Between Empirical Data and Anti-Blackness: A Critical Perspective on Anti-Asian Hate Crimes and Hate Incidents

While women are more likely to report a hate incident to the StopAAPIHate reporting site, multiple sources of data show that men are as likely or more likely to experience a hate incident than women. [...]Asian Critical Theory (or AsianCrit) allows us to examine how race and racism affect the lives of Asian Americans within US society.5 Through this theoretical lens, we can better understand our unique racialization as Asian Americans;this racialization positions us as both model minorities and perpetual outsiders to US society. [...]even if not always dominant, the interspersal of images of Black-on-Asian-crime in coverage of anti-Asian violence tends to emphasize physical assaults by Black individuals, thereby playing on commonly accepted racist stereotypes of Black criminality.10 And while we may recognize that dominant discourses of safety and its antithesis (e.g., with regard to anti-Asian violence) are rooted in white supremacy and anti-Blackness (Jenkins 2021), most critiques of anti-Asian violence rarely examine the interconnections between them.11 For this reason, a large part of our paper calls for a critical racial analysis of widely circulating narratives around racist incidents against Asian Americans and their racialization as non-Black people of color. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND NARRATIVE CONTEXT In January and February of 2020, the first cases of COVID-19 in the United States were detected by public health agencies.12 The source of the virus was likely China (ibid), but the World Health Organization advised media organizations not to "attach locations or ethnicity" to the disease to avoid stigmatizing ethnic groups.

Shared Perspectives of Strength Among Black Women Social Work Educators in a Global Pandemic

Social work faculty have had to manage the complexities of delivering quality education amid the coronavirus pandemic. While some faculty had support from their institution, factors of service, scholarship, student advising, and technology capacity became meaningful lessons for faculty development. The authors relied on strength as a mechanism to navigate through this unprecedented time. Strong Black Woman (SBW) schema and resilience theory are the anchors of this continuum on opposite sides. The shared perspectives of three Black women faculty as (a) an instructor with an administrative appointment, (b) a teaching fellow, and (c) an adjunct instructor at varying institutions will demonstrate how the SBW schema and resilience theory have guided their ability to adapt to changes during the global pandemic.

Suffering, the Safety Net, and Disparities During COVID-19

The economic and public health crisis caused by COVID-19 was devastating and disproportionately hurt Blacks and Hispanics and some other groups. Unemployment rates and other measures of material hardship were higher and increased more during the crisis among Blacks and Hispanics than among non-Hispanic Whites. Congress authorized a historic policy response, incorporating both targeted and universal supports, and expanding both the level and duration of benefits. This response yielded the remarkable result of an estimated decline in the Supplemental Poverty Measure between 2019 and 2020. We study administrative data to investigate the impact of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) during the crisis. We find that participation in SNAP increased more in counties that experienced a larger employment shock. By contrast, the increase in total SNAP benefits was inversely related to the employment shock. The SNAP benefit increases were less generous to Black and Hispanic SNAP participants than to White.

Development of an Individualized Responsive Feeding Coaching Intervention

OBJECTIVES/GOALS: Responsive infant feeding (RIF) promotes healthy dietary patterns and infant weight gain. Research is needed to assist caregivers recognize infant hunger/satiety cues and overcome barriers to using RIF. The Learning Early Infant Feeding Cues (LEIFc) intervention was designed to fill this gap by using a validated coaching approach to promote RIF. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: Guided by the Obesity-Related Behavioral Intervention Trials (ORBIT) model, this proof-of-concept study tests the feasibility and fidelity of the LEIFc intervention in mother-infant dyads (N=25). Study visits from the 3rd trimester of pregnancy to 4 months postpartum (PP) are conducted in family homes. Use of RIF via subjective (survey) and objective (video) measures is collected at 1 and 4 months PP. Prenatally written and video material on infant feeding and infant hunger/satiety cues is provided. At 2 and 3 months PP, coaching during a feeding session is provided by a trained interventionist using the SS-OO-PP-RR (super, Setting the Stage, Observation & Opportunities, Problem Solving & Planning, Reflection & Review) approach. Qualitative data on LEIFc are provided by the interventionist and participants. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: To date 25 dyads have been enrolled and 4 have completed all study visits. Preliminary analyses showed that subjective measure of awareness of infant cues increased post intervention (pre, M=4.38 vs post, M=4.63). LEIFc has been well accepted by participants including use of the SS-OO-PP-RR approach. Data suggests refinement to LEIFc is needed to include breastfeeding and mental health support as well as a longer duration of intervention through at least 6 months PP. An experienced interventionist is key to success of the research. All lost to follow-up (n=7) have occurred before the first PP visit suggesting that at study visit closer to birth is needed. Enrollment will continue through December 2022 and data collection through April 2023. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE: After refinement, the LEIFc intervention will be tested in a pilot RCT. The long-term goal is to implement LEIFc in the curricula of federally funded maternal-child home visiting programs who serve vulnerable populations;those that often have infant feeding practices that do not align with recommendations and are less likely to use RIF.

