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Overall, mental health conditions occur in Black and African American (B/AA) people in America at about the same or less frequency than in White Americans. However, the historical Black and African American experience in America has and continues to be characterized by trauma and violence more often than for their White counterparts and impacts emotional and mental health of both youth and adults. (See prevalence statistics below).

Historical dehumanization, oppression, and violence against Black and African American people has evolved into present day racism - structural, institutional, and individual - and cultivates a uniquely mistrustful and less affluent community experience, characterized by a myriad of disparities including inadequate access to and delivery of care in the health system. Processing and dealing with layers of individual trauma on top of new mass traumas from COVID-19 (uncertainty, isolation, grief from financial or human losses), police brutality and its fetishization in news media, and divisive political rhetoric adds compounding layers of complexity for individuals to responsibly manage.

Help-seeking behavior is affected by mistrust of the medical system and often begins with faith-based outreach. However, MHA screening data shows that Black and African American people who screen positive for depression self-identify as planning to seek help at higher rates than the general population says they will seek help. Unfortunately, Black and African American providers, who are known to give more appropriate and effective care to Black and African American help-seekers, make up a very small portion of the behavioral health provider workforce (see treatment statistics below). Because of these factors and more, Black and African American people are more likely to experience chronic and persistent, rather than episodic, mental health conditions. Yet, hope for recovery should remain, as light is shed on these issues - and the general public holds accountable policymakers and health systems to evolve better systems which eliminate inequities in mental health services.

Demographics/Societal Issues

13.4 percent of the U.S. population, or nearly 46 million people, identify themselves as Black or African American and another 2.7 percent identified as multiracial.

According to the most recent Census data available, 55 percent of all Black and African American people lived in the South, 18 percent lived in the Midwest, 17 percent in the Northeast, and 10 percent in the West.

The Black immigrant population in the U.S. increased from 816,000 in 1980 to over 4.2 million by 2016. Thirty-nine percent were from Africa and nearly half were from the Caribbean.

Overall, 24 percent of Black and African American people have a bachelor's degree or higher as of 2017.

More than 1 in 5 Black and African American people in the U.S. lived in poverty as of 2018.

Women are the heads of household in roughly 30 percent of Black and African American homes, compared to 9 percent of white homes.

Historical adversity, which includes slavery, sharecropping, and race-based exclusion from health, educational, social, and economic resources, translates into socioeconomic disparities experienced by Black and African American people today. Socioeconomic status, in turn, is linked to mental health: people who are impoverished, homeless, incarcerated, or have substance use problems are at higher risk for poor mental health.

Despite progress made over the years, racism continues to have an impact on the mental health of Black and African American people. Negative stereotypes and attitudes of rejection have decreased, but continue to occur with measurable, adverse consequences. Historical and contemporary instances of negative treatment have led to a mistrust of authorities, many of whom are not seen as having the best interests of Black and African Americans in mind.

Prevalence

According to SAMHSA's 2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health:

Sixteen percent (4.8 million) of Black and African American people reported having a mental illness, and 22.4 percent of those (1.1 million people) reported a serious mental illness over the past year.

Serious mental illness (SMI) rose among all ages of Black and African American people between 2008 and 2018.

Despite rates being less than the overall U.S. population, major depressive episodes increased from 9 percent-10.3 percent in Black and African American youth ages 12-17, 6.1 percent to 9.4 percent in young adults 18-25, and 5.7 percent to 6.3 percent in the 26-49 age range between 2015 and 2018.

Suicidal thoughts, plans, and attempts are also rising among Black and African American young adults. While still lower than the overall U.S. population aged 18-25, 9.5 percent (439,000) of Black and African American 18-25-year-olds had serious thoughts of suicide in 2018, compared to 6 percent (277,000) in 2008. 3.6 percent (166,000) made a plan in 2018, compared to 2.1 percent (96,000) in 2008, and 2.4 percent (111,000) made an attempt in 2018, compared to 1.5 percent (70,000) in 2008.

Binge drinking, smoking (cigarettes and marijuana), illicit drug use and prescription pain reliever misuse are more frequent among Black and African American adults with mental illnesses.

Attitudes

According to a study conducted by Ward, Wiltshire, Detry, and Brown in 2013:

Black and African American hold beliefs related to stigma, psychological openness, and help-seeking, which in turn affects their coping behaviors. The participants in this study were not very open to acknowledging psychological problems, but they were somewhat open to seek mental health services.

Thirty percent of participants reported having a mental illness or receiving treatment for a mental illness

Black and African American men are particularly concerned about stigma.

Cohort effects, exposure to mental illness, and increased knowledge of mental illness are factors that could potentially change beliefs about symptoms of mental illness.

Participants appeared apprehensive about seeking professional help for mental health issues, which is consistent with previous research. However, participants were willing to seek out some form of help.

Treatment Issues

Black and African American people are more often diagnosed with schizophrenia and less often diagnosed with mood disorders compared to white people with the same symptoms. Additionally, they are offered medication or therapy at the lower rates than the general population.

Black and African American people are over-represented in our jails and prisons. Black and African American people make up 13 percent of the general U.S. population, but nearly 40 percent of the prison population. In 2016, the imprisonment rate for Black and African American men (2,417 per 100,000 Black male residents) was more than 6 times greater than that for white men (401 per 100,000 white male residents) and the imprisonment rate for Black and African American women (97 per 100,000 Black and African American female residents) was almost double that for white women (49 per 100,000 white female residents). Black and African American people with mental health conditions, specifically those involving psychosis, are more likely to be in jail or prison than people of other races.

Because less than 2 percent of American Psychological Association members are Black or African American, some may worry that mental health care practitioners are not culturally competent enough to treat their specific issues.

Stigma and judgment prevent Black and African American people from seeking treatment for their mental illnesses. Research indicates that Blacks and African Americans believe that mild depression or anxiety would be considered "crazy" in their social circles. Furthermore, many believe that discussions about mental illness would not be appropriate even among family.

Access/Insurance

Disparities in access to care and treatment for Black and African American people have also persisted over time.

Fact Sheets
Bipolar Disorder and African Americans Clinical Depression and African Americans
Mental Health Resources for Black and African American Communities

Black Emotional and Mental Health (BEAM): BEAM is a training, movement building and grant making organization dedicated to the healing, wellness, and liberation of Black communities. BEAM envisions a world where there are no barriers to Black Healing.

Toolkits & Education: graphics on accountability, self-control, and emotional awareness; journal prompts; articles on Black mental health

Videos: trainings and webinars, recorded and available for free

The Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation: changing the perception of mental illness in the African-American community by encouraging people to get the help they need; focuses on stigma/self-stigma reduction and building trust between Black people and the mental health field.

Therapy for Black Girls: online space encouraging the mental wellness of Black women and girls; referral tool to find a therapist in your area
Therapist Directory: find trusted therapists that can help you navigate being a strong, Black woman; can search for in-office therapist by your location or virtual therapist.

The Loveland Foundation: financial assistance to Black women & girls seeking therapy

Therapy for Black Men: primarily a therapist directory for Black men seeking therapy; includes some resources and stories.

Dr. Ebony's My Therapy Cards: self-exploration card deck created by a Black female psychologist for other women of color; created with the intention of helping other women of color grow and elevate in the areas of emotional and mental health.

Innopsych: InnoPsych's mission is to bring healing to communities of color by changing the face and feel of therapy. They strive to make therapists of color more visible in the community by creating a path to wellness-themed business ownership; to make it faster (and easier) for people of color to match with a therapist of color; and to create a major shift in how communities of color (or POCs) view therapy.

Safe Black Space: Safe Black Space is the umbrella under which various services are offered to address people of African ancestry's individual and community reactions to cultural and racial trauma.

Partnerships and Resources

The following organizations are among those that offer additional information on this subject, focusing on outreach to Black and African American communities:
Black and African American LGBTQ Youth Report National Black Nurses Association National Medical Association Lee Thompson Young Foundation

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Black and African American Communities and Mental Health

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Overall, mental health conditions occur in Black and African American (B/AA) people in America at about the same or less frequency than in White Americans. However, the historical Black and African American experience in America has and continues to be characterized by trauma and violence more often than for their White counterparts and impacts emotional and mental health of both youth and adults.

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15.5 Psychological Adaption and Mental Health. Theme one

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15.5 Psychological Adaption and Mental Health. Theme one

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1. What is the role of the black church and the mental health of the African American community?
The role of the church in the African American community is the salvation, the healing and the support of the fellowship. The church is the hope of the black community.
2. How is culturally competent care vital to the success of the mental health relationship between the provider or clinical mental health services and the African American community?
The provider should understand the history of the African American that way they can understand what factors are in playa and understand what needs to be done to help them.
3.State three strategies you feel can can address the issues in question one and two.
The church can provide help, but they also need a program that that can deal with mental issues. The clinical part needs to understand what tragedy happened in their lives that caused them to have or experience mental challenging's.
4.Search online for a resource.
5. State one thing you learned or stood out to you.
I've learned that past tragedies can alter someone's mind and without proper help you start to have mental issues.

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In this issue, we focus on the topic of mistrust of health care providers or systems among Black Americans, who are much more likely than whites to get seriously ill and die from COVID-19 but less willing to take the coronavirus vaccine.To draw lessons on ways of building trust with Black patients, we looked at clinical encounters in which the stakes of not addressing mistrust are high, including childbirth, childhood vaccination, and the care of patients with HIV, cancer, and substance use disorder. Many of the programs we found have focused on improving communication, increasing transparency, creating welcoming environments, and attending to access barriers, among other approaches for engaging patients who have been poorly served by the health care system.

The medical establishment has a long history of mistreating Black Americans - from gruesome experiments on enslaved people to the forced sterilizations of Black women and the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study that withheld treatment from hundreds of Black men for decades to let doctors track the course of the disease. So it's not surprising that just 42 percent of Black Americans said in November they'd be willing to take a COVID-19 vaccine. As Michael Che, one of the stars of Saturday Night Live, quipped last month, "I've got mixed feelings about the vaccine. On the one hand, I'm Black, so naturally I don't trust it. But on the other hand, I'm on a white TV show, so I might actually get the real one."

Mistrust of the health care system persists even among some Black medical professionals such as Oni Blackstock, M.D., a primary care physician, researcher, and former assistant commissioner of New York City Health Department's Bureau of HIV. When Blackstock's seven-year-old son needed to go the emergency department (ED) for a skin abscess, she hesitated. The last time Blackstock had taken him to the ED - for a broken wrist - a white orthopedist reset the bone without giving him a painkiller. "I have never seen so much fear in my child's face," Blackstock recalls, "and I felt completely responsible." To avoid a similar experience, she phoned her twin sister, an ED physician, who called ahead to ensure that a trusted colleague would treat her nephew.

Studies have found Black Americans are consistently undertreated for pain relative to white patients; one revealed half of medical students and residents held one or more false beliefs about supposed biological differences between Black and white patients, like the former have higher pain tolerance than the latter. In addition to this kind of differential treatment, the health care system often gives short shrift to the physical and emotional tolls of exposure to police brutality; substandard housing and schools; polluted neighborhoods; or other parts of the daily experiences of some Black Americans. Our September 2018 issue of Transforming Care described how health systems are working to reduce health disparities by confronting racism head on. In this issue, we look at the problem of mistrust, which has risen to the fore during the pandemic amid concerns about its effects on Black Americans. As a group, they are much more likely than whites to get seriously ill and die from COVID-19 but less willing to take the coronavirus vaccine.

What Is Medical Mistrust?

A growing body of researchers is exploring the factors that fuel medical mistrust, particularly among Black and other patients of color. Laura Bogart, Ph.D., a social psychologist and senior behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation whose research has documented the effects of medical mistrust on HIV prevention and treatment outcomes, defines medical mistrust as an absence of trust that health care providers and organizations genuinely care for patients' interests, are honest, practice confidentiality, and have the competence to produce the best possible results.

Bogart and other researchers have found that medical mistrust is not just related to past legacies of mistreatment, but also stems from people's contemporary experiences of discrimination in health care - from inequities in access to health insurance, health care facilities, and treatments to institutional practices that make it more difficult for Black Americans to obtain care. As she describes in a Q&A below, lack of trust can either be harmful (e.g., by causing people to avoid care) or empowering (e.g., by encouraging people to pursue health system reform and broader social change).

Often, patients who don't trust their health care providers are labeled as noncompliant and blamed for their failure to benefit from treatment. "Even the term mistrust is victim blaming," says Kimlin Tam Ashing, Ph.D., director of the Center of Community Alliance for Research and Education at the cancer center City of Hope in Los Angeles County, whose research assesses the biological, psychological, and cultural underpinnings of racial and ethnic disparities in cancer outcomes. "It puts it on the community when in fact the community has been let down by the medical system and by providers who continue to discriminate."

Improving Patient-Provider Relationships

Strengthening relationships between patients and their health care providers may be a means of building trust as some studies have found that people have more confidence in their providers than "the health care system" or "Big Pharma" writ large.

Treating Patients as the Experts

One such effort is part of the Merck for Mothers initiative, which aims to reduce maternal morality worldwide; in the U.S., Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes then white women. Among the explanations: providers spend less time with Black patients, ignore their symptoms and complaints, and lose contact with them during the postpartum period when women undergo major physiological changes that put them at risk of death.

In 2019, the Merck for Mothers initiative brought together Black women in New Orleans; doulas from Birthmark Doulas; OB-GYNs from Touro LCMC Health, a local community hospital; and other perinatal care professionals for "Equity Action Labs." During the labs, women described the problems they'd experienced during delivery and with prenatal and postpartum care with local providers and helped design solutions. Their accounts were troubling: one mother described her child's long-term health problems that resulted from having her concerns discounted, and many said they'd felt judged by providers or had procedures done to them (e.g., having internal fetal monitors inserted) without their permission.

The women offered suggestions to avoid these experiences, which Touro providers have begun to test, including having OB-GYNs and pregnant women take part in a trust-building visitmidway during a pregnancy to explore women's past experiences with the health care system, their goals for childbirth, and their safety concerns. "Our hope is that by having someone take the time to sit with them and ask these questions, women will feel enhanced trust between themselves and their providers," says Stephanie Visco, manager of Birthmark Doulas, a collective that is working to improve birth outcomes among low-income women.

Touro is also piloting a navigation program to offer women postpartum supports that are more comprehensive and longer than the typical six-week period. In addition, the hospital has begun to offer providers case-based training in structural and institutional racism and mandated implicit-bias training for all providers and staff.

Using Empathy, Not Arguments

In an effort to encourage Black patients to participate in COVID-19 vaccine trials, Pfizer partnered with clinical research sites in minority communities and worked with community organizations to have trusted leaders make appeals. Black representation in Pfizer's and other clinical trials reached 10 percent, an underrepresentation of the overall population of Blacks in the U.S. (13%). Black medical professionals had some success in recruitment by listening and responding to individuals' concerns, but public health authorities still face an uphill battle in convincing Black Americans to accept the new vaccines.

Pediatricians who've had success persuading skeptical parents to accept vaccinations for their children say effective approaches turn on empathy rather than information. At Kaiser Permanente in Northern California, providers who've undergone the health system's Effective Communication without Confrontation training program are encouraged to understand parents' challenges (e.g., by acknowledging there's a lot of information about vaccinations and mixed messaging to sift through) and recognize their shared goal, which is to protect children.

Jessica Jaiswal, Ph.D., assistant professor in the department of health sciences at the University of Alabama, says providers may feel compelled to try to dispel patients' conspiracy beliefs, but hearing and validating patients' concerns before offering new information may be a more helpful approach to building trust. "I don't know if it's useful to try to convince someone that the government did not create HIV to kill Black people," Jaiswal says, referring to the theory that the U.S. military deliberately created HIV. "However, I think it's worthwhile to acknowledge the hundreds of years of institutional racism that make someone think that."

With COVID-19 vaccines, Kenneth Hempstead, M.D., a pediatrician who serves as vaccine communications lead for Kaiser Permanente in Northern California, says both empathy and information are important; because these are new vaccines, clinicians need to be extraordinarily transparent about what we do and don't know about long-term safety concerns. "I'm optimistic about the vaccines," he says. "But if we say we have 100 percent confidence in them, and there turns out to be a problem, we run the risk of ruining the public's trust in all vaccines."

Building Relationships Outside Exam Rooms

Some advocates say that engendering trust among patients and providers will require carving space outside of the exam room. That's the idea behind 3rd Conversation, a program led by X4 Health, a social impact design firm, and funded by the Andrew and Corey Morris-Singer Foundation. The program's designers recognized patients and providers were having separate conversations about their health care experiences and frustrations. 3rd Conversation provides a space where they can come together to share their experiences and strengthen their relationships, with an eye toward finding solutions together.

