religious Identification
8. Marital Status of Adult Population by Selected Religious Group
9. Percentage Divorced or Separated by Selected Religious Groups, 1990-2001
10. Percentage of Mixed Religion Families in Selected Religious Groups
11. Age and Gender Patterns of Selected Religious Groups, 2001
12. Age and Gender Patterns of Selected Religious Groups, 1990
13. Race and Ethnic Patterns Among Selected Religious Groups, 2001
14. Political Party Preference by Selected Religious Group
15. Distribution of Selected Religious Groups by State
Lashkar-e-Taiba (Urdu: لشكرِ طيبه laškar-ĕ ṯaiyyiba, literally Army of the Pure or Righteous, also transliterated as Lashkar-i-Tayyaba, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba or Lashkar-i-Taiba) is one of the largest and most active Islamic terrorist organizations in South Asia. The group was founded by Hafiz Muhammad Saeed in Afghanistan’s Kunar province in the late 1980s becoming especially active after 1993 and has close ties to Al-Qaeda. The aim of the group is the end of Indian rule in Kashmir and establishment of an Islamic caliphate in Central Asia.
Indian and American officials are now reporting that the Mumbai attackers seem to have connections to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistan-based Islamist organization. Among other analytical clues, over the weekend, one anonymous American official quoted in the Washington Post noted that Lashkar has a known “maritime” capability. I’m not sure how much seaworthiness a group needs to demonstrate in order to be labeled “maritime” terrorists, but I can testify to the existence of Lashkar’s pontoon boat fleet, as I was not too long ago a passenger on that line.
Proposition 209 was passed by referendum in California in 1996. After legal challenges were settled, the proposition went into effect in 1997. The 1998 freshman class within the University of California system was the first to feel the effects of the ban on affirmative action.
Compared to the previous year, the UCLA freshman class of 1998 had 42 percent fewer black students, 33 percent fewer Latino students and 62 percent fewer Native American students.
Once black PhD’s are hired at predominantly white colleges, they appear to encounter the same old racism that generations of earlier African-American scholars faced within white institutions. From 1993 to 2003, the number of African-Americans in tenured faculty positions increased by 20 percent, up from 10,555 to 12,707; however, the percentage of African-American faculty who have been awarded tenure has actually declined, from 40.8 percent in 1993 down to 38.1 percent in 2003. At least 70 percent of all black PhD’s aren’t even employed in full-time jobs. They hold part-time, adjunct and half-time positions, many of which have no pensions or medical benefits.
Jarring statistics about UCLA's freshman class this year testify to Prop 209's devastating impact on diversity in higher education. Only 100 African-Americans enrolled--2 percent of the 4,802 total and twenty-five fewer than last year. Twenty of those 100 were recruited athletes. This year's number is the lowest in more than thirty years--particularly troubling considering that the percentage of African-American applicants who meet minimum requirements to be considered eligible for admission to the University of California system has risen steadily in the past decade. "That is the strongest evidence of an anti-civil rights and anti-equal opportunity measure," says the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