Traumatic pediatric firearm injuries during the COVID-19 pandemic

Statement of Purpose: The purpose of this study is to epidemiologically describe firearms injuries treated at a Level 1 pediatric trauma center occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic and compare them to injuries seen in the year prior.Methods: This is a retrospective chart review of patients seen by pediatric trauma surgery for a firearm injury between February 1, 2019 and March 30, 2021;the pre-pandemic time period included February 1, 2019 – March 9, 2020 and the pandemic period included March 10, 2020 – March 31, 2021. We excluded patients with firearms injuries that were not assessed by trauma surgery and patients with injuries from non-powder guns.Results: Twenty-eight patients were seen for firearm injuries in the pre-pandemic period;22 (78.5%) were male, and the mean age was 13.3 years, with 17.8% of patients < 10 years old. Sixteen (57.1%) were black, 8 (28.6%) white, and 4 (14.3%) multiracial. The pandemic period included 80 patients with firearm injuries, with 59 (74%) male, and a mean age of 12.5 years. Seventeen (21.5%) were < 10 years old. Fifty-six (70%) of patients during the pandemic period were black, 15 (20%) white, 6 (7.5%) multiracial, and 2 (2.5%) Hispanic. There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups demographically. No patients were identified as having an intentional self-inflicted firearm injury.Conclusion: While there was a nearly threefold increase in pediatric firearm injuries seen during the pandemic, the demographics of the victims have not changed compared to pre-pandemic patterns. This reflects a need for ongoing and targeted preventive measures to reduce these extremely high-risk injuries.Key Take Away Points [list] [list] [list_item] Since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a pandemic from the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19), there has been a dramatic increase in the number of pediatric firearm injuries identified when compared to the preceding year. [/list_item] [list_item] A continued pattern of racial distribution before and during the pandemic with black children being overrepresented in the population with firearm injury as compared to all injuries seen was identified, with an overwhelming majority of firearm injuries occurring in urban areas. [/list_item] [list_item] The profound escalation of firearm injury in the pediatric population during the pandemic demonstrates the critical need for intensive community intervention and prevention efforts. [/list_item] [/list]

In The Wake: Black Girl Lessons on Collective Care

This article centers Black girl leadership as a survival guide in this unprecedented moment of combating two pandemics, Covid-19 and extrajudicial killings of Black people. I recall lessons learned during my ethnographic research with Black girls in Chicago in which loss and grieving was often and premature. This piece is a response to Christina Sharpe's "wake work” conceptualization that challenges the collective care Black people specifically must engage both with our living and dead.

Did COVID-19 Make Me an Afro-Pessimist? A Conversation in Three Parts

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage and disproportionately affect BIPOC, we keep count of the death toll around the world, in the U.S., in our own communities and in our own families. How can we have a "wish to live,” while so many around us die? Does a space exist between fateful (faithful) optimism present in Aretha Franklin's, "Mary Don't You Weep?” and the ever-present power structure, that as Reverend Al Sharpton noted, has always had its knee on our necks? More concretely, how do we reconcile what Aisha Durham discusses as "weathering and wounded,” as we sit in the space of being both and not wanting to endure much more. This piece articulates some of the conversations that we have stumbled upon, worked through and raged against from the space of our collective homes and fatigued spirits. It addresses notions of Afro-Pessimism and the intersection of Black Feminist Theory, the role that grief plays in Black Feminist praxis, the role of Diaspora in the historical imagination, and asks the question, "Did COVID and the state-sanctioned killings of Black people make us Afro-Pessimists?”

Black Women, Black Girls, and the Covid-19 Pandemic: An Autoethnography of a Health Disparity

This is an autoethnographic essay that explores how the Covid-19 pandemic affect(ed) Black women and girls. Through storytelling and narrative and performative writing, it paints a clearer picture of the lives lost due to the coronavirus by highlighting specific tragedies that occurred, and by examining the larger societal context that allowed such tragedies to unfold. In addition, it offers an intimate look at the emotional processes that occur when one is diagnosed with the virus.