At 3rd Conversation events, pairs of clinicians and patients get together for facilitated conversations; each is asked to share a personal story about when a relationship with a health care provider or patient made a significant difference to them. The sessions have revealed that clinicians and patients often want similar things, like more time during visits to get to know each other and less time spent looking at screens. Clinicians have also expressed frustration at their inability to help patients with social and economic challenges. "It demoralizes them when a patient comes in and is sick from pneumonia and they can give them medication, but they know the patient is going to sleep in a homeless shelter where they are apt to become sick again," says Jennifer Sweeney, cofounder of X4 Health.

Sweeney says interest in 3rd Conversation remains high, even amid the pandemic, with requests coming in from large health systems and academic medical centers to private physician practices, and federally qualified health centers.

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Making Institutional Changes

Studies that rely on surveys such as the Medical Mistrust Index - which asks respondents how strongly they agree with statements such as "When healthcare organizations make mistakes they usually cover it up," and "Healthcare organizations are more concerned about making money than taking care of people" - have found that many people distrust the policies or motives of institutions, not the people who work there. Building trust will require coupling efforts to improve interpersonal relationships with broader efforts to change health care institutions, ones that involve clear-eyed examinations of how these institutions have and have not supported the communities they serve.

Uncovering Instances of Institutional Racism

At Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital, staff have deliberately sought to uncover instances of institutional racism - that is, differential access to goods, services, or opportunities by race - as part of the work of the Department of Medicine's Health Equity Committee. The goal is to find concrete examples of how racism affects care within the walls of their institution and use critical race theory and quality improvement methodologies to change the status quo. "After much conversation and debate, the concept of institutional racism was no longer distant, abstract, or someone else's problem," says Michelle Morse, M.D., M.P.H., former co-chair of the committee and a hospitalist at Brigham and Women's.

One project grew out of an analysis showing that, from 2008 to 2017, Black and Latino heart failure patients admitted to Brigham and Women's were significantly more likely to be admitted to the general medical service than the specialty cardiology service. Rates of comorbidities and insurance status didn't explain the differences. Nationally, heart failure complications are one of the most common reasons people are admitted to hospitals, and several studies (for example, here and here) have shown that patients who receive care from cardiologists have better outcomes than those who don't receive this specialty support. At Brigham and Women's, heart failure patients who were admitted to the general medicine floor were more likely to have unplanned hospital readmissions within 30 days. Unlike those discharged from the cardiology service, patients discharged from general medicine aren't given extra supports, such as home monitoring and check-in calls.

Leaders have taken immediate and longer-term steps to try to reduce this inequity, including surveying physicians to elucidate what influences their decisions about where to admit patients. In preliminary results, providers said they perceived white patients to advocate more often and more vigorously for access to specialty cardiology services, and that this impacted their decision-making - a phenomenon that hasn't previously been well described in the literature. They're also trying to improve the quality of heart failure care on the general medicine service, including by offering follow-ups after discharge. "We've already seen shifts in practice, we think in large part because of the ripple effects of the discussion that came about after finding this example of institutional racism within our walls," Morse says. The next step is an effort to give hospitalized Black and Latino patients preferential access to the subspecialty cardiology service to redress this longstanding injustice.

Attending to Affordability, Access Barriers

Some patients say they are treated with less respect by health care providers because of their income, type of insurance coverage, and/or race, and some fear they may have care withheld or may not receive the best-quality care. To try to engage Black, Latino, and other people of color, the cancer center City of Hope is taking several steps to engage patients and dismantle emotional, financial, and other barriers to accessing and engaging in care.

All patients are invited to complete a survey, SupportScreen, which asks if they are experiencing social, emotional, or financial problems that may affect their ability to follow treatment. The automated system then directs social workers, financial services staff, chaplains, and other supportive care medicine staff to offer help.

Leaders are also trying to make it easier for Black patients and others to take part in clinical trials. Nationally, minority patients are less likely to do so due to restrictive inclusion criteria and patient-level factors, ranging from lack of transportation to concern about lost income from missing work and other costs associated with participation. Communities and potential participants also need assurance that therapeutical clinical trials provide the standard of care at a minimum (i.e., treatments known to be effective won't be withheld, as happened during the Tuskegee study). To make it easier to take part in trials, City of Hope has partnered with community hospitals and built or acquired community practices, some in parts of suburban Southern California that lack oncologists or oncology subspecialty services. In a trial funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute and led by City of Hope researcher Ashing, the cancer center is training community ambassadors and research navigators to increase awareness and acceptability of biomedical studies, including clinical trials, among underrepresented populations.

Ultimately, it will be important to encourage more people to receive timely cancer screenings, Ashing says. Nationally, Black people have worse outcomes for many types of cancer, including lung, colon, cervical, breast, and blood cancers, due in part to the fact that they are often diagnosed at later stages.

Creating Safe, Welcoming Environments

While reviewing historical practices, health systems can take immediate steps to make patients who've been marginalized feel more welcome. UnityPoint Health system, a network of hospitals, clinics, and home care services in Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin, sought to redesign care for its LGBTQ patients after hearing about the challenges Kyle Christiason, M.D., one of UnityPoint Health's physicians, faced finding appropriate medical options for his son after he identified as transgender.

Together, Christiason and UnityPoint Health created the system's first LGBTQ clinic in Cedar Falls, Iowa, in 2018. In developing it, Christiason and his colleagues proceeded with an attitude of cultural humility: acknowledging what they didn't know and getting input from LGBTQ community members by holding town hall meetings and focus groups and fielding surveys. One of the clinic's first patients told Christiason he hadn't felt comfortable telling his primary care physician of 20 years that he was gay because he hadn't wanted to disappoint him. Nationally, many LGBTQ people say they don't trust their providers enough to divulge information about their gender identity or sexual orientation; more than half say they've experienced some type of discrimination in health care, including having providers refuse to treat them.

All of the clinic's staff take part in regular Safe Zone training on LGBTQ identities and how to serve as allies. Christiason says having consistent routines, like asking people about their pronouns, makes a difference. "If I know your behavior is going to happen this way every time, that starts to create trust," he says. The clinic, held two evenings each month, provides routine primary care as well as pre-exposure prophylaxis to help prevent HIV transmission, gender-affirming hormone therapy, and postsurgical care following gender-affirming procedures.

Staff end each clinic with a huddle to review what did and didn't go well, discuss ways to improve, and share examples of what brought them joy in their work. "Sometimes they're tiny, like 'I got someone to smile,'" Christiason says. "Sometimes they're quite profound. Once, someone came out of an exam room and said, 'I just want you all to know that because you chose to let me be my most authentic self, I decided not to kill myself after my last visit. I've been thinking about how I can end my life for 10 years, and now for the first time, I think I can take care of myself because you showed that I matter.'''

After receiving positive feedback on the first clinic, the health system established a second LGBTQ clinic in Des Moines.

Signaling Commitment to Improving Patients' Experiences

Geisinger Health System's Proven Experience program encourages patients who have had a poor experience to apply for no-questions-asked refunds of copayments, coinsurance, and deductibles as a way of building trust. Applicants are told, "You placed your trust in us, and we place our trust in you."

The idea for the refund, which came from an incoming CEO, initially met with resistance from other health system leaders who worried about financial losses, the legalities of such a program, and the possibility of specious complaints, says Greg Burke, M.D., chief patient experience officer. Burke says these problems haven't materialized since the program's inception in 2015; instead, it has helped leaders spotlight and correct problems and sends a signal to patients "that the system wants to hear how we are doing," he says. Complaints related to perceived lapses in quality or differences of opinion about the course of treatment are excluded from the refund program and are referred to Geisinger's internal safety division instead.

Most complaints (70%) relate to communication failures, such as providers saying something hurtful or not following up as promised. Geisinger gives all new physicians and advanced practitioners a four-hour training course on effective communication, with a focus on making eye contact, introducing yourself, informing patients of what you are doing and asking permission, being personable, and ending on an upbeat note. Providers who have persistent problems are offered individual coaching sessions.

Involving Patients in Research

Involving patients in research aimed at improving care, known as participatory research, is another mode of building trust. Starting in 2015 at Yale School of Medicine's Department of Psychiatry, researchers engaged in a participatory research training exercise with members of the local community who were in recovery from substance use disorder and other behavioral health conditions. One of their goals was to make behavioral health research more responsive to the concerns of community stakeholders, particularly for people of color.

Over the course of two years, people in recovery met with clinicians, researchers, policymakers, and community advocates to explore ways they could work together to conduct participatory research. Participants were given opportunities to share their stories and offer suggestions. One finding was that researchers and patients may have different priorities, with the latter often focused on practical changes that help them achieve their goals rather than on clinical diagnoses or effects, says Miraj Desai, Ph.D., an instructor at Yale's Program for Recovery and Community Health and the project director. "People overwhelmingly focused on seeing concrete meaningful changes in their communities and lives and wanted to know how research can be more closely aligned with these goals," he says.

Participants also suggested researchers should create opportunities for trial investigators and community partners to get to know each other, such as by sharing meals; address the challenges patients may face in joining projects (e.g., finding transportation or missing work); and create opportunities to discuss racism, poverty, and other social problems that affect health.

Moving Forward

These and other efforts suggest that some health care professionals and systems had begun taking the problem of medical mistrust seriously well before the need to vaccinate most Americans made it urgent. Some of the work was driven by professional societies, including the American Board of Internal Medicine, which has worked to rebuild trust in the medical profession since 2018, in part by building a compendium of trust-building practices. The Journal of the American Medical Association, Behavioral Medicine, and other journals have also devoted commentaries and/or issues to the subject.

Not all of the initiatives we've featured are focused on the particular experiences of Black Americans. To move forward, efforts are needed to document and understand the many reasons fueling medical mistrust of health care providers and institutions among Black patients by documenting the problem and learning from patients about what may help. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement recently launched its second round of the Pursuing Equity Learning and Action Network, in which teams of community health centers, free clinics, and large health systems are examining the impacts of racism within their organizations and communities and deploying improvement strategies to close specific equity gaps.

Changing facts on the ground will be important, including reviewing not just hiring, promotion, and procurement practices at health care organizations but also where they have chosen to locate and upgrade facilities. Including more Black people in clinical and leadership roles will also be necessary but not sufficient. Efforts are needed to expand the health care workforce to include peers and navigators in supporting patients, make the history of racism in medicine a required part of health professionals' training, and create systems to identify and address instances of disparate care.

Ultimately to earn Black patients' trust, policy changes are needed to make it easier to access and afford care. When asked if seeing President Obama receive the COVID-19 vaccine on camera would persuade them to get vaccinated, two Black men pointed out to a Washington Post reporter that should the former president experience serious side effects he'd have access to the best doctors and receive care that is unimaginable in their own or other low-income communities.

Q&A: Broaching Conversations About Medical Mistrust

Laura Bogart, Ph.D., is a social psychologist and senior behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation whose research has documented the effects of medical mistrust on HIV prevention and treatment outcomes. Transforming Care spoke to Bogart about how clinicians and health systems can broach conversations about mistrust and ameliorate its effects.

Transforming Care: You've described medical mistrust as a form of resilience and a healthy survival mechanism that arises in response to oppression. How does framing mistrust in positive terms change how we go about addressing it?

Bogart: If we recognize that mistrust isn't necessarily harmful, it changes how we frame our response. It's very natural that people would want to put their guard up and ready themselves for the possibility of discrimination after experiencing so much systemic racism. If channeled effectively, mistrust can empower people to protect themselves and pursue changes at the institutional and societal levels. Mistrust becomes problematic when it stops people from engaging in healthy behaviors or when it leads to avoidance of the health care system.

Transforming Care: What advice would you give to providers who are interested in talking about mistrust with their patients?

Bogart: I think it has to start with education to raise provider awareness about the levels of mistrust in communities, the origins of it, and its impact on engagement, adherence, and treatment outcomes. In the case of HIV, in a national survey of Black Americans in 2016, we found that a high percentage of Black Americans believe that the virus is manmade (31%), that a cure is being withheld (40%), and that antiretroviral treatment is poison (33%). We also know medical mistrust is correlated with not adhering to medical advice, filling prescriptions, and delaying cancer screenings and other preventive health measures. It's also higher among patients who have experienced discrimination.

Transforming Care: What are some of the signs of it in an exam room?

Bogart: It could be a lack of engagement during the health care interaction. A patient may not ask questions. They may not make eye contact or may seem uncomfortable. Some patients won't verbally agree with providers. They may just take the prescription and leave. These behaviors can be indicative of mistrust. Some patients may be more direct and say they don't like medication or don't trust the medication.

Transforming Care: What sort of techniques do you suggest providers use to broach a conversation about mistrust?

Bogart: There are lot of different techniques and strategies. First and foremost, it's important to validate mistrust by acknowledging and affirming experiences of discrimination and conveying that patients' thoughts, behaviors, and emotions are well grounded, justifiable, relevant, and meaningful. Their mistrust may stem from recent negative experiences or be a response to historical injustices including unethical experimentation in health care. When exploring mistrust, it's important to ask open-ended questions in a nonconfrontational, nonjudgmental way while also providing accurate information. A provider might say, "It's totally understandable that you might be apprehensive about getting vaccinated given what's happened in the past and even now with inequality and mistreatment in health care. What have you heard about the vaccine?" A provider could then offer further information if needed by saying, "It sounds like you have been hearing a variety of things. Would it be okay if I told you a little about what I know about the vaccine?"

Transforming Care: You created the HIV Conspiracy Belief Scale to assess the prevalence of beliefs that HIV is manmade and a cure is being withheld. What have you learned about what drives conspiracy beliefs?

Bogart: I define the term conspiracy more neutrally than others do - as an effort to explain the cause of an event, practice, or circumstance by referencing the actions of powerful people who attempt to conceal their role. They may be true or untrue. It's important to avoid putting a value judgment on them. They can serve several psychological needs by helping to explain why one group isn't doing as well as another. They can also provide a sense of control and security for people who are feeling threatened or powerless, such as in the face of discrimination, or have an expectation of future mistreatment.

Transforming Care: You've also distinguished mistrust that is based on suspicion of malicious intent, such as genocidal beliefs, and mistrust based on concern about benign neglect - more of a carelessness or indifference that may lead to bad things happening. Are there differences in the characteristics of people who hold one view or the other?

Bogart: In terms of sociodemographic characteristics, we have found that people with lower levels of education and income may be more likely to have mistrust-related beliefs, but these are not strong effects, and we don't find either education or income accounts for a lot of the variance in how much people hold these beliefs. There may be a social norm around medical mistrust, which means that it may be acceptable and common in communities, families, and social networks, to have such beliefs - which is why it is important to tackle mistrust at the community level.

Transforming Care: What are some strategies health care organizations can use to address mistrust within the communities they serve?

Bogart: It requires genuine partnership. There are a lot of organizations - churches and community groups among them - that can help elucidate reasons for mistrust, where the mistrust is coming from, and what specific kinds of mistrust-related beliefs are common in communities. The key is that health care organizations need to act on the feedback they receive and not just pay lip service to it.

Transforming Care: What about when it comes to providers having conversations with patients? Someproviders may have less empathy or difficulty restraining their desire to correct the patient, what you call the "righting" reflex? Do you think everyone can be trained to be responsive to patients' concerns?

Bogart: I do think people can be trained on very basic skills. Some people are going to take it further than others. Some people are going to be better at it. But as for the basic skills-providers can learn them. People who do try actually may find that it's gratifying, because it doesn't take that much or any more time, but you see better adherence among patients and better patient satisfaction and outcomes.

Publications of Note
Medicaid Work Requirements in Arkansas Led to Delayed Care, Medical Debt
Arkansas was the first state in the nation to impose work requirements to qualify for Medicaid coverage, compelling most adults between the ages of 30 to 49 to work 20 hours a week or participate in "community engagement" activities. Before a federal judge put the policy on hold in April 2019, 18,000 adults had lost coverage. A survey of low-income adults in the state found more than half of those who lost access to Medicaid after the work requirements were imposed delayed care (56%) and/or postponed taking medication (64%) because of concerns about costs, while half reported serious problems paying off medical debt. These rates were significantly higher than those among Arkansans who did not lose Medicaid coverage. The survey also found that the work requirement did not increase employment over 18 months and that awareness of the policy remained poor, with more than 70 percent of Arkansans reporting they were unsure whether the policy was in effect. Most of the coverage losses were reversed after the court order. Benjamin D. Sommers et al., " Medicaid Work Requirements in Arkansas: Two-Year Impacts on Coverage, Employment, and Affordability of Care," Health Affairs 39, no. 9 (Sept. 2020):1522-30.
Access to Midwifery and Birth Centers Under Medicaid
Interviews and focus groups with Medicaid officials and staff at birth centers in states that participated in the Strong Start for Mothers and Newborns II initiative - an effort to test different models of prenatal care for Medicaid beneficiaries, including comprehensive team-based care at birth centers - revealed that Medicaid beneficiaries chose birth centers because they preferred midwifery care, wanted a natural childbirth, or wanted other services that may be not available in hospitals. However, the key informants also said that beneficiaries have less access to birth centers than do privately insured patients because of lower Medicaid reimbursement rates, as well as the challenges of contracting with managed care organizations and participating in value-based delivery system reforms. The authors say addressing these barriers could improve birth outcomes for mothers and newborns while yielding savings for Medicaid programs. Brigette Courtot et al., " Midwifery and Birth Centers Under State Medicaid Programs: Current Limits to Beneficiary Access to a High‐Value Model of Care," Milbank Quarterly September 15, 2020.
Indiana's Medicaid Waiver and Interagency Coordination Increased Enrollment for Justice-Involved Adults
After Indiana's 2015 Medicaid waiver expanded eligibility for low-income adults, the state sought to increase the number of justice-involved adults covered by the program by increasing coordination between the state's corrections agency and its Medicaid program. As part of the effort, the Indiana Department of Correction began initiating Medicaid applications for inmates who lacked coverage and suspended rather than discontinued coverage for others while they were incarcerated. The Medicaid expansion increased the percentage of justice-involved adults who received Medicaid coverage within 120 days of release by nine percentage points. With coordination between agencies, the state saw an additional 29-percentage-point increase in coverage. The study also found a 14-percentage-point increase in the number of inmates who had coverage that was effective within seven days of their release. Justin Blackburn et al., " Indiana's Section 1115 Medicaid Waiver and Interagency Coordination Improve Enrollment for Justice-Involved Adults," Health Affairs 39, no. 11 (Nov. 2020):1891-99.
Early in the Pandemic Older Adults with Low Health Literacy Were Unable to Accurately Identify Ways to Prevent COVID-19 Infection
Researchers found older adults at higher risk for COVID-19 lacked critical knowledge about prevention in the early weeks of the pandemic. The surveys of adults with one or more chronic conditions, conducted at the outset of the U.S. outbreak (March 13-20, 2020) and during the acceleration phase (March 27-April 7, 2020), found that while participants increasingly perceived COVID-19 to be a serious public health threat and reported more changes to their routines, there was no significant change in the proportion who could accurately identify ways to prevent infection. Black adults and those with lower health literacy were more likely than whites and those with higher health literacy to report feeling less susceptible to becoming sick with COVID-19. In addition, individuals with low health literacy remained more likely to feel unprepared for the outbreak and to express confidence in the federal government response. The authors conclude that public health messaging to date may not be effectively reaching vulnerable communities. Stacy Cooper Bailey et al., " Changes in COVID-19 Knowledge, Beliefs, Behaviors, and Preparedness Among High-Risk Adults from the Onset to the Acceleration Phase of the US Outbreak," Journal of General Internal Medicine 35, no. 11 (Nov. 2020):3285-92.
Reproductive Health Issues May Foreshadow Cardiovascular Disease in Later Life
A review of studies that have investigated the association between reproductive risk factors in women and subsequent risk of cardiovascular disease found a variety of risk factors - from early menarche and contraceptive use to gestational diabetes and preterm birth - were associated with cardiovascular disease. The researchers found associations for composite cardiovascular disease were twofold for pre-eclampsia, stillbirth, and preterm birth; 1.5- to 1.9-fold for gestational hypertension, placental abruption, gestational diabetes, and premature ovarian insufficiency; and less than 1.5-fold for early menarche, polycystic ovary syndrome, and early menopause. The associations varied for ischemic heart disease, stroke outcomes, and heart failure. A longer length of breastfeeding was associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease. The authors say policymakers should consider incorporating reproductive risk factors into clinical guidelines for cardiovascular risk assessment since the risk of cardiovascular disease may be modifiable. Kelvin Okoth et al., " Association Between the Reproductive Health of Young Women and Cardiovascular Disease in Later Life: Umbrella Review," BMJ 371, no. 8263 (Oct. 2020):m3502.
Declines in Non-COVID-19 Hospital Admissions Vary by Diagnosis, Patient Population
Researchers studying differences in hospital admission patterns among patient groups since the onset of the pandemic found that declines in non-COVID-19 admissions between February and April 2020 were generally similar across demographic subgroups and exceeded 20 percent among all primary admission diagnoses. By late June and early July 2020, non-COVID-19 admissions were 16 percent below pre-pandemic levels, but admissions were substantially lower for patients residing in majority-Latino neighborhoods (32% below baseline) and remained well below baseline for patients with pneumonia (down 44%), COPD and asthma (down 40%), sepsis (down 25%), urinary tract infection (down 24%), and acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction (down 22%). John D. Birkmeyer et al., " The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Hospital Admissions in The United States," Health Affairs 39, no. 11 (Nov. 2020):2010-17.
Complex Patient Bonus Unlikely to Mitigate Regressive Effects of MIPS
A review of the first round of performance data from the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) found that compared with clinicians with the lowest socially at-risk caseloads, those with the highest had 13.4 points lower performance scores, were 99 percent more likely to receive a negative payment adjustment, and were 52 percent less likely to receive an exceptional performance bonus payment. The authors note the lower scores were partly explained by lower clinician reporting of and performance on technology-dependent measures, which may reflect lack of technological capability at the practice level. They also found that having a complex patient bonus in place would have increased performance scores and the likelihood of receiving an exceptional performance bonus for clinicians with the highest socially at-risk caseloads by 4.7 percent and 2.8 percent, respectively. However, the proportion receiving negative payment adjustments would have remained unchanged. The study included data on more than 500,000 clinicians. Kenton J. Johnston et al., " Clinicians with High Socially At-Risk Caseloads Received Reduced Merit-Based Incentive Payment System Scores," Health Affairs 39, no. 9 (Sept. 2020):1504-12.
Policy Changes to Improve Pandemic Response, Increase Health Equity
In a commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine, three health disparities researchers call for major policy changes to advance health equity and improve the pandemic response, including greater investment in hospitals and clinics that serve marginalized communities, the creation of a universal food income benefit, and reforms to unemployment insurance to increase income and broaden eligibility. They also recommend greater investment in community development, expanding affordable housing, and increasing economic opportunity to reduce income disparities. Seth A. Berkowitz, Crystal Wiley Cené, and Avik Chatterjee, " COVID-19 and Health Equity - Time to Think Big," New England Journal of Medicine 383, no. 12 (September 2020):e76.
Employment May Explain Disparities in COVID-19 Outcomes Among Minorities
Blacks and Latinos are more than three times as likely as whites to be hospitalized with COVID-19 and experience higher death rates from the disease. Using data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, researchers found these disparities are not fully explained by health risks, such as diabetes or obesity. They found Blacks were substantially more likely than whites to work in health, public safety, and public utility jobs while Latinos were more likely than whites to work in food-related jobs, suggesting employment may be a factor in transmission within households. Blacks at high risk for severe COVID-19 illness were 1.6 times as likely as whites to live in households with health-sector workers. Among Latino adults at high risk for severe illness, 64.5 percent lived in households with at least one worker who was unable to work from home versus 56.5 percent among Black adults and 46.6 percent among white adults. Thomas M. Selden and Terceira A. Berdahl, " COVID-19 and Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Health Risk, Employment, and Household Composition," Health Affairs 39, no. 9 (Sept. 2020):1624-32.
Geography, Employment, Incarceration, and Other Factors May Explain Differences in COVID-19 Cases Among Minority Groups
Reviewing data from 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts, researchers found communities with a higher proportion of Black and Latino residents had higher rates of COVID-19 cases. A 10-percentage point increase in the Black population was associated with an increase of 312.3 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents, whereas a 10-percentage point increase in the Latino population was associated with an increase of 258.2 cases per 100,000 residents. For the Latino population, independent predictors of higher COVID-19 rates included the proportion of foreign-born noncitizens living in a community, mean household size, and share of workers employed in the food service sector. Higher COVID-19 cases among Blacks were not explained by these and other demographic, economic, and occupational variables studied. The researchers suggest higher COVID-19 cases among Blacks may be explained by other factors, including disproportionate incarceration rates, residence in multi-unit buildings, and segregation, which may produce variation in access to care and exposure to environmental hazards. Jose F. Figueroa et al., " Community-Level Factors Associated with Racial and Ethnic Disparities In COVID-19 Rates in Massachusetts," Health Affairs 39, no. 11 (Nov. 2020):1984-92.
Mental Health Disorders Linked to Grief May Increase with More COVID-19 Deaths
In a commentary in the Journal of the American Medical Association, three psychiatrists call for greater investment in mental health funding to address the psychological problems experienced by Americans who have lost loved ones to COVID-19, including grief, depression, and substance abuse. They also call for widespread screening to identify individuals at highest risk for prolonged grief, post-traumatic stress, and suicide and recommend training for primary care clinicians and mental health providers conducting screening and offering support to the bereaved who cannot participate in traditional mourning practices. Naomi M. Simon, Glenn N. Saxe, and Charles R. Marmar, " Mental Health Disorders Related to COVID-19-Related Deaths," Journal of the American Medical Association 324, no. 15 (Oct. 2020):1493-4.
Minnesota's Payment Policy for Medicaid Births
In 2009, Minnesota's Medicaid agency established a single payment rate for uncomplicated vaginal and cesarean births, a change from the prior payment that had given providers higher reimbursements for cesarean births. Researchers seeking to determine if the policy had differential effects on cesarean birth rates and maternal morbidity among Black and white women in Minnesota, as compared to six other states, found cesareans decreased among both Black and white women in Minnesota compared to the control states and this decline was greater among Black women (a decline of 2.88 percent from a pre-policy rate of 22.2 percent) than among white women (a decline of 1.32 percent from a pre-policy rate of 19.3 percent). Rates of postpartum hemorrhages increased, with larger increases among Black women. Jonathan M. Snowden et al., " Cesarean Birth and Maternal Morbidity Among Black Women and White Women After Implementation of a Blended Payment Policy," Health Services Research 55, no. 5 (October 2020):729-40.

Editorial Advisory Board
Special thanks to Editorial Advisory Board member Don Goldmann for his help with this issue.
Jean Accius, Ph.D., senior vice president, AARP

Anne-Marie J. Audet, M.D., M.Sc., senior medical officer, The Quality Institute, United Hospital Fund

Eric Coleman, M.D., M.P.H., professor of medicine, University of Colorado

Marshall Chin, M.D., M.P.H., professor of healthcare ethics, University of Chicago

Timothy Ferris, M.D., M.P.H., CEO of Massachusetts General Physician Organization and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School

Don Goldmann, M.D., chief medical and scientific officer, Institute for Healthcare Improvement

Laura Gottlieb, M.D., M.P.H., assistant professor of family and community medicine, University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine

Carole Roan Gresenz, Ph.D., senior economist, RAND Corp.

Allison Hamblin, M.S.P.H., vice president for strategic planning, Center for Health Care Strategies

Thomas Hartman, vice president, IPRO

Clemens Hong, M.D., M.P.H., medical director of community health improvement, Los Angeles County Department of Health Services

Kathleen Nolan, M.P.H., regional vice president, Health Management Associates

J. Nwando Olayiwola, M.D., M.P.H., chair and professor, Department of Family and Community Medicine at The Ohio State University

Harold Pincus, M.D., professor of psychiatry, Columbia University

Chris Queram, M.A., president and CEO, Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality

Sara Rosenbaum, J.D., professor of health policy, George Washington University

Michael Rothman, Dr.P.H., executive director, Center for Care Innovations

Mark A. Zezza, Ph.D., director of policy and research, New York State Health Foundation

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Understanding and Ameliorating Medical Mistrust Among Black Americans

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In this issue, we focus on the topic of mistrust of health care providers or systems among Black Americans, who are much more likely than whites to get seriously ill and die from COVID-19 but less willing to take the coronavirus vaccine.To draw lessons on ways of building trust with Black patients, we looked at clinical encounters in which the stakes of not addressing mistrust are high, including childbirth, childhood vaccination, and the care of patients with HIV, cancer, and substance use disorder.

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1.Why is there mistrust among the African American community and the healthcare systemin the United States?
Past experiences trials and the lies of treatment of the African American community which resulted in negative results has made the African American community skeptical of any treatment. or vaccine.
2. Outside of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment and the coerced sterilization attempt on the poor African American community. In what other ways has the medical system fostered distrust in the African American community.
The distrust of the Covid 19 vaccine in the African American community was that the community didn't believe in the vaccine and thought it was another way to rid of the African Americans in communities. They didn't want to be experimented on.
3. State three strategies or programs that you feel can address the issues raised in questions one and two.
Healthcare working with the community and gaining trust so that the community can trust them and start seeing a doctor for checkups. As well as the doctors eliminating the barriers and the stereotypes of the community and gaining the community trust in seeking help. Most important having a patient doctor relationship where the African Americans will open up and ask questions about their health and vaccines.
4. Understanding and Ameliorating Medical Mistrust Among Black Americans.
The resource sheds so much light on the mistrust of African American communities not being able to gain trust from the healthcare system and doctors. Because of the mistreating of blacks by doctors and the healthcare system the black community won't seek help.
5, State one thing you learned from the reading or audio.
I learned that Racial discrimination exist everywhere. The treatment of African Americans in healthcare and how they lied about doing certain procedures then to find out they were experimenting on blacks was so wrong. I would like to know why whites weren't experimented on, I felt like they were trying to eliminate as many blacks as they could.

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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This video talks about the health issues, lack of health insurance and health problems.

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Minority Health Disparities | Michelle's Story

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13.4 Self Reflection (Choose your own theme)

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13.4 Self Reflection (Choose your own theme)

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1.State one major that stood out the most to you. State the theme and why it stood out to you.
The theme What is Minority Stress? The one thing that stood out to me is that minority stress is caused by discrimination and prejudice and can cause physical and mental health issues.
2. How does the theme that you choose affect the African American community. Give examples.
Minority stress affects the African American community with health problems such as hypertensions, diabetes and mental problems. Not being able to get adequate healthcare stress can be deadly in some cases. African Americans have little to no health insurance which makes it a difficulty to get better or seek treatment. African Americans deal with stress daily. Stress works on your brain and heart leaving you to have high blood pressure and strokes.
Example of stress.
1. Being attacked based on your skin color.
2.Being called a slur name daily.
3.Judged on negative stereotypes because of your race.
4. Not being able to make a desired living to make it in society.
5. State one strategy that could be used to improve the theme.
1.To improve minority stress, find a local group or a member of the church to talk to. 2.Don't drink alcohol or take drugs to cope with the problems you're facing.
3.Seek help if you're having suicidal thoughts.
5.Remember to always take care of yourself first.
5. State one thing you learned about the reading.
One thing I learned is that African Americans need healthcare for mental and physical needs and health insurance. African Americans are judged in a negative way and not being able to get help turns into mental problems and our health is jeopardized. Without proper healthcare we become depressed, and depression can lead to suicide.

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Black maternal mortality in the United States refers to the death of women, specifically those who identify as Black or African American, during or after child delivery. In general, maternal death can be due to a myriad of factors, such as how the nature of the pregnancy or the delivery itself, but is not associated with unintentional or secondary causes. In the United States, around 700 women die from pregnancy-related illnesses or complications per year. This number does not include the approximately 50,000 women who experience life-threatening complications during childbirth, resulting in lifelong disabilities and complications. However, there are stark differences in maternal mortality rates for Black American women versus Indigenous American, Alaska Native, and White American women. Between 1897 and 2016, the maternal mortality rates in the United States more than doubled, while the maternal mortality rates worldwide had seen an overall decrease.

There have been significant differences between the maternal mortality of white women versus Black women throughout history. In the U.S., the CDC reported that Black women experience maternal mortality two to three times higher than that of white women. The estimated national maternal mortality rate in the United States is about 17 per 100,000 live births--but it is about 43 per 100,000 live births for Black women. Furthermore, data from the CDC Pregnancy Surveillance Study shows that these higher rates of Black maternal mortality are due to higher fatality rates, not a higher number of cases. Since the usual causes of maternal mortality are conditions that occur or are exacerbated during pregnancy, most instances of maternal mortality are preventable deaths.

Recently, these statistics have been receiving more recognition, as researchers place more emphasis on minimizing racial/ethnic disparities seen in maternal mortality. Researchers have identified several reasons for the Black-white maternal mortality disparity in the U.S., including factors like [access to healthcare, socioeconomic status, pre-existing conditions, medical racism, racial history, and access to abortion - all of which are social determinants of health in the United States. Preventative measures have been taken at an institutional level and medical level, by the creation of healthcare initiatives as well as policies that are in place.

The historical context of institutionalized racism in the United States has had the effect of black people having to deal with medical and scientific racism, making the black community less likely to trust medical institutions and professionals, due to previous exploitation and abuse. Medicine and healthcare has been plagued with racial injustices for many years. Slavery had caused black bodies to be seen as less then-something that could be used for entertainment or exploitation. An article in the American Journal of Public Health describes that laws making enslavement an inheritable status increased the scrutiny of black women and forced them into bearing children for the economic gain of their enslavers. In addition, many medical and surgical techniques were developed by exploiting the bodies of enslaved black women.