The unforgiving work environment of black African women domestic workers in a post-apartheid South Africa

In democratic South Africa, many Black African women are still subjugated by being employed as domestic workers. Increasing evidence emerged amid the COVID-19 pandemic revealing unmistakable signs of modern-day slavery among South African Black domestic workers. This paper proposes a clinical model which examines how gender, class, and race intersections affect the ways in which specifically identified change agents offer new, transforming interventions via clinical intervention. Adopting a clinical approach augments identification of a specific social problem from a scientifically systematic applied approach built on applied theory. We report on the conditions facing vulnerable Black African women using a bricolage research approach. The resulting model explicitly identifies systemic inequalities and indicates how to reduce exploitation and protect workers. The bricolage approach aided the secondary qualitative analysis of complex bonded-labour intersections. The problem of Black African women living as bonded domestic labour is augmented by the girl children's primary socialisation, Western patriarchal re-socialisation which sustains apartheid, and race, class, occupational, and gender inequalities.

Battle for Housing and Mutual Witnessing

This article reflects on the dangers related to the circulation and displacement of the urban poor in Brazil, which intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic. The author describes a moment when Black women with small children asked for permission from the leadership of a local drug trafficking group to invade the empty rooms of the Nelson Mandela Occupation in downtown Rio de Janeiro, a common practice in the dispute for housing. However, suddenly there was a transformation in the logic of invasions. Rooms where single men lived became targets of dispute generating displacements between houses and cities. These practices are embedded in an intense and widespread network of mutual witness, placing questions of class, race, aging, and gender, as well as the power of criminal groups, in the same web of relationships. The author argues that local relations and mutual witnessing act in this continuum that is city-making in connection with uncertainty and opacity.

"Housing Is a Human Right”: Moms for Housing's Black Feminist Politics of Shelter

In the midst of the global SARS-CoV-2 epidemiological crisis unfolds another contagion: the eviction epidemic. This essay attends to the work of Moms for Housing, an organization of formerly homeless and marginally housed Black mothers in Oakland, California who have organized to confront dispossession, real-estate speculation, and the privatization of housing. Using Black feminist and queer of color intellectual frameworks as ciphers through which to interpret and properly attribute weight to the organization's activism, the essay argues that Moms for Housing not only offers potential flightlines toward a post-property future—one in which housing is positioned as a basic human right—but also a generative critique of the home as a site of racialized and gendered subject formation. Indeed, through their work, the reconception of kinship formation and territorial formation are understood to be mutually constitutive, abolitionist projects.

‘Andizi': black women remaking the university in KwaZulu-Natal

This paper represents narratives from black women who work at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Their stories unearth their impossible existence within the institution and deliberateness on their survival tactics through theorising Nguni concepts of Ukuzilanda, Ukufukuza, and Andizi. In a world that does not ‘trust' black women to have a voice, have feelings, and have a story, the dialogue amongst these academics sheds light on how their everyday resistance is their survival. The paper takes a self-study approach to record the moment and define survival in anti-black, anti-women employment space. The paper also explores how the Covid-19 pandemic revealed distrust that the world usually shows towards black women.

An examination of Terrebonne Parish's elderly people's lived experience during the COVID-19 pandemic

The purpose of this study is to explore the lived experiences of Terrebonne Parish's elderly Black pandemic survivors and their mental health conditions while living through the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study also aims to investigate potential policy solutions that government officials should have used to improve mental health access during the pandemic. In this study, a convenient sample of ten participants who meet the following criteria was used: must be Black, over the age of 60, and live in Terrebonne Parish. Techniques used in this study to understand Terrebonne Parish's Black elderly people's lived experience during the COVID-19 pandemic were phenomenological interviews followed by surveys based on the themes extracted from their interviews. Results of phenomenological interviews and surveys indicate that Black elderly people in Terrebonne Parish experienced trauma from isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic. They also indicate that participants' main concerns during the pandemic centered around staying healthy-both physically and mentally-in order to visit their family once the detrimental impacts of the pandemic began to subside. Another common theme that emanated from the data was that participants believed that Terrebonne Parish officials should have utilized community centers to help elderly Black people understand the impacts of COVID-19 and the resources that were available to them during the pandemic;provided more information regarding the mental health resources that were available to them during the pandemic;and that the government should have provide more targeted resources that would specifically help Black people successfully navigate the pandemic. In conclusion, based on the funding packages that Terrebonne Parish received from the Federal Government, Black elderly people were correct in their assertion that the government could have provided more resources to improve their mental health during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Black women in white academe: a qualitative analysis of heightened inclusion tax

This article explores how existing issues of systemic racism in academia were heightened for Black women faculty during COVID-19 which coincided with high-profile killings of Black people in 2020. Several theories of cultural taxation have created space to discuss the nuanced experiences of marginalized groups in white spaces. In reflecting on academia, this article highlights "the inclusion tax” – the various labours exerted to be included in white spaces and resist and/or adhere to white social norms. While the 2020 pandemics reveal the deeply entrenched nature of systemic racism, they did not create the inequities Black women faced but worsened and exposed them. Using data from an exploratory, online open-ended survey of sixteen (n = 16) Black women faculty, we demonstrate how the inclusion tax heightened during that time. We argue that the inclusion tax negatively impacts Black women, adding significant invisible labour that further perpetuates racial and gender inequality.