Sarah Baartman was a Hottentot woman who was paraded around in circuses around 1810-1820. She was taken from the Cape to London, presented as the "Hottentot Venus" on account of the fact that her buttocks were considered abnormally large by Europeans. After her death, French scientist George Carvier anatomized her body in order to measure her genitalia along with other body parts. A cast of her body, skeleton, brain, and a wax mold of her genitalia were once on display in a museum.

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study occurred from 1932 until 1972, where 600 economically disadvantaged African American men were unknowingly used by researchers to track the progression of syphilis, resulting in subjects going blind, insane, or experiencing other severe health problems.

A more mild, but equally horrifying example of Black bodies being exploited is Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman who had samples taken of her cancerous cells without her knowledge. This tissue was given to researcher George Gey. It was found that Lacks' cells have a remarkable capability to survive and reproduce. For years after her death, scientists continued to use her cells, released her name, and released medical records to the media without her family's consent. This legacy has persisted into modern times and has made Black women less likely to trust the medical community. The battle of Henrietta's bodily rights is not over yet though. On October 4, 2021, the Lacks' estate announced that they will be suing the biotechnology company named Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., who says they have the intellectual rights of the HeLa cells. Lawyers for Henrietta's surviving family say the biotechnology company has continued to profit off the cells well after the origins of the HeLa cell line became well known. "The exploitation of Henrietta Lacks represents the unfortunately common struggle experienced by Black people throughout history," the suit says. The blatant disregard of the worth of Black people in healthcare has left Black people more untrusting of medical institutions, and provides more context into why Black mother may be perishing at a higher rate.

Both prenatal care and postnatal are used to support pregnant women at different stages and monitor potential risk factors in order to make pregnancy and delivery as safe and healthy as possible. The literature shows that increasing access to prenatal care through public health departments caused a subsequent decrease in black maternal mortality rates. Furthermore, having fewer than 5 prenatal care visits, not attending prenatal care appointments, and accessing prenatal care later in a pregnancy are associated with maternal mortality. Black women are less likely to initiate prenatal care, with 10% of black women receiving late (third trimester) or no prenatal care, compared with 4% of white women.

"Maternal care deserts" are an important factor when it comes to access to prenatal and postnatal care. A maternal care desert is defined as a county with no hospital offering obstetric care and no OB/GYN or certified nurse midwife providers. Around 15 million women live in these maternity care deserts, with many of these women being minorities. A study done on the relation of maternal care deserts and pregnancy associated mortality found that "the risk of death during pregnancy and up to 1 year postpartum owing to any cause (pregnancy-associated mortality) and in particular death owing to obstetric causes (pregnancy-related mortality) was significantly elevated among women residing in maternity care deserts compared with women in areas with greater access." Other obstacles such as lack of providers accepting public insurance such as Medicaid and transportation requirements to get to prenatal appointments affect black women more than white women in the United States.

Intersection of Race, Socioeconomic Status, and Disability

Income has been well studied as a social determinant of health, and it has been found that worse health outcomes at all-time points surrounding pregnancy are associated with lower socioeconomic status and income levels. Lack of insurance/using Medicaid and experiencing homelessness are associated with severe morbidity rates, and are all more likely to apply to black women and increase their risk of maternal death.

Systemic racism contributes to the greater likelihood of black women to belong to lower socioeconomic classes. However, it is important to note that Black women across all socioeconomic statuses and education levels experience the same extent of racism both during the birthing process and after, as noted in Black women's experiences in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit following birth. A study from the Nature Public Health Collection journal pointed out that the COVID-19 pandemic increases the vulnerability of black women who are more likely to work at jobs that carry greater exposure risks to COVID-19, and more likely to lose income due to unemployment. This is in addition to the pandemic making accessing perinatal care more challenging, and making income disparities even more stark. The researchers who authored this study recommend that the interlocking factors affecting black mothers during the COVID-19 pandemic be specifically addressed in order to see tangible improvements in maternal health outcomes.

More and more women with disabilities are becoming mothers, but few federally-funded programs or support services to women with disabilities. Black mothers with disabilities have increased barriers to accessing maternal services, which increases health and mortality risks for the mother. Women with disabilities also have higher pregnancy complications, preterm deliveries, and low birth infants.

A study conducted by Amy Metcalfe, James Wick, and Paul Ronksley analyzing trends in maternal mortality from 1993 to 2012 showed that the percentage of black women with pre-existing conditions increased from about 10% to about 17%, the highest out of all other racial and ethnic groups in the United States. Black women are more likely to have adverse pregnancy outcomes which make them more susceptible to cardiovascular diseases putting them at a greater risk for material mortality. Black women are also more likely to already have pre-existing cardiovascular disease. They also have a greater odd of developing preeclampsia, along with an increased prevalence of chronic disease and obesity. Black women are more likely to have unplanned pregnancies as well-and are thus more likely to lack prior monitoring and treatment of pre-existing conditions before, during, and after a pregnancy.

In 2020 the American Public Health Association declared structural racism a public health crisis, which was attributed to historical forces as well as current events. There has been thousands of studies analyzing the racial bias against Black people in the healthcare system. Overall, Blacks are less likely to receive the same quality care as their White counterparts. Clinician bias is one of the largest contributors to this disparity. This bias can be either implicit or explicit, but both are harmful to the well-being of Black patients. Explicit biases have generally been measured with self-reports while implicit biases are measured through "validated tests of unconscious association". A lot of empirical evidence strongly suggests that White physicians hold negative implicit racial biases and negative explicit racial stereotypes, which causes them to be influenced by these biases when it comes to making medical decisions for their patients. In turn, this contributes to the racial inequities prominent in the healthcare system.

In general, Black Americans are under-treated for pain when compared with White Americans. Black patients are less likely to receive pain medication, and when they do, they are more likely to receive a lower quantity than their White counterparts. This phenomenon contributes to Black maternal mortality, aiding in the dismissal of Black women's pain by medical professionals. A Harvard School of Public Health publication discussed this phenomenon by collecting numerous examples of medical professionals being dismissive or providing delayed care to Black mothers expressing pain or problematic symptoms. The publication tells the story of Shalon Irving, a Black woman who experienced symptoms such as high blood pressure, blurry vision, and hematoma after childbirth. However, her doctors advised her to not take further action, and Irving died soon after. According to the author, this was just one instance of medical caregivers being less likely to take Black women's concerns seriously, contributing to maternal death.

Maternal morality is connected to racism, with Black women dying from medical issues that are preventable yet not being listened to when they complain about pain. Although the likelihood of poor Black women are more susceptible to the reality of maternal mortality, the risk still exists for other Black women with better resources. For example, world-renowned tennis athlete Serena Williams almost suffered a fatality postpartum when she got a pulmonary embolism. This was a result of the doctors not listening to her when she expressed her health concerns, and not considering those concerns serious enough to be acted upon urgently. According to a study done by the Robert Johnson Fund, over 22% of Black women report discrimination from medical professionals when they are seeking help.

Unsafe abortion is a major contributing factor to maternal mortality and morbidity and Black women, who are more likely to have unplanned pregnancies and be of lower socioeconomic status, are more likely to undergo unsafe abortions. Black women have consistently had higher abortion rates than White women, which means that restrictions to safe abortions will disproportionately affect them. And over the last couple of years, access to safe abortions in the United States has become increasingly restrictive. These restrictions include bans on particular methods of abortion care, Targeted Restriction of Abortion Provider (TRAP) laws, and specifically trigger laws which would ban abortion immediately in some states if Roe v. Wade is ever overturned. The lack of access to safe abortions have been exacerbated within the past decades as states pass strict regulations around abortion especially in southern states with higher proportions of African Americans. The World Health Organization recognizes that in order to help decrease maternal mortality, access to safe abortions must be increased. And while few studies have inquired as to whether there is a direct link between unsafe abortion and maternal mortality, the studies that have been done support this link.

In order to prevent maternal deaths from occurring, methods have been identified which decrease maternal mortality overall along with the accompanying health disparities. Researchers believe that by improving the quality of care within hospitals, maternal mortality would be properly addressed and accounted for. It has been suggested that higher quality hospitals, that have multiple layers of care such as administrative and patient advocates, are consistent with their collection of feedback from patients which allows for further improvement in regards to addressing maternal mortality. Additionally, maternal health-related services, such as an intensive care unit, 24-hour anesthesia, and OB/GYN specialists, contribute to the decrease of maternal mortality rate. With the prioritization of standardized care and early risk factors, issues that may lead to maternal mortality in Black women, such as hypertension, hemorrhaging, and eclampsia, would be directly addressed. It is also important to recognize that only 87% of Black women have health insurance and most have gaps in coverage at some point in their lives. To improve the health of Black women, policies need to be implemented that focus on the expansion and maintenance of the care and coverage.

Some have argued against the conventional classification of race as a risk factor in health, instead calling for the recognition of racism and poverty as the underlying factors contributing to Black maternal mortality and other poor health outcomes for Black individuals. To address the medical racism that exists within healthcare, which ultimately leads to maternal mortality, many states and cities have taken initiative by creating programs to address the high levels of Black maternal mortality. Most notably, in 2018, an initiative was created in New York City in which healthcare workers had to undergo implicit bias training. In addition, experts in multiple sectors, such as medicine, sociology, and law, have said that deliberately addressing racism, both within and outside of the medical field, is necessary to decrease the rate of Black maternal mortality.

PRMR is the number of pregnancy-related deaths per 100,000 live births.

Many states do not report maternal mortality data by race/ethnicity.

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Black maternal mortality in the United States - Wikipedia

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Black maternal mortality in the United States refers to the death of women, specifically those who identify as Black or African American, during or after child delivery. In general, maternal death can be due to a myriad of factors, such as how the nature of the pregnancy or the delivery itself, but is not associated with unintentional or secondary causes.

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1.The African American woman with pain vs another woman with pain.
The racial disparities says that black people feel pain less than white people, this is pure racism.
2.What factors contributing to the disproportionate number of African American infants who die in childbirth and African American mothers who die in childbirth?
The factors are 700 women die in childbirth each year due to considerable racial disparities in pregnancy related mortality. Black women have higher risk of complications during pregnancy because of factors like education and poverty.
3. what are some solutions that can be implemented to improve the existence of African American mothers giving birth and infant survival rates?
By facing the racism in healthcare. The African American mother needs prenatal care and regular checkups to see how the baby is progressing. Taking vitamins and eating right is a solution.
4. Find a resource and state the significance'
5. What stood out to me from the reading?
What stood out to me was the way the Doctor decide to care for African American women in pain and a white pregnant lady in pain. Focusing more on the white woman and giving her strong medicine to help ease her pain while ignoring the African American women in pain. Because of racism African American women are losing their life as well as their Something needs to be done about this.

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12.5 Religion and Spirituality. (Theme two).

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12.5 Religion and Spirituality. (Theme two).

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1. What is the significance of the Yoruba Orisha Faith known as Santeria?
The faith gives a spiritual path and deep sense of cultural belonging.
2. How does this faith provide connection back to Africa for those African Americans choosing to join the faith?
This faith provides a connection back to Africa by offering them an ancient spiritual heritage, one that predates slavery in the U.S. and also helps them affirm their racial identities in this new world.
3. How does the Yoruba faith treat health and healing in their religion?
To treat health and healing you go to see a Santero for a reading and following his advice by praying and making offerings to the Orishas spiritual parts.
4.Locate a resource that helps you understand this theme.
The Yoruba religion believes in destiny and fate. Before you are born you have a purpose that determines your fate and destiny. Committing suicide or being cruel to people are a dislike to the religion. The religion states you won't be reborn if you commit this act. They believe that their God (Olodumare) lives in the sky. They have similar beliefs as the Catholic. The religion believes that reincarnation is something you can't escape.
The Orishas are said to have previously existed in the spiritual world and incarnated as humans in the physical world.
5. State one thing you learned or one thing that stood out.
One thing that stood out to me was the beliefs in ancestors and how the ancestors have special powers in the afterlife. I never thought of that before until now. It's beautiful that the Africans honor and celebrate their ancestors they have the highest respect for the deceased. The ancestors will never be forgotten.

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The Yoruba religion ( Yoruba: Ìṣẹ̀ṣe), or Isese, comprises the traditional religious and spiritual concepts and practice of the Yoruba people. Its homeland is in present-day Southwestern Nigeria, which comprises the majority of Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Ondo, Ekiti, Kwara and Lagos States, as well as parts of Kogi state and the adjoining parts of Benin and Togo, commonly known as Yoruba land. It shares some parallels with the Vodun practiced by the neighboring Fon and Ewe peoples to the west and to the religion of the Edo people to the east. Yoruba religion is the basis for a number of religions in the New World, notably Santería, Umbanda, Trinidad Orisha, Haitian Vodou, and Candomblé.[1] Yoruba religious beliefs are part of Itàn (history), the total complex of songs, histories, stories, and other cultural concepts which make up the Yoruba society.[1][2][3]

The Yoruba name for the Yoruba religion is Ìṣẹ̀ṣẹ, which also refers to the traditions and rituals that encompass Yorùbá culture. The term comes from a contraction of the words Ìṣẹ̀, meaning "source or origin," and ìṣe, meaning "practice, or tradition," coming together to mean "The source of our tradition," as many of the practices, beliefs, traditions, and observances of the Yoruba originate from the religious worship of the orisa.

According to Kola Abimbola, the Yorubas have evolved a robust cosmology.[1] In brief, it holds that all human beings possess what is known as "Àyànmọ́", which is regarded as destiny or fate.[4] Every person is expected to become eventually one in spirit with Olodumare (also known as Olorun, the divine creator and source of all energy). Furthermore, the thoughts and actions of each person in Ayé (the physical realm) interact with all other living things, including the Earth itself.[2]

The anthropologist Robert Voeks described Yoruba religion as being animistic, noting that it was "firmly attached to place".

Each person living on earth attempts to achieve perfection and find their destiny in Orun-Rere (the spiritual realm of those who do good and beneficial things).

One's ori-inu (spiritual consciousness in the physical realm) must grow in order to consummate union with one's "Iponri" (Ori Orun, spiritual self).[4]

Iwapẹlẹ (or well-balanced) meditative recitation and sincere veneration is sufficient to strengthen the ori-inu of most people.[2][4] Well-balanced people, it is believed, are able to make positive use of the simplest form of connection between their Oris and the omnipotent Olu-Orun: an adura (petition or prayer) for divine support.

Prayer to one's Ori Orun produces an immediate sensation of joy. Èṣù Elegbara initiates contact with spiritual realm on behalf of the petitioner, and transmits the prayer to Ayé; the deliverer of ase or the spark of life. He transmits this prayer without distorting it in any way. Thereafter, the petitioner may be satisfied with a personal answer. In the event that he or she is not, the Ifá oracle of the Òrìṣà Òrúnmila may also be consulted. All communication with Orun, whether simplistic in the form of a personal prayer or complicated in the form of that done by an initiated Babalawo (priest of divination), however, is energized by invoking ase.

In the Yoruba belief system, Olodumare has ase over all that is. Hence, It is considered supreme.[2]

Olódùmarè Edit

Olódùmarè is the most important "state of existence".[6] Regarded as being all-encompassing, no gender can be assigned. Hence, it is common to hear references to "it" or "they" (although this is meant to address something of a singularity). "They" are the owner of all heads, for during human creation, Olódùmarè gave "èmí" (the breath of life) to humankind. In this, Olódùmarè is Supreme.[6]

Perhaps one of the most important human endeavors extolled within the Yoruba literary corpus is the quest to improve one's "Ìwà" (character, behaviour). In this way the teachings transcend religious doctrine, advising as they do that a person must also improve their civic, social and intellectual spheres of being; every stanza of the sacred Ifá oracular poetry ( Odu Ifa) has a portion covering the importance of "Ìwà". Central to this is the theme of righteousness, both individual and collective.[7]

The Yorubas as a people regard Olodumare as the principal agent of creation.[8]

According to one of the Yoruba accounts of creation, at a certain stage in the process, the "truth" was sent to confirm the habitability of the planets that were newly formed. The earth, being one of these, was visited but considered too wet for conventional living.[9]

After a successful period of time, a number of divinities led by Obatala were sent to accomplish the task of helping earth develop its crust. On one of their visits to the realm, the arch-divinity Obatala took to the stage equipped with a mollusk that concealed some form of soil; winged beasts and some cloth like material. The contents were emptied onto what soon became a large mound on the surface of the water and soon after, the winged-beasts began to scatter this around until the point where it gradually made into a large patch of dry land; the various indentations they created eventually becoming hills and valleys.[6]

Obatala leaped onto a high-ground and named the place Ife. The land became fertile and plant life began to flourish. From handfuls of earth he began to mold figurines. Meanwhile, as this was happening on earth, Olodumare gathered the gases from the far reaches of space and sparked an explosion that shaped into a fireball. He subsequently sent it to Ife, where it dried much of the land and simultaneously began to bake the motionless figurines. It was at this point that Olodumare released the "breath of life" to blow across the land, and the figurines slowly came into "being" as the first people of Ife.[6]

For this reason, Ife is locally referred to as "Ife Oodaye" - "cradle of existence".[6][10]

An Orisha (correct spelling: Òrìṣà) is an entity that possesses the capability of reflecting some of the manifestations of Olodumare. Yoruba Orishas (commonly translated "unique/special/selected heads") are often described as intermediaries between humankind and the supernatural. The term is also translated as "Deities", "Divinities" or "Gods".[11]

Orisha(s) are revered for having control over specific elements of nature. They are thus also referred to as Imole. There are those of their number that are more akin to ancient heroes and/or sages than to primordial divinities.[3] These are best addressed as dema deities. Even though the term Orisha is often used to describe both classes of divine entities, it is properly reserved for the former one.[3]

Orishas

Attributes

Orunmila / Ọ̀rúnmìlà

The Yoruba grand priest and custodian of the Ifa oracle, source of knowledge who is believed to oversee the knowledge of the human form, purity, the cures of illnesses and deformities. Babalawos are Orumila's subordinates as priests and followers.

Eshu / Èṣù

Often ill-translated as "The Devil" or "The Evil Being", Eshu is in truth neither of these. Best referred to as "The Trickster", he deals a hand of misfortune to those that do not offer tribute or are deemed to be spiritual novices. Also regarded as the "divine messenger", a prime negotiator between negative and positive forces in the body and an enforcer of the "law of being". He is said to assist in enhancing the power derived from herbal medicines and other forms of esoteric technology.

Eshu is the Orisha of chance, accident and unpredictability. Because he is Olorun's linguist and the master of languages, Eshu is responsible for carrying messages and sacrifices from humans to the Sky God. Also known for his phallic powers and exploits, Eshu is said to lurk at gateways, on the highways and at the crossroads, where he introduces chance and accident into the lives of humans. He is known by a variety of names, including Elegbara.[12]

Ogoun / Ògún

Orisha of iron, war and metallurgy.

Yemoja / Yemọja

Oshun / Ọ̀ṣun

A second wife of Shango, the one time Oba of Oyo (another Yoruba Orisha, see below), she is said to have entered into a river at Osogbo. The Yoruba clerics ascribed to her sensuality, beauty and gracefulness, symbolizing both their people's search for clarity and a flowing motion. She is associated with several powers, including abilities to heal with cool water, induction of fertility and the control of the feminine essence. Women appeal to her for child-bearing and for the alleviation of female disorders. The Yoruba traditions describe her as being fond of babies and her intervention is sought if a baby becomes ill. Oshun is also known for her love of honey.

Shango / Ṣàngó

Associated with virility, masculinity, fire, lightning, stones, Oyo warriors and magnetism. He is said to have the abilities to transform base substances into those that are pure and valuable. He was the Oba of Oyo at some point in its history. He derived his nickname Oba Koso from the tales of his immortality. Shango is the Orisha of the thunderbolt, said to have ruled in ancient times over the kingdom of Oyo. Also known as Jakuta (Stone Thrower) and as Oba Koso (The King Does Not Hang).

Oya / Ọya

The third wife of the one time Oba of Oyo called Shango (another Yoruba Orisha, see above), she is said to have entered into the River Niger. She is often described as the Tempest, Guardian of the Cemetery, Winds of Change, Storms and Progression. Due to her personal power, she is usually depicted as being in the company of her husband Shango. She is the Orisha of rebirth.

Osanyin / Ọ̀sanyìn

Represented as a one eyed, one hand, and one legged figure, he is the orisha of herbs, plants, magic, and healing.

Babalu-Aye / Ọbalúayé

Obatala / Ọbàtálá

Also known as "Orisa-nla," meaning "the big Orisha," he is also known as the Sky father. He is often equated with purity, and represented by "ala," white cloth, and "efun," white chalk. He is regarded as the creator of Earth and shaping humans from clay. He is also known as the protector of the disabled.

Aganju / Aganjù

Roughly translating to "darkness of the wilderness," Aganju is regarded as the orisha of the forest, the desert, volcanoes, and the wilderness. He was originally a king of the Oyo empire before being deified after his death

Oshosi / Ọ̀ṣọ́ọ̀sì

He is the orisha of hunting and the forest, and is another patron of hunters.

Olokun / Olóòkun

A primoridal force present at creation, Olokun, meaning "Owner of the ocean," is an androgynous orisha embodying the ocean. They are the parent of the orishas Aje and Olosa, and represents wealth, healing, and the vastness of the sea.

Aje / Ajé

Oduduwa / Odùdùwà

Regarded as the founder of the Yoruba people and the first Oba of Ife, he is also associated with an androgynous orisha of creation. Most Yoruba people, and their monarchs most especially, claim descent from Oduduwa. He is a father or grandfather of Oranmiyan, Sango, Ajaka, Obalufon, and other Obas of Ife. He is also regarded as an ancestor of the Obas of the Benin Empire.

Ayangalu / Àyàngalú

Ọba / Ọbà

Irunmọlẹ are entities sent by Olorun to complete given tasks, often acting as liaisons between Orun (the invisible realm) and Aiye (the physical realm).[3] Irunmole(s) can best be described as ranking divinities; whereby such divinities are regarded as the principal Orishas. Irunmole, from "Erinrun" - 400, "Imole" - Divinities or Divine Spirits.

The Yoruba believe in Atunwa, reincarnation within the family. The names Babatunde (father returns), Yetunde (Mother returns), Babatunji (Father wakes once again) and Sotunde (The wise man returns) all offer vivid evidence of the Ifa concept of familial or lineal rebirth.[13] There is no simple guarantee that your grandfather or great uncle will "come back" in the birth of a child, however.

Whenever the time arrives for a spirit to return to Earth (otherwise known as The Marketplace) through the conception of a new life in the direct bloodline of the family, one of the component entities of a person's being returns, while the other remains in Heaven (Ikole Orun). The spirit that returns does so in the form of a Guardian Ori. One's Guardian Ori, which is represented and contained in the crown of the head, represents not only the spirit and energy of one's previous blood relative, but the accumulated wisdom he or she has acquired through myriad lifetimes. This is not to be confused with one's spiritual Ori, which contains personal destiny, but instead refers to the coming back to The Marketplace of one's personal blood Ori through one's new life and experiences. The Primary Ancestor (which should be identified in your Itefa) becomes - if you are aware and work with that specific energy - a "guide" for the individual throughout their lifetime. At the end of that life they return to their identical spirit self and merge into one, taking the additional knowledge gained from their experience with the individual as a form of payment.

According to Professor Adams Abdullahi Suberu, the Yoruba were exquisite statesmen who spread across the globe in an unprecedented fashion;[14] the reach of their culture is largely due to migration-the most recent migration occurred with the Atlantic slave trade, and with Nigerian and Beninoise Yorùbá emigrating to the United States, the UK, Brazil, and other countries of the Americas and Europe. During the colonial period, many Yoruba were captured and sold into the slave trade and transported to Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Vincent & The Grenadines, Uruguay, Venezuela, and other parts of the Americas. With them, they carried their religious beliefs. The school-of-thought integrated into what now constitutes the core of the "New World lineages" which are a variety of Yorùbá-derived contemporary African religions:[14][15][16][17]

The Vodun faith, which originated amongst a different ethnic group (the Gbe speaking peoples of present-day Benin, Togo, and Ghana), holds influential aspects on the African diaspora in countries such as Haiti and Cuba, also New Orleans, Louisiana in the United States.[18]

In Latin America, Yoruba religion has been in intense Syncretism with Christianity, Indigenous religions and Spiritism since the first arrival of African immigrants. In Brazil, the religion of Umbanda was born from the rich interaction of beliefs that Latin America provided. Followers of Umbanda typically consider themselves Monotheistic, but honor Catholic Saints and Orisha as manifestations from god or as Tutelary deities. Umbanda worship also include elements from Native South American rituals such as the ritual use of Tobacco and communication with the spirits of deceased Indian warriors ( Caboclo).

In the 1949 documentary Fiestas de Santiago Apóstol en Loíza Aldea, anthropologist Ricardo Alegría noted a similar tendency at Loíza, Puerto Rico, arguing that the affinity between the black population in the municipality and the Catholic saint Santiago Apóstol may derive from the way in which he is depicted as a warrior; a similar theme to some depictions of Shango and Adams.[19] This theory supposed that this resemblance was used by the population as a covert form to honor their ancestral deity.

Yoshiaki Koshikawa, professor of literature at Meiji University, became the first Japanese person to be initiated as a babalawo in 2013.[20]

Nigerian Chrislam refers to the assemblage of Islamic and Christian religious practices in Nigeria.[21] Chrislam also refers to the series of religious movements that merged Islamic and Christian religious practice during the 1970s in Lagos, Nigeria. The movement was pioneered by Yoruba peoples in south-west Nigeria.[21] Chrislam works against the conventional understanding of Islam and Christianity as two separate and exclusive religions, seeking out commonalities between both religions and promoting an inclusive union of the two.[21] Chrislam also occupies a distinct geographical space; Nigeria is often understood to be geographically and religiously polarized, with a predominantly Muslim base in the North, and a predominantly Christian base in the South. However, the Yoruba peoples that occupy the South-Western Yorubaland region of Nigeria are a Muslim-majority ethnic group with a large Christian minority.[21]

1. ^ Abimbola, Kola (2005). Yoruba Culture: A Philosophical Account (Paperback ed.). Iroko Academics Publishers. ISBN 1-905388-00-4.

2. ^ Ọlabimtan, Afọlabi (1991). Yoruba Religion and Medicine in Ibadan. Translated by George E. Simpson. Ibadan University Press. ISBN 978-121-068-0. OCLC 33249752.

3. ^ J. Olumide Lucas, The Religion of the Yorubas, Athelia Henrietta PR, 1996. ISBN 0-9638787-8-6

4. ^ Ọlabimtan, Afọlabi (1973). Àyànmọ. Lagos, Nigeria: Macmillan. OCLC 33249752.

5. ^ Bolaji Idowu (1982). Olódùmarè: God in Yorùbá Belief. Ikeja, Nigeria: Longman. ISBN 0-582-60803-1.

6. ^ Ifaloju (February 2011). "Odù-Ifá Iwòrì Méjì; Ifá speaks on Righteousness". Ifa Speaks... S.S. Popoola, Ifa Dida, Library, INC.

7. ^ Opoku, Kofi Asare (1993), "African traditional religion: An enduring heritage", Religious Plurality in Africa, DE GRUYTER, doi:10.1515/9783110850079.67, ISBN 978-3-11-085007-9

8. ^ Halliday, William D. (2018-09-08). ""Half-Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life" by Edward O. Wilson, 2017. [book review]". The Canadian Field-Naturalist. 132 (1): 78. doi:10.22621/cfn.v132i1.2129. ISSN 0008-3550.

9. ^ Leeming & Leeming 2009 - entry "Yoruba Creation". Yoruba. Oxford University Press. 1994. ISBN 978-0-19-510275-8.

10. Cf.^ The Concept of God: The People of Yoruba for the acceptability of the translation

11. ^ Courlander, Harold (March 1973). Tales of Yoruba Gods and Heroes. Crown Pub. ISBN 978-0517500637.

12. ^ Omobola, Odejobi. "Influence of Yoruba Culture in Christian Religious Worship". International J. Soc. Sci. & Education. 4: 586.

13. ^ Akintoye, Prof S. A. (2010). A history of the Yoruba people. Amalion Publishing. ISBN 978-2-35926-005-2. ASIN 2359260057.

14. ^ Brown (Ph.D.), David H. (2003). Santería Enthroned: Innovation in an Afro-Cuban Religion. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-07610-5.

15. ^ Oditous (2010). "Anthropology: [Yoruba]". Anthrocivitas Online.

16. ^ Karade, Baba Ifa (1994). The Handbook of Yoruba Religious Concepts. York Beach, New York: Weiser Books. ISBN 0-87728-789-9.

17. ^ Fandrich, Ina J. (2007). "Yorùbá Influences on Haitian Vodou and New Orleans Voodoo". Journal of Black Studies. 37 (5 (May)): 775-791. doi:10.1177/0021934705280410. JSTOR 40034365. S2CID 144192532.

18. ^ Hernández 2002, pp. 125

19. ^ "Faculty Database - Koshikawa Yoshiaki".

20. ^ Janson, Marloes (November 2016). "Unity Through Diversity: A Case Study of Chrislam in Lagos" (PDF). Africa: Journal of the International African Institute. 86 (4): 646-672. doi:10.1017/S0001972016000607. S2CID 147663644 - via SOAS, ResearchGate.

Hernández, Carmen Dolores (2002). Ricardo Alegría: Una Vida (in Spanish). Centro de Estudios Avanzados del Caribe, Fundación Puertorriqueña de las Humanidades, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, Academia Puertorriqueña de Historia. ISBN 1563282100.

Voeks, Robert A. (1997). Sacred Leaves of Candomblé: African Magic, Medicine, and Religion in Brazil. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. ISBN 9780292787315.

Fayemi Fatunde Fakayode, "Iwure, Efficacious Prayer to Olodumare, the Supreme Force" ISBN 978-978-915-402-9

Chief S. Solagbade Popoola & Fakunle Oyesanya, Ikunle Abiyamo: The ASE of Motherhood 2007. ISBN 978-0-9810013-0-2

Chief S. Solagbade Popoola Library, INC Ifa Dida Volume One (EjiOgbe - Orangun Meji) ISBN 978-0-9810013-1-9

Chief S. Solagbade Popoola Library, INC Ifa Dida Volume Three (OyekuOgbe - OyekuFun) ISBN 978-1-926538-24-2

The Way of the Orisha by Philip John Neimark: Publisher HarperOne; 1st edition (May 28, 1993) ISBN 978-0-06-250557-6

Olódùmarè : God in Yoruba Belief by Bolaji Idowu, Ikeja : Longman Nigeria (1982) ISBN 0-582-60803-1

Dr. Jonathan Olumide Lucas, "The Religion of the Yorubas", Lagos 1948, C. M. S. Bookshop.

Leeming, David Adams; Leeming, Margaret Adams (2009). A Dictionary of Creation Myths (Oxford Reference Online ed.). Oxford University Press.

Morales, Ed (2003). The Latin Beat. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-81018-2., pg. 177

Miguel A. De La Torre, Santería: The Beliefs and Rituals of a Growing Religion in America, 2004, ISBN 0-8028-4973-3.

Miguel R. Bances - Baba Eshu Onare, Tratado Enciclopedico de Ifa. Los 16 Meyis y sus Omoluos u Odus o Signos de Ifa.

Ológundúdú, Dayọ̀ ; foreword by Akinṣọla Akiwọwọ (2008). The cradle of Yoruba culture (Rev. ed.). Institute of Yoráubâa Culture ; Center for Spoken Words. ISBN 978-0-615-22063-5.

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The Yoruba religion ( Yoruba: Ìṣẹ̀ṣe), or Isese, comprises the traditional religious and spiritual concepts and practice of the Yoruba people. Its homeland is in present-day Southwestern Nigeria, which comprises the majority of Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Ondo, Ekiti, Kwara and Lagos States, as well as parts of Kogi state and the adjoining parts of Benin and Togo, commonly known as Yoruba land.

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11.5 Cognition, Language and Learning. (Theme Code Switching).

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11.5 Cognition, Language and Learning. (Theme Code Switching).

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1. What does it mean to code-switch and how does this affect African Americans success in life?
Code Switching is when your able to speak your native language and change your language in speech pattern depending on your environment.
African Americans success in life depends on how they speak in order to get a job or how they speak at their place of employment.
2. How does expecting code-switching threaten diversity?
Changes in the way we talk affects who we are. It's like we're living a double life. We shouldn't have to assimilate into the dominant group to succeed. The way we dress. wear are hair and the type of music we like threatens who we are because of change.
3. How do the effects of code switching intersect with a person's mental health?
Code-Switching affects your mental health because you're constantly changing who you are. Not being able to be yourself around certain people causes confusion and stress.
4.Search online for a resource that helps you understand this topic. State why the resource shines some light on a perspective of this issue
What is code switching? How does it impact the Black community?
Code -switching involves your whole behavior. This resource tells you how to make it in the world as an African American.
5. State a strategy that you feel can be successful to address the misconceptions about code switching that exists inside and outside of the African American community.
Code switching is brought on by the negative stereotypes of African Americans. We shouldn't be afraid to speak the way we were brought up in order to get a job. Why must we assimilate into the white culture to fit in? We can code switch, but does it actually matter, our skin color still reflects us as African Americans and if we can work in an environment with white people, they should accept our way of language. We mean no harm, and no one should frown upon us for the way we speak.
6. State one thing that I learned or that stood out to me.
What stood out to me was how you talk can determine if you live or die in certain situations. Negative stereotypes of African Americans play a big part in our life. We must code switch at work, school and home. She talks about how she went to college and the way she dressed, and her look didn't fit in at the school, so she changed her attire to fit in and be like the other students. She changed the way she talked to be accepted but once she was home, she was back to herself. It's a shame that African Americans go through this, people say it's a good thing some say it's not. I feel I was born an African American and I shouldn't have to change the way I look, the way I talk to be accepted in today's world. It should be balanced out by know. We should all be accepted for who we are and not by what should be expected of us.