COVID-19, gender and health: Recentring women in African indigenous health discourses in Zimbabwe for environmental conservation

In precolonial Africa, women were the major authorities in herbal remedies within their own homes and at the community level, where they focused on disease prevention and cure. Such roles were pushed to the periphery of Africa's health discourse by the introduction of Western modes of healing. Furthermore, missionaries branded African indigenous medicine (AIM) as evil and categorised it within the sphere of witchcraft. However, the emergence of new diseases which conventional medicine has found difficult to cure seems to have caused Africans to rethink their position on AIM. For example, there appears to have been a resurgence of interest in utilising AIMs during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Greater utilisation, while positive, may lead to herbs and plants becoming extinct if the harvesting is done haphazardly. Therefore, the intention of this article is to examine the intersections of gender and health in the COVID-19 context. The article seeks to establish the role that was and continues to be played by women in the utilisation of AIM within the context of COVID-19. The focus of the paper is on finding out the ways in which women are safeguarding plants and trees whose leaves, roots and barks are envisioned as effective in preventing infection as well as curing the disease. Data were gathered through informal interviews. Theoretically, the article makes use of gender and Afrocentricity as theories informing the study. Contribution: The article highlights the need for placing women at the centre of both health and environmental discourses for sustainable development. It argues for the recentring of women in Earth discourses. Hence, its contribution is in retrieving women's voices in health and Earth discourses in Zimbabwe for sustainable development to be achieved.

The uneven distribution of futurity: slow emergencies and the event of COVID-19

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic strains conventional temporal imaginaries through which emergencies are typically understood and governed. Rather than a transparent and linear temporality, a smooth transition across the series event/disruption-response-post-event recovery, the pandemic moves in fits and starts, blurring the boundary between normalcy and emergency. This distended temporality brings into sharp relief other slow emergencies such as racism, poverty, biodiversity loss, and climate change, which inflect how the pandemic is known and governed as an emergency. In this article, we reflect on COVID-19 responses in two settler colonial societies-Australia and the United States-to consider how distinct styles of pandemic responses in each context resonate and dissonate across the racially uneven distribution of futurity that structures liberal order. In each case, the event of COVID-19 has indeed opened a window that reveals multiple slow emergencies;yet in these and other responses this revelation is not leading to meaningful changes to address underlying forms of structural violence. In Australia and the United States, we see how specific slow emergencies-human-induced climate change and anti-Black violence in White supremacist societies, respectively-become intensified as liberal order recalibrates itself in response to the event of COVID-19.

Implicit Racial Bias Across Ethnoracial Groups in Canada and the United States and Black Mental Health