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Local News

Code-switching is the ability to switch between languages

DETROIT – Code-switching is defined as the ability to switch between languages in a single conversation.

For example, you may speak more casually at home than you do at work. But for Black people, code-switching is far more complex and can often be taxing.

Myles Durkee is an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Michigan and has done extensive research on racial code-switching.

READ: Work underway to restore Underground Railroad safe house in Walled Lake

“As soon as we hear someone speak, our minds automatically make associations about where they’re from geographically. We also make assumptions about their education level, their income level and maybe whether or not they’re a good person or not simply based on their style of speech,” Durkee said.

When a Black person cannot effectively code-switch, the result can be damaging. The star witness in the 2013 George Zimmerman trial, Rachael Jeantel, was on the phone with Trayvon Martin moments before he was killed. When she spoke in court, the 19-year-old’s testimony was largely being judged on her mannerisms and style of speaking. Ultimately, George Zimmerman walked free.

“Interacting with police is a clear example where code-switching can be the difference between life or death. If simply by code-switching of an officer already perceives a Black male as threatening, code-switching is an extremely effective way to alleviate some of that anxiety,” Durkee said.

Code-switching is not just in the way a person speaks. It can also involve your entire behavioral profile from hairstyles, to clothing and how you carry yourself. Former President Barack Obama’s ability to code-switch has been well-documented.

READ: ‘You are somebody’: Cass Tech Principal Lisa Phillips works to empower students

“When he was meeting the Dream Team and NBA players, the players and the coaching staff, you can see his handshake differs simply based on the race of who he’s greeting,” Durkee said. “With White individuals and coaching staff, it’s a very standard American handshake. But when it’s a Black player on the team, he’s dapping it up with the players.”

For many Black people, constantly focusing on changing themselves to make White people feel comfortable can be exhausting and unhealthy.

“We actually find in our data with Black professionals that those who tend to code-switch more frequently, also report significantly more workplace fatigue and burnout from their current positions. Simply, because they have to be a different person and mask all the cultural assets that they probably value and appreciate internally. But they realize that those same traits aren’t valued in their workplace. So they have to bring a completely different person to the workplace and basically keep that personality on throughout the workday. That can just be draining and likely will lead to mental health consequences,” Durkee said.

While it can be exhausting, Dr. Omari W. Keeles, assistant director for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Northwestern University, said he wouldn’t call it inauthentic because it is a huge part of the Black American experience.

“It’s one of those things where I don’t see it as a burden anymore. I just see it as something that is part of who I am, a part of how I navigate this world,” Keeles said.

Shanice Battle is a doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. She said she didn’t always know what it was called but she first noticed code-switching at a very young age.

READ: 8 powerful quotes for Black History Month

“I just thought it was a part of being an adult, not like this thing that was specific to my race and sometimes even specific to my gender,” Battle said.

Durkee said that when it comes to code-switching in the workplace, leadership needs to recognize that it’s happening.

“You need to get that diversity in the business organization itself but that can only go so far,” he said. “We also need representation all the way up the hierarchical ladder of leadership in the organization as well where individuals from underrepresented backgrounds can start to have a voice to start to dictate what that corporate culture looks like.”

READ: Black History Month coverage

Cultural invalidations and racial code-switching: What are the psychological implications?

Click here or watch via the embedded video below to view a presentation that “examines how cultural invalidations and racial code-switching are associated with ethnic-racial identity development, mental health, and occupational outcomes among people of color.”

Watch the presentation below:

Copyright 2021 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit - All rights reserved.

About the Author:

Kimberly Gill

Kimberly Gill joined the Local 4 News team in November 2014. She was named Personality of the Year in 2009 by the Ohio Broadcaster’s Hall of Fame. She’s also a two-time Emmy winner.

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What is code-switching? How does it impact the Black community?

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Code-switching is defined as the ability to switch between languages in a single conversation.

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1. State the most important thing that you learned from this unit reading and how it has deepened your understanding of black male and female relationships.
I've learned that black females want a relationship but with focusing on their education and career they put the relationship on hold. The black man once successful seems to date and marry outside of their race. I believe they think an educated black female is intimidating to them.
2. How do long standing stereotypes in the media of African American females being portrayed as property (rap videos, media) affect the psyche of those seeing these images and the African American woman's dating prospects?
The African American female stereotypes are that black females are seen as objects and property. The black females are always seen as sexual pleasure for men. In the rap videos the black females are always half naked, dancing and shaking their body's. We as black women need to stop this form of negative behavior. That way we can be seen in a positive way while influencing the younger generation to act accordingly to earn respect.
3. What factors are contributing to the rising number of single black unmarried females?
African American females are focused on their education and career than having a relationship. Marriage isn't considered until they reached their goals. African Americans females want to marry African American men than to marry outside their race. The African American male will marry outside his race causing one example why African American female are unmarried. Age plays a part as well for unmarried black women.
4. Why is there stigma in the African American community against LGBTQ community? Heterosexual people have always said to be gay, or a lesbian was wrong, and it was a sin, and you would burn in hell. The LGBTQ community has been discriminated against because of their sexual identity and who they are. Revealing their identity wasn't thought of due to the fear that they would lose family, or someone would cause harm to them.
5. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/living-single/202201/the-strategic-singlehood-black-women
This resource tells why Black Women aren't married and remains single than any other race .

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The number and proportion of people living single has been on the rise for decades, both in the U.S. and around the world. In the U.S., the proportion of Black women who are not married is higher than for Latinx, White, or Asian American women.

If you were to guess why so many Black women in the U.S. were not married, what would you say? If you pointed to rates of incarceration and mortality for Black men, or if you said that Black women earn more college degrees than Black men, you would be citing the kinds of factors that most often get discussed by social science researchers and opinion writers. And those factors are not irrelevant, but they leave out something important - what Wayne State University assistant professor Jessica D. Moorman describes as "Black women's agency in their single status." Black women are not just pushed by external forces; sometimes they choose to be single. Even if they want to marry eventually, these women often lead a purposeful single life in which they pursue goals that are important to them.

Moorman conducted in-depth interviews with 24 Black women from Detroit, ages 25-46, who either had never married (17 of them), were divorced (6) or were widowed (1). Seven had children and another 12 were actively involved in children's lives. All were cisgender and heterosexual. None were cohabiting with a romantic partner. The findings were reported in " Socializing singlehood: Personal, interpersonal, and sociocultural factors shaping Black women's single lives," in Psychology of Women Quarterly.

Singlehood on Their Own Terms

For many of the Black women Moorman interviewed, their single lives were "intentional and beneficial":

" Singlehood is in and of itself a strategy for managing one's broader life goals and responsibilities, one that afforded participants more control over their time, resources, and relationships to men."

Moorman called that strategic singlehood, or"the intentional practice of enacting or maintaining one's single status for the purposes of growth, safety, or exploration."

Some of the women did express frustrations with their single lives. They wanted more opportunities for companionship or for sexual expression. They worried about staying single if they wanted to marry. They also recognized that people who marry are rewarded with substantial social and economic benefits, just for being married; even the single women who liked being single were unhappy about that singlism.

Purpose-Driven Single Lives

Single lives were often lives of freedom and security. The women appreciated the opportunities singlehood offered them to pursue adventures and explorations, "to enjoy life at their own pace and for their own reasons," and to "side-step gendered responsibilities that eat up time, money, and autonomy." By living single, the women felt that they were also more likely to be spared "problems with money, lying, problematic management of the home, and emotional inconsistency." They were not saying that all romantic partners pose those risks, but that by living single, they were more likely to be safe from those risks.

The lives of the single Black women were purposeful ones. They devoted the time they spent single to the pursuit of important life goals including:

1. Travel

2. Employment and entrepreneurship

3. Financial planning, money management, and property ownership

4. Emotional growth and self-discovery

5. Spiritual growth

6. Community involvement

Not the Same Old Stories About Single Life

The Black single women were targets of the same kinds of judgments familiar to so many others. Their sexuality was questioned, as was their maturity. They were asked to account for their single status, to explain what was supposedly "wrong" with them. If they had no kids, they were mocked for it (e.g., "Do you know how to hold a baby?").

In other important ways, though, their experiences defied the standard cultural narratives. Examples include the advice they receive, the systems of support they create, and what they take from popular culture.

Advice. Moorman notes that "Popular culture subjects single Black women to all manner of advice about how to get a man," as for example, in Steve Harvey's " Act like a lady, think like a man."

"But this type of advice was nearly absent from the current study. Rather, participants described receiving advice as girls and in adulthood, directing them to finish school, work, and establish financial security all while avoiding men and relationships."

In their descriptions of the goals they were pursuing, the women showed that they were taking that advice seriously. They also reported giving similar advice to their friends and relatives and to younger girls in their lives.

Support systems. Terms like "alone" and "unattached," as well as descriptions such as "doesn't have anyone," are used interchangeably with "single," as if having no one in your life is the definition of being single. In fact, though, single people are in many ways more connected to other people than married or coupled people are.

Scholars in the Black feminist tradition have been documenting the robust social networks of Black women for decades, as for example, in Carol Stack's 1975 book, All Our Kin. Moorman, too, found stereotype-defying social connections among the Black women she studied:

"Friends, family, and ex-romantic partners played a critical role in the day-to-day lives of participants...Support varied and included assistance with money, support with chores in the home, help in times of illness, childcare, aid in times of crisis, and help with transportation."

Popular culture. Black single women are often caricatured as "desperate for partnership, combative, or reproductively irresponsible." The women Moorman interviewed weren't buying it. Even those who wanted to find a long-term romantic partner "were unwilling to compromise their life goals or safety" to achieve that.

"Filled with Infinite Possibility"

The 24 women Moorman interviewed described very different experiences of single life, but there were commonalities, too. Taken together, their accounts supported this conclusion:

"Singlehood was complex, enacted strategically, preferred over misogynistic partners and restrictive gender roles, and filled with infinite possibility. Collectively, these findings upend dominant notions of Black women's singlehood as unwanted or evidence of dysfunction."

Scholarship and popular writings have long focused on single women. I'd like to hear more of the life stories of single men, as told by them, and I know others would, too.

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The number and proportion of people living single has been on the rise for decades, both in the U.S. and around the world. In the U.S., the proportion of Black women who are not married is higher than for Latinx, White, or Asian American women.

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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Poverty and Life in The Black Community

It is wonderful to see the success of many Black people. It can give hope to some, that there is the possibility for them to succeed, as well. However, obtaining it seems to be quite elusive for many in the Black community. Government data will show that 42% of African Americans are not married. Data will also show, that 62% of all black households are single parent homes. Recent data will show that one out of nine young Black men between the ages of 18 and 34 are incarcerated. Yet, the data will not show you the hurt, the lost, the pain, or the feeling of hopelessness that can often resonate within the lives of those people that account for those statistics. Or, the generational bondage that continues to be passed on from one to the next. Research and statistics will not show you the heart of a people that, or their dreams that live in poverty day after day; year after year.

Knowledge is said to be power. However, it is wisdom that teaches one how to use the knowledge that is gain. We can be armed with statistical data and have a knowledge of what is wrong in Black communities; but lack the keys [wisdom and understanding] to create solutions to the problems that seem to increase each and everyday.

A Closer Look At Poverty

While there have been great strides in bringing equality to the lives of the African American, there still remains to be a significant gap between the have and the have not's. It is grand to see the achievements of many people that have contributed to the rich history and advancement of the African American Culture, and continue to do so. Yet, there remains a great number of people that are living a life that is filled with struggles and disparity that many people could never fathom experiencing. Life is not easy, and sometimes life in the Black community can feel as though the odds are stacked against succeeding.

In order to get a clearer picture of what determines poverty; we can look at the numbers suggested by the US Census Bureau. The poverty threshold is the pretax income level that is calculated to determine where a person(s) is, in terms of economic level. For one person, the poverty threshold is $10,210. For two people, the threshold is, $13,690. For a family of three, the threshold is, $17,170; a family of four, $20,650. For each additional family member, you add $3,480. So, if you are a family of four and your total pretax income is, $20,650; you are considered to be living in poverty. This criteria is used to determine eligibility for certain federal funded programs and assistance. Food Stamps, WIC, Head-start, School lunch program, Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), are just a few federal programs that use these guidelines when determining eligibility.

Twenty-three percent (23%) of ALL African Americans are living at 100% below the poverty level. A further breakdown of the numbers calculates that, 12.7% are Black men, between the ages of 18 and 64. While, Black women between the same demographic stands at, 21.5%. The percentage of all African Americans, in a family of two, living at 300% below the poverty level, between 18 and 64, stands at a staggering 57.5%.

With the staggering statistics, what is actually being done to alleviate poverty? It is hard to walk through many Black communities without noticing the vast differences in the living conditions, and the schools, with that of White communities. Education has often been key to turning around the decline of a neighborhood. Yet, armed with all the data and research, the tools necessary to make the changes have not made its way to the many people in need of the services. There continues to be division, and a breakdown in communication between the people with the means to help, and those that are in need of help. There needs to be a bridge between the two, in order to start seeing an effective change.

There are dreams, hopes, and love in the Black community. Many are doing what they can, trying to make it from one day to the next; barely keeping their heads above water. No one sets out to be poor. No one sets out to live a life of poverty and pass it on to their children. However, that's what is happening; perpetuating the constant struggle to get out of the "ghetto".

America is in the throws of another Presidential election. There has been a war of words between the candidates. However, many people want to know what is going to be done to deal with the economic situation that is increasingly becoming a thorn in the side of many Americans; but has always been a sore spot for those living in poverty everyday of their lives. The cost of food is steadily on the rise. Gas this summer will reach more than $4.00; forcing people to make a decision between going to work, and putting food on the table. People living in poverty want to know, what is going to be done to help them make ends meet, and how they can finally attain the elusive American dream?

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Poverty and Life in The Black Community - African American Culture

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It is wonderful to see the success of many Black people. It can give hope to some, that there is the possibility for them to succeed, as well. However, obtaining it seems to be quite elusive for many in the Black community.

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1. Strengths: What are the strengths of Black neighborhoods and communities and how have they manifested over time?
The strengths of the African American communities are strong when it comes to unjust of the African American. The communities and neighborhoods come together as one and protest the racism and discrimination of the black community by police. The unjustly beatings and killings of unarmed black males and females. This treatment has been around for many years we just see and hear about it more often.
2. Weakness: What are the weaknesses of Black neighborhoods and communities and state one solution to an issue you have raised?
The negative stereotypes of African Americans give the community a bad reputation. The crimes in the community and neighborhoods, the killings and the gangs. The degrading look of the graffiti on the walls and buildings brings the communities and neighborhoods down. Narcotic sells, drug users as well as a liquor store and smoke shop all throughout the community gives off a bad vibe. The solution is giving back to the community doing something positive to uplift the community like more jobs and a safe place for the children to go to after school to keep them off the street or joining a gang. Keeping the community cleaned so people can feel good about where they live.
3.Opportunities: What are three ways in which black neighborhoods and communities could play a role in the progressive movement of the black community?
The importance of the family unit which consist of married parents with children.
The values and social norms.
Meeting the needs and wants og the community will improve the communities and neighborhoods.
4. Threats: Three ways in which black neighborhoods and communities could have detrimental effect on the progressive movement of the black community?
Limited resources would result in selling of drugs or stealing.  The lack of a good education could set someone back from getting a good job to provide for the family. No jobs in the community or lack of childcare resources.
One thing I learned is that the public housing was made for the low-income white families, and it didn't apply to the black low-income families, that's a form of discrimination towards black people. Just like redlining it prevented blacks from buying houses or renting in white neighborhoods. This housing discrimination still occurs today.

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Six things to know, especially if you want to avoid being a jerk.

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7.6 Intersectionality , Bias and Microaggressions 

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7.6 Intersectionality , Bias and Microaggressions 

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1. What would you say are the psychological consequences of experiencing subconscious racial slights as a person of color ?
The psychological consequences are depression , mental health issues , anger and poor health such as hypertension .
2. What stereotypes are perpetuated when racial microaggressions are thrown around towards a person of color ?
1. The stereotyping of African American men are negative , example : a white women sees a black man walking down the street and automatically holds her purse close to her . The stereotype is that black men steal and rob .
The stereotyping of Asians are negative :
example : Asians have money and are intelligent .
Asking someone where their from and repeating it with the intent that their not from here but another country .
3. Considering Intersectionality , what other issues does this theme affect in the African American community ?
1. The other issues are women are more likely to become the theme of Sexual Objectification as well as LBGQT with themes of sinfulness . LBGQT are always been judge for their sexual identity and told its a sin to have same sex relationships . Sexual Objectification of women is the judgement of what someone sees usually the shape of her body or showing to much skin giving them a bad reputation and their only been seen as an object .
4. State how these theories of intersectionality , racial microaggression , bias or white privilege affect one's understanding of sense of self or ethnic identity ?
The affects of one's understanding of sense of self brings  their self-esteem down . When anyone sees you different and judging you on the basis of your race it gives you a sense of mixed feeling sand confusion .Sense of self is how you see yourself but being judged alters the way you see yourself .
6.State a strategy that you feel can be successful to address the use of microaggressions especially when the offender is unaware of how their reactions affect people of color . People should be educated on how to treat people of color and also not to believe stereotypes , as long as stereotypes exists we will always have this racial microaggression .
7. One thing that stood out to me was the killings of the African American females and especially the little 7 year old girl that was killed by police . I've never heard of so many African American females killed by police . The focus on killings are the African American males . It's really sad that thee women were beat , dragged and thrown on the ground with no regard of the human race . It was heartbreaking to watch and see how the women were being treated . The life of the 7 year old African American touched my heart . Something needs to be done with the physical force done to African Americans and other races as well .

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Theme one : The Diversity Challenge in Stem Education and Stem Careers
1. What factors do you feel contribute to the disproportionately low numbers of African Americans ?
1. 80% of this job requires math and science skills .
2. Stem has a major diversity theirs more men than women in this field of study .
3. African Americans go through the Imposter Syndrome making you believe you don't belong or fit in . You start comparing yourself to others around you then doubting yourself thinking your not as smart .
4. Stereotype Threat based on a negative belief of a certain racial group .
2. What role do teachers play in shaping the expectations of students and fostering the interest of students in Stem Education ?
By not showing expectations towards a certain group but providing expectations for all involved .
3. How do you think the Implicit Bias of educators affects minority students who express interest in the  subject ?
It affects minorities by being unconsciously judged on racial group stereotypes .
4. How does this information contribute to the Imposter Phenomenon in the educational system and in the work place for African Americans ?
It contributes by being judged by race groups and the belief we can't accomplish or fit in , so in return we give up trying .
5. State one strategy that you could think could be implemented to counter the struggles identified in the video and reading .
In the video she knew she was smart but when she transferred schools she felt as if she didn't belong and didn't think she was smart enough to be there . She struggled with the Imposter Syndrome .
The Achievement Gap in education between African Americans and other races points out that African Americans doesn't succeed in the education system , we score low on testing and even in the grading system we score low . We must find away to turn failure to success finding strategies to rise above education capabilities .
6. State one thing you learned or one thing that stood out to you from the reading or video .
What stood out to me was the saying "The only person you compare yourself to is you if you made progress than that's all that matters ." We compare ourselves to others daily which brings our self - esteem either lower or higher and we should focus on just making progress within ourselves .

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Racial Autobiography Outline

1. Introduction Paragraph: Definition of Race

1. Introduction Statement: Race are groups of people that share similar physical traits .

2. Is race biological or social?: I believe race is a biological construct . Characteristics determine your race .

2. Body Paragraph 1: Self-Assessments/Scores/Analysis

1. Main point 1: Rosenberg Self-Esteem

1. Supporting Detail:  My test score was 14 and I agree with the analysis of the findings . I can feel low if I didn’t accomplish something I knew I could ‘ Failure plays a part in my Self-Esteem .

2. Main point 2:The Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure .

1. Supporting Detail: I am in touch with my Ethnic Identity , my grandmother taught us who we are and where we came from .

3. Body Paragraph 2: Summary of Stages of Racial Identity Development & Life Examples

1. Main point 1:The Summary of Stages of Racial Identity determines how you categorize youeself .

1. Supporting Detail:I am in the Black Racial Identity Stage . My mother and father are both black so my Identity is African American .

2. Main point 2: Black Racial Identity .

1. Supporting Detail: I have passed through the stages of trying to figure out who I am to knowing  who I am and  where I come from.

4. Body Paragraph 3: Post Racial Society Critical Analysis

1. Main point 1:How can we become a Post Racial Society?

1. Supporting Detail:We can become a Post Racial Society by treating all races the same , not seeing the color of our skin being a problem .

2. Main point 2:The Negativity towards Different Races .

1. Supporting Detail:Stereotyping  of certain races always has a negative outcome .

5. Conclusion Paragraph

1. Summary statement: We need to change the outlook on how the dominant society sees us .

2. Closing Statement: Don’t judje a person because of the color of their skin . Just because I’m black doesn’t make me a bad person . You can’t be my judge and jury too . Look beyond race, you might like what you see  .

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Kinship systems are mechanisms that link conjugal families (and individuals not living in families) in ways that affect the integration of the general social structure and enhance the ability of the society to reproduce itself in an orderly fashion. Kinship performs these social functions in two ways. First, through relationships defined by blood ties and marriage, kinship systems make possible ready-made contemporaneous networks of social ties sustained during the lifetimes of related persons and, second, they enable the temporal continuity of identifiable family connections over generations, despite the limited lifespan of a family's members. Variations in norms governing the structure of contemporaneous networks and the modes of temporal continuity compose the basis for the typologies of kinship systems described in this article.

In conceptualizing connections between kinship systems and family types, social scientists have applied either of two approaches. Some have developed typologies from historical analyses (and evolutionary schemes) that depict the transition of Western societies from ancient or medieval origins to modern civilizations. Other social scientists construct typologies that cut across diverse historical periods. Each historical era then constitutes a unique medium in which the structural typologies are expressed.

MODERNITY, FAMILY PATTERNS, AND KINSHIP SYSTEMS

There are at least three ways to develop historical typologies related to kinship and family. One way is to hypothesize a linear historical progression, which includes a family type existing at the beginning point in time, a particular historical process that will act upon the family and kinship structures (e.g., urbanization or industrialization), and a logical outcome at the end of the process. A second approach builds upon the above approach by positing a transitional family type that emerges during the historical process and gives way in the final stages of the process to another family type. A third approach, which includes devising a family type based upon a configuration of attributes peculiar to a particular historical era (e.g., the Victorian family, the American colonial family), implies that any historical era represents a unique convergence of diverse factors.

Bipolar Typologies. By and large, sociologists have drawn a connection between kinship and family on the basis of a distinction between traditionalism and modernity. Generally, this distinction draws upon Henry Maine's ([1861] 1963) depiction of the transformation of social relations in early societies. Maine argued that social relations changed from those based on ascriptive status (deriving from birth) to relations created and sustained through voluntary contractual arrangements. Maine's theory has evoked a series of typologies that, in large measure, refine the status-contract distinction. For instance, an ideal type developed by Ferdinand Toennies ([1887] 1957) has provided a backdrop for later typologies. The Toennies typology itself refers to a shift from Gemeinschaft (community) as a form of social organization based upon an existential will ( Wessenwille), which is suited to feudalism and peasant society, to Gesellschaft (society) as a social form based upon rational will ( Kurwille), which fits an urban environment under modem capitalism. Contemporary family typologies, in building upon Toennies's conceptual scheme, portray a weakening of kinship obligations and constraints.

One position, rooted in George P. Murdock's (1949) analysis of cross-cultural archives, has resulted in the main sequence theory of social change in kinship structure (Naroll 1970). Main sequence theory pertains to the way differential gender contributions to production of material resources affects the use of kindred as human resources/property. This theory holds that basic changes in kinship are initiated by a shift in the relative importance of men and women to the economic life of the society. First, there is a modification in the economic division of labor by gender. (For example, in hoe cultures, women tend to do the farming; when plows are introduced, men become the farmers.) Second, the shift in sexual division of labor generates a change in married couples' choices of residence, the major alternatives being near the husband's relatives (patrilocal), the wife's (matrilocal), or anywhere the couple desires (neolocal). (Plow cultures tend toward patrilocal residence.) Third, the change in choice of residential site affects the line of descent and inheritance favored in the kinship system: the husband's side (patrilineal), the wife's (matrilineal), or both sides (bilateral). (In line with the shift in residence, plow cultures show a greater inclination toward patrilinearity than do hoe cultures.) Fourth, the transfer to lineage affiliation generates a change in kinship terminology, particularly in ways that show tribal or clan membership, or, in modern societies, the dissolution of larger kinship structures. As applied to the emergence of modernity, main sequence theory predicts a continual emancipation from kinship constraints. An increase in the proportion of women in the labor force will produce a trend toward neolocal residence, which in turn will lead to increased emphasis upon bilaterality, weakening sibling ties and obligations to both sides of the extended family, and in the long run to changes in kin terminology and identity [e.g., voluntarism in choice of surnames as an indicator of preference as to line(s) of descent].

In a variation of main sequence theory, urban sociologists such as Wirth (1956) and Burgess and associates (1963) wrote on the effects of transferring the economic base of societies from the land to urban centers. The theme of their work is to be found in the German proverb "Stadt Luft macht frei" ("city air makes one free"). For example, Burgess and associates described a progression from what they named the institutional family to the companionship family. In this conceptualization, the institutional family, embedded in a larger kinship group, is characterized by patriarchy, clearly defined division of household labor by sex, and high fertility. Its unity is derived mainly from external constraints-social mores, religious authority, fixity in location, position in the social structure, and the value of familism (i.e., values giving priority to the collective welfare of the family over that of individual members). Burgess and associates regarded the institutional family as an adaptation to relatively immobile, rural, agricultural societies and believed its way of life was fixed over time. By way of contrast, urban society, which is characterized by mobility, anonymity, and change, makes inoperative the social control mechanisms developed to maintain stable, rural societies. With the withering of these external controls on rural family life, Burgess, Locke, and Thomes proposed that the companionship family is bound together by internal forces-mutual affection, egalitarianism, a sense of belonging, common interests-and affords freedom from the demands of traditional family and kinship ties.

Unlike the urban sociologists, structural functionalists such as Talcott Parsons (1954) place considerable emphasis on the interaction of subsystems in the larger social system. In part, structural functionalists are concerned with economic and kinship factors in structuring nuclear family relationships. Parsons described American kinship as "a 'conjugal' system in that it is made up exclusively of interlocking conjugal families" (1954, p. 180) and is multilineal (i.e., bilateral) in descent. Parsons associates kinship solidarity with unilineal descent, that is, with a "structural bias in favor of solidarity with the ascendant and descendant families in any one line of descent" (1954, p. 184). The absence of such bias in the American descent system, Parsons suggests, is in large measure responsible for "the structural isolation of the individual conjugal family" (i.e., its autonomy).

The importance Parsons attributes to unilinearity as a factor in facilitating strong dependence upon kin ties is exemplified by his highlighting two exceptions to the structural isolation of the conjugal family in America-the upper-class elements, whose status depends on the continuity of their patrilineages' solidarity, and the lower-class elements, in which there is "a strong tendency to instability of marriage and a 'mother-centered' type of family structure" (Parsons 1954, p. 185). However, Parsons regards the urban middle class as characterizing "the focal American type of kinship." Since in the middle class the residence of the conjugal family typically is neolocal, and the conjugal family is economically independent of "the family of orientation of either spouse," the role of the conjugal family in U.S. society can be, for theoretical purposes, understood as master of its own destiny, rid of the impediments of extended-family ties.

In reaction to those sociologists who see modernity as inimical to bonds of kinship, other social scientists (e.g., Adams 1968; Firth et al. 1969; Litwak 1985; Mogey 1976; Shanas et al. 1968; Sussman 1959) turn their attention to the attenuated functions of kinship in contemporary society. Just as Goode (1963) notes a "fit" between the needs of modern capitalist society for a socially and geographically highly mobile population and the flexibility of the isolated conjugal family system, the revisionists indicate a similar fit between the existence of a highly mobile population and the presence of kin who give emergency aid and social support to relatives. The revisionists shift our attention away from constraints imposed by kinship loyalties and obligations and direct it instead to sources of services, goods, and emotional support that cannot readily be supplied by bureaucracies, markets, or other agencies. In his typology, Litwak (1960a, 1960b) distinguishes the isolated nuclear family (without kiship resources) from the traditional extended family (implying a hierarchy of authority), on the one hand, and from the modified extended family (which consists of a network of related but autonomous nuclear families), on the other. Although the revisionists have not destroyed the foundation of the bipolar family typologies, they do focus on a previously neglected area of analysis.

Three-Stage Typologies. Some modernization typologies introduce a third, transitional stage between traditional and modern kinship and family structures. These typologies accept the position that initially there is an emancipation from traditional kinship constraints and obligations, but they also propose that at some point new values of modernity emerge to fill the vacuum left by the dissipation of the old kinship constraints. For example, building on the work of LePlay, Zimmerman and Frampton (1966) offer a scheme of transformation in which families change from a patriarchal form to a stem-family structure and thence to an unstable family type. Zimmerman and Frampton begin with the premise that each social organization derives its "essential character" from a triad of "imperishable institutions"-family, religion, and property. However, in their view, "familism is necessary in all complete social organization to a degree more imperative than the need for property" (1966, p. 14; 1947). Zimmerman and Frampton regard the patriarchal family as the most familistic form. The patriarchal type is rooted in idealistic religious values and is characterized by a common household of a patriarch and his married sons and their families, wherein the property is held in the name of the "house," with the father as trustee. They identify the patriarchal form as having been prevalent among agriculturists in the Orient, in rural Russia, and among Slavonic peasants.

With urbanization and industrialization, however, the unstable family becomes predominant. Zimmerman and Frampton associate the unstable family with materialism and individualism and the resulting atomization of social life. Individuals are "freed from all obligations toward their parents and relatives" (1966, p. 15), and the identity of each conjugal family as a social unit ends with the death of the parents and the dispersal of the children.

The stem family represents a transitional state between the patriarchal and unstable forms. The stem family extends branches into urban centers while retaining its roots in the ancestral lands. As a result, the stem family provides a balance between the security of the traditional influences and resources of the "house" and the freedom and resources of the cities. (However, historical researchers yield less idyllic descriptions of the stem family than the Zimmerman and Frampton portrait. See Berkner 1972.)

A less romantic depiction of a transitional family type is drawn by Lawrence Stone (1975) in his typology of the English family's movement from feudalism to modernity. Stone posits the existence of a dual historical process. He places the decline of the importance of kin ties in the context of the emergence of a powerful, centralized state, and he then regards the rise of the modern family as an ideological emergence accompanying the development of capitalism.

According to Stone's typology, feudal England emphasized (1) kin-group responsibility for crimes and treasonable acts of members and (2) the institution of cousinship with its broad obligations. As political and economic power moved away from the traditional, landed elite to the state and the entrepreneurial class, the common law of the courts no longer recognized criminal and civil deviance as a kin-group responsibility, and cousinship lost its effectiveness. To fill the vacuum left by the decline of kinship as a factor in one's destiny, the relatively denuded conjugal family had to take over the task of guiding the destiny for its members. Consequently, by the sixteenth century, as an intermediate step toward the modern family, there was a trend toward authoritarianism in husband-wife interaction, and governance in the conjugal family took the form of patriarchy.

Stone (1975, p. 15) suggests that it was not until the eighteenth century that the spread of individualism and utilitarianism gave rise to a more companionate and egalitarian family structure. This last family form has been designated by Alan Macfarlane (1986) as the Malthusian marriage system, in which (1) marriage is seen as ultimately the bride's and groom's concern rather than that of the kin group; (2) marital interaction is supposed to be primarily companionate; and (3) love is supposed to be a precursor of marriage. Functionally, the Malthusian system yields relatively fewer children-by choice-than earlier family forms.

The Problem of Structure in Modernity Typologies. Typologies depicting historical transformations in family and kinship place much emphasis on the "fit" between the needs of modern industrial society and the presence of the conjugal family type (Litwak 1960a, 1960b; Parsons 1954). Despite this conjecture, Parsons (1954, p. 184) suggests that in Western society an "essentially open system" of kinship, with its "primary stress upon the conjugal family" and its lack of larger kin structures, has existed for centuries, long before the modern period. Like Macfarlane (1986), Parsons dates its establishment in late medieval times "when the kinship terminology of the European languages took shape." Moreover, Goode's (1963) analysis of family trends in eleven societies indicates that acceptance of modern, conjugal family ideology may precede economic and industrial development rather than come as a subsequent adaptation. Such findings cast doubt on the validity of the dichotomy between traditional societies and modernity as providing a theoretical basis for the typologies discussed above.

Parsons argues that (1) there is an incompatibility between corporate kinship and multilineal systems, and (2) in large measure, this incompatibility accounts for the prevalence of highly adaptable, structurally independent conjugal households in modern societies. However, findings by Davenport (1959), Mitchell (1963), Pehrson (1957), Peranio (1961), and others that corporate structures of kinship (such as clans) do exist in some multilineal kinship systems undercut Parsons's argument that such structures are to be found only in unilineal systems. Nevertheless, if multilateral kinship systems can accommodate corporate structures, then they can also include other kinship elements that sustain loyalties to descent groups and facilitate segmentation of the society.