Black Canadians and Americans experience disparities in access to quality mental health care and mental health overall. Implicit biases are unconscious, automatically activated attitudes and stereotypes, with the potential to yield racist behaviors. To date, research has focused on health provider bias and resultant consequences in the decision-making/treatment of racialized groups. Little has been done to characterize implicit anti-Black biases within White and non-White members of the general population or examine the relationship between biases and Black people's mental wellness. Black-White Implicit Association Test (BW-IAT;n = 450,185) data were used to detect the presence of implicit biases within 10 ethnoracial groups and compare Bias Scores between Canada and the United States. Mean BW-IAT Bias Scores were also assessed against participant explicit biases using warmth ratings and the Modern Racism Scale (MRS). Finally, state-level BW-IAT scores were used to predict state-based Black American mental health-related mortality using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Wide-ranging ONline Data for Epidemiologic Research (CDC WONDER) data set. Findings indicated: (a) the most ethnoracial groups have anti-Black implicit biases;(b) Canadian and American implicit biases are near identical;(c) explicit and implicit Bias Scores are weakly related, and Canadian and American explicit biases are near identical;and (d) implicit bias predicts poor mental health outcomes for Black Americans, even when controlling for explicit bias and White outcomes. This work underscores the need to dismantle ideologies of White superiority and the resultant oppressive attitudes, stereotypes, and behaviors present in the general population. This work also calls for accessible, province-level, race-based mental health data on underserved groups.Alternate :Les Canadiens noirs et les Afro-Américains font face à des disparités en ce qui concerne leur accès à des soins de santé mentale et particulièrement des soins de santé mentale de qualité. Les préjugés implicites sont des attitudes et des stéréotypes inconscients, soient des pensées automatiques, qui peuvent potentiellement provoquer des comportements racistes. Jusqu'à présent, les recherches à ce sujet ont mis une emphase sur les préjugés des prestataires de soins de santé et les conséquences qui en découlent dans la prise de décision et le traitement des groupes racialisés. Peu d'études ont été menées dans le but de mettre en évidence les préjugés implicites anti-Noirs chez les personnes de race blanche et les personnes d'autres races parmi la population générale ou d'examiner la relation entre les préjugés et le bien-être mental des Noirs. Les données du Black-White Implicit Association Test (BW-IAT;n = 450 185) ont été utilisées pour déterminer la présence de préjugés implicites au sein de 10 groupes ethnoraciaux et comparer les scores des préjugés entre le Canada et les États-Unis. Les scores moyens des préjugés du BW-IAT ont également été évalués par rapport aux préjugés explicites des participants à l'aide des warmth ratings et du Modern Racism Scale. Par la suite, les scores BW-IAT dans les différents États ont été utilisés pour prédire le taux de mortalité lié à la santé mentale des Noirs américains à l'aide de l'ensemble de données CDC WONDER. Les résultats indiquent que (1) la plupart des groupes ethnoraciaux ont des préjugés implicites anti-Noirs;(2) les préjugés implicites canadiens et américains sont presque identiques;(3) les scores de préjugés explicites et implicites ont une faible corrélation, et les préjugés explicites canadiens et américains sont presque identiques;et (4) les préjugés implicites prédisent de conséquences négatives sur la santé mentale des Noirs américains, même en contrôlant les préjugés explicites et les résultats des personnes blanches. Ces travaux soulignent la nécessité de démanteler, au sein de la population dans son ensemble, es idéologies de supériorité de la race blanche et les attitudes, stéréotypes et comportements oppressifs qui en découlent. Ce travail appelle également à l'accessibilité des données sur la santé mentale axées sur la race des groupes faiblement desservis, au niveau provincial.

Active and passive social media usage and depression among the elderly during COVID-19: does race matter?

Increasing depression and mental health problems among the elderly during the pandemic have become a grave concern. In the present study, we borrowed from the emotional contagion theory and examined the association between social media use (SMU) and depression among the elderly during the pandemic. Our findings suggest that active but not passive SMU is positively related to depression. Moreover, we also examined if SMU (both active and passive) has a varying effect on the mental health of the elderly based on their race, i.e. blacks and whites. Our findings suggest that active SMU is detrimental for both blacks and whites, whereas passive SMU is positively related to depression only among blacks. Further, we undertook multiperiod analyses where depression scores were measured at four different time periods. We found that the adverse impact of SMU on depression persists over time. The present study draws attention to the antecedents of depression among the elderly during COVID-19. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Nostalgia in black and white: photography and the geographies of memory

In a world of colour, monochrome images break through the monotony of visual saturation, creating a sense of nostalgia in the present. As an aesthetic rooted in the past, black and white photography when applied to the present lends an authority to images by visually coding them as archival. Drawing on photographs taken by young people as part of a broader research project, this short article will explore the tendency of monochrome to elicit geographies of memory by charging them with productive nostalgia. The study, called Engaging Youth in Regional Australia and partly undertaken in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, sought to better understand the connections that regional Australian youth have with their hometowns, and, in turn, how this relates to their decisions to stay, leave, or return to a regional area. Although not explicitly asked to do so, some of these young people responded to the use of black and white film by connecting place to childhood memory. This short article considers the implications of this tendency for art as research in human geography.

Labor Market Returns to MBAs From Less‐Selective Universities: Evidence From a Field Experiment During COVID‐19

Master's degree enrollment and debt have increased substantially in recent years, raising important questions about the labor market value of these credentials. Using a field experiment featuring 9,480 job applications submitted during the early months of the COVID‐19 pandemic, I examine employers' responses to job candidates with a Master of Business Administration (MBA), which represents one‐quarter of all master's degrees in the United States. I focus on MBAs from three types of less‐selective institutions that collectively enroll the vast majority of master's students: for‐profit, online, and regional universities. Despite the substantial time and expense required for these degrees, job candidates with MBAs from all three types of institutions received positive responses from employers at the same rate as candidates who only had a bachelor's degree—even for positions that listed a preference for a master's degree. Additionally, applicants with names suggesting they were Black men received 30 percent fewer positive responses than otherwise equivalent applicants whose names suggested they were White men or women, providing further evidence of racial discrimination in hiring practices.