The Problem of Connecting Kinship and Family in Modernity Typologies. Revisionists of the isolated conjugal family position have presented considerable evidence of residual elements of kinship ties in contemporary society. However, they do not adequately explain the connections between types of kinship systems and variation in performance of family functions in different parts of the social structure. Their main concern is with changes in kinship and family, changes that are consistent with the general loosening of tradition in modern society. But their focus on emancipation from tradition diverts their attention from (1) the influence of emerging ethnic, religious, or class interests upon patterns of integration of family networks in the larger social structure and (2) the temporal dimensions of kinship, which go beyond living kin to departed ancestors and generations yet to come.

Additionally, given the fact that the family-kinship typologies described above have their roots in the distinction between tradition and modernity, they overlook those nonindustrial, primarily nonurban societies in which families approach the companionship model as well as those ethnic and religious segments of industrial, primarily urban societies where strong familistic tendencies persist. Except for Stone (1975) and Zimmerman and Frampton (1966), these typologies are based on the concept of emancipation from tradition, and they do not deal explicitly with the emergence of new family values (other than flexibility and freedom). Most of all, their emphasis on emancipation from the constraints of tradition precludes their explaining why cohesive forces of family and kinship may remain strong (or increase in strength) in the face of an economic and social environment that is hostile to stable family life. (Exceptions are Sennett 1970 and Harris and Rosser 1983.)

Critical Commentary on Historical Typologies. Family typologies describing historical trends from one period of history to another are vulnerable to criticism of their teleological assumptions. Criticisms often involve (1) the definition of polar concepts and (2) the problem of inevitability.

1. Definition of polar concepts. The definition of polar concepts depends upon the value commitments of the analyst. For example, those analysts who view trends in kinship and family as movement toward liberation from traditional constraints and from obstacles to personal independence define the original state as confining and generally unjust and the future state as enabling emancipation from these obsolete social structures.

Family-theorist Ernest Burgess and associates (1963) view the evolution of family structure as going "from institution to companionship"-from external community constraints upon family relations to voluntaristic unity that derives from affection, domestic peace, and common goals. Similarly, Marxists define the transition as being away from family structures required to sustain an economic system based on unearned rewards of the dominant class and suppression of the laboring class. Their claim is that following the rise of future true communism, the dissolution of economic classes would liberate family life from the constraints and suffering imposed by economic position; for Frederick Engels ([1885] 1942), under true communism, family life would be liberated from economic demands, and, founded on personal bonds, families would endure only as long as these bonds lasted.

By way of contrast, analysts favoring traditional values define the trend in family life as a steady decay of family structure. Pitirim Sorokin (1937, vol. 4, p. 776), upon whose work Zimmerman and Frampton base their typology, notes that "the family as a sacred union of husband and wife, of parents and children, will continue to disintegrate . . . . [T]he home will become a mere overnight parking place mainly for sex-relationship." From another perspective, the behaviorist John Watson (1927) predicted that "in fifty years [1977], unless there is some change, the tribal custom of marriage will no longer exist. Family standards have broken down . . . The mystery and beauty of marriage and the rearing of children has pretty well broken down." In the Aldous Huxley's science fiction novel Brave New World (1955), all functions now performed by families would be community undertakings, and the word "mother" would be regarded as obscene.

The distinction between typologies focusing on personal liberation and those portraying decay highlights the fact that each approach deals with partial realities. Liberation typologies tend to slight disruptive activities of emerging family structure (e.g., spouse abuse, child abuse, splitting into factions, isolation from resources of kin and family). Instead, they tend to associate these activities with traditional family structures. In the Soviet Union, family problems were generally attributed to survivals of the traditional pre-Revolution family forms. Decay typologies do the opposite. They tend to underestimate unifying elements and personal satisfactions associated with the emerging family types and to overestimate the chaos associated with these types.

2. Problem of inevitability. Some typologies posit a straight-line progression from a beginning state to an end state, while others at least imply a degree of indeterminacy in movement. For any particular typology, the degree of indeterminacy depends on the analyst's conception of history. For example, the Burgess institution-to-companionship family typology assumes there to be a major historical evolution from fairly isolated rural communities to societies with a high degree of industrialization; the family and kinship institutions evolve through a long series of adaptations to keep up with the industrialization of societies and a movement from a rural to an urban way of life. Similar typologies-like Toennies's Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft ([1887] 1957) and Redfield's folk society to civilization (1947)-are based on comparable assumptions deriving from the dictum of Henry Maine, namely, that, as an overarching historical trend, the basis for social relations has been evolving from status to contract.

Despite the inevitability of trends implicit in the definition of polarities of family and kin structure in typologies of liberation (or decay), with the passage of time, definitions of polarities change. For example, analysts have redefined the concept of companionship as an end-state. In the 1940s, Burgess (1948; Burgess et al. 1963) regarded the future end-state as one in which the husband and wife (1) would be married without interference from family and community constraints, (2) would remain united through affection and common interests, (3) would maintain an equality in decision making and other aspects of family status, and (4) would orient their parenthood toward producing children with healthy personalities. But variations in family life included under the "companionship family" definition have been broadly expanded over time. By the end of the twentieth century, the end-state of the companionship family (as well as the unstable-family concept) has been redefined to include a diversity of household arrangements, such as (1) couples living together without formal marriage, (2) same-sex couples and their children (by adoption or by birth from previous or supplementary liaisons), and (3) voluntary single-parent households. Given these modifications in the concept of the companionship family, the very nature of the typology has been transformed. As a result, it is difficult to determine what family and kinship theorists will consider to be the evolutionary outcome twenty-five years from the present.

According to Murdoch's (1949) depiction of main sequence theory (described earlier), the changing pattern of employment has facilitated the widespread movement of women into broad sectors of occupations. This change has affected the composition of residences and, subsequently, will affect the descent structure and eventually kinship terminology. Evidence of this development can readily be seen. Around 1960, in an offhand comment during a lecture, Murdoch predicted that the control over wealth in America (1) would flow increasingly into the hands of women, (2) would at some point create shifts in household patterns, and (3) in the long run would produce a kinship structure dominated by women. Regardless of the accuracy of Murdoch's prediction, changes in practices pertaining to kinship are appearing in various ways: (1) Newspapers obituaries have routinely begun to include "life companions" (of either gender) in the list of related survivors; (2) public policy pertaining to health insurance coverage has been modified in some communities to include unmarried domestic partners; (3) in some countries (e.g., Russia, Israel), intestacy laws have been amended to include unrelated household residents; (4) the issue of legally recognizing same-sex marriages (or domestic partners) as a valid arrangement has emerged in a wide range of communities.

Unlike the theoretical inevitability of collectively rational adaptations assumed by evolutionary theorists, the typologies formulated by cyclical theorists lead away from regarding their end-states as inevitable. In their portrayal of historical processes, the cyclical theorists have the burden of explaining conditions for triggering reversals in historical cycles. These reversals imply that critical periods arise through cultural innovations and conflicts. The effects of novelty and conflict in these critical periods introduce an indeterminancy into the historical process. This indeterminacy brings to the foreground the problem of the inhibition of change: What introduces a new cycle, and what brings the cycle to a halt? For example, as discussed earlier, Zimmerman and Frampton (1947) see the history of the family as a series of repetitive cycles: a decay from corporate family forms (based on idealistic values) to unstable, chaotic families (based on materialistic values and individualism), followed by a regeneration of familism. Their scheme of analysis explains the oscillations between various degrees of familism and individualism in terms of a conflict between maintaining an enduring, traditional social structure and attending to persistent personal yearnings. The idealism of religious or ascetic values facilitates social stability in corporate family settings. However, the stifling of personal aims and desires, without idealism, encourages the adoption of materialistic values and sensuality associated with the unstable family. Hence, there is no guarantee that an old cycle will end or that new ideals supporting familism will again emerge.

A TRANSHISTORICAL TYPOLOGY OF KINSHIP AND FAMILY SYSTEMS

For well over a millennium, church intellectuals have been aware of variations in marital selection and their implications for family structure and kinship ties as well as for social structure. Early in the fifth century, in his De Civitate Dei ( City of God), Saint Augustine of Hippo (1984, pp. 623-625) noted that in early biblical times demographic insufficiencies made it necessary for Jews to practice kinship endogamy. However, he proposed that marrying close relatives, and thereby creating multiple family ties with the same people, restricted the potential expanse of social circles that could be tied into a coherent community. Kinship endogamy tends to divide societies into segments. On the other hand, marrying persons from previously unrelated families would "serve to weld social life securely" by binding diverse peoples into an extensive web of relationships. Later, in the twelfth century, Gratian suggested that God commanded the Hebrews to select relatives as mates "because the salvation of man was realized in the pure Jewish race" but that the Christian faith, which could be readily spread through teaching, made kinship endogamy obsolete (Chodorow 1972, p. 74).

Gratian's argument suggests that the differences between Judaic and Christian marriage systems have broad implications for contemporaneous functions of kinship as well as for temporal functions, connecting past and future generations. The discussion that follows presents a kinship and family typology derived ultimately from Augustine's and Gratian's depictions of marriage systems as well as from issues pertaining to descent. This typology involves theoretical concerns drawn from sociology and anthropology.

Contemporaneous and Temporal Functions of Kinship Systems. Both marriage systems and descent rules affect the character of links between contemporaneous networks of families. A major controversy that at one time occupied many social anthropologists was whether marriage systems (i.e., marital alliances between groups) are more fundamental in generating forms of social organization than are descent rules or vice versa. At stake in the controversy was the issue of whether the social solidarity undergirding descent rules is more fundamental than the ideas of reciprocity and exchange involved in marriage systems. In the end, Africanists favored descent rules, while Asianists leaned toward marital alliances. In their assessment of the controversy, Buchler and Selby (1968) found evidence for the validity of both views.

However, despite the chicken-and-egg character of the controversy, the alliance-descent issue highlights the contradictory nature of kinship structure. This contradiction is depicted in the opposing views of structuralists such as Claude Levi-Strauss (1963), who supports the alliance position, and functionalists such as Meyer Fortes (1969), who argues for the descent position.

Alliance theories of kinship systems identify the primary function of kinship as the integration of networks of related families into the contemporaneous social fabric. Alliance adherents begin with marriage as the central element in structuring the way kinship operates. To alliance theorists, the significance of marriage lies in the idea that marriage is essentially a mode of exchange whose primary reason for existence is to inhibit conflict in society. In their view, kin groups exist as organized entities to effect marital exchanges. According to Levi-Strauss, the leading figure in alliance theory, "exchange in human society is a universal means of ensuring the interlocking of its constituent parts" (1963, p. 2). In unilineal systems, women are exchanged for equivalent valuable property, services, or both; in bilateral systems (which by their nature become multilateral in the long run), commitments to each other's relatives are exchanged. In bilateral kinship, bride and groom are of presumably equivalent value. Thus, in general, alliance theorists regard descent groupings primarily as a necessary ingredient for sustaining the marriage exchange system over the generations.

The descent theory of kinship systems rests on the assumption that the continued welfare of kindred over the generations is the primary function of kinship. In particular, Fortes regards "filiation"-being ascribed the status of a child of one's parents, with all the lifetime rights and obligations attached to that status (1969, p. 108)-as the "crucial relationships of intergenerational continuity and social reproduction" (pp. 255-256). He proposes that, as a concomitant of filiation, "the model relationship of kinship amity is fraternity, that is sibling unity, equality, and solidarity" (p. 241), and he provides a biblical example of the tie between David and Jonathan. But he also notes that "the Euro-American kinship institutions and values of Anglo-Saxon origin are imbued with the same notion of binding force of kinship amity" (p. 242), and he cites the mother-daughter relationship in England (in research findings by Young and Willmott 1957) as exemplifying that same moral code of diffuse but demanding reciprocal obligations.

On the one hand, alliance theory postulates that the basic drive in kinship organization is derived externally, from the kind of alliances appropriate to the structure of power in the community. Collectively, marital alliances create between families a network of links that integrate them in reference to overarching religious, economic, and political institutions. On the other hand, descent theory ascribes the bases of organization to internal demands, structural factors in the persistence of the kindred: rules governing residential location, division of labor and authority among members, and the various economic and political functions to be performed by the kinship system (Buchler and Selby 1968, p. 129).

Given the contradiction in the impulse for kinship organization, there is an apparent "impasse between the alliance and filiation point of view" (Buchler and Selby 1968, p. 141). What appears to be at issue is the depiction of the kinds of reciprocity norms that define the character of kinship. Descent theory presumes that an axiom of amity (i.e., prescriptive altruism or general reciprocity) is basic to the coherence of kin groups; alliance theory holds that balanced reciprocity (i.e., the rightness of exchanges for overt self-interest, opportunistic individualism, or noumenal norms) is in the final analysis the glue that integrates families and kin groups into a coherent whole.

The contradiction is apparent in many ways. For example, in biblical references and religious writings, the Ten Commandments enjoin one to honor parents and, conversely, to "cleave" to one's spouse and maintain peace in the household. In terms of kinds of reciprocity, one commandment involves unconditional giving or honoring, while the other concerns maintaining domestic peace (implying fair give-and-take).

Similarly, contemporary writers on marriage generally find the concept of balanced reciprocity appropriate in describing the quality of husband-wife ties. For example, Walster and Walster (1978) report that marriages work best when both husband and wife (as well as lovers) believe that each is receiving a fair exchange for what he or she offers in the relationship. Moreover, in their review of research on the quality of marriage, Lewis and Spanier (1982) note the importance of the symmetry of exchange in establishing and maintaining strong marital ties. However, in the socialization of children and in the allocation of resources, the rule of amity (or prescriptive altruism) is supposed to prevail. For example, parents are ordinarily expected to make "sacrifices" for their children when necessary; to do otherwise is to be a "bad" parent. In the American court system, the general rule for the disposition of children in cases of divorce, child neglect or abuse, or adoption is that the court should base its decision on the welfare of the child rather than on the interests of the parents or other parties.

To some extent, the descent-marriage contradiction can be obscured by compartmentalizing marital, parental, and filial conduct and by dividing responsibilities of husband and wife. However, conflicts in norms for dealing with family members and kindred may occur for several reasons, but they occur principally because of scarcities of time and resources required to carry out duties and obligations in the face of a wide range of simultaneous and conflicting demands. Since the resulting dilemmas are widespread in the society, there is a need for a general rule. Because contradictory alliance and descent impulses are operative, each group is pushed to establish a coherent kinship scheme that gives priority to one impulse over the other or at least establishes some form of compromise between them.

There is evidence that rules governing marital functions conflict with those pertaining to descent functions, paralleling the alliance-descent controversy in kinship systems. Where descent functions are given precedence in family organization, marital functions are subordinated (and vice versa). Examples of this inverse relationship are (1) if husband-wife unity is central, then the unity between siblings is peripheral (and the reverse), and (2) if marriage between close affines is forbidden, first-cousin marriage is permitted (and vice versa). These examples are discussed in the sections that follow.

Marital Unity Versus Unity of the Sibling Group. Comparisons between societies indicate that ties between siblings have an inverse relationship to husband-wife ties. Where descent is valued over alliance or marriage in kinship relations, brother-sister bonds are particularly close (Parsons 1954), while the husband-wife relationship is relatively distant. In such family systems (whether or not its therapeutic implications are true), parents are expected to remain together for the sake of the children, and this expectation expresses the priority of descent over marital ties. Conversely, in family systems where the marriage function is more valued, the husband-wife relationship is intense (e.g., the importance of the give-and-take of love and of companionship for marriage) and the brother-sister relationship is competitive, distant, or both and the incest taboo justifies their apartness (see Lopata 1973 on widows and their brothers). In societies where priority is given to marital bonds over descent ties, the presence of children is of less importance in dissolving an unhappy marriage, and there is greater ambiguity about what is best for the children. The mere fact that the strength of brother-sister ties and that of marital ties vary inversely in different societies lends support to the proposition that there is a contradiction in the family system between its marital functions and its descent functions.

Affines and Cousins in American Marriage Law. The opposition between marital and descent functions in the family is also illustrated by the inverse relationship in American law of marriages considered to be incestuous: As a general tendency, states that forbid second marriages between a person and certain affines (such as that person's parents-in-law and sons- or daughters-in-law) allow first cousins to marry, while those that permit marriage between close affines forbid first-cousin marriage (Farber 1968). If the preferred function of marriage is to reinforce close consanguineous kinship ties, then this pattern of marital prohibitions signals a subordination of affinal bonds to those of consanguinity. Marrying into the family of the former spouse will not reinforce any of the other existing bonds of consanguinity. Consequently, although first-cousin marriage is to be permitted in order to reinforce intimate kinship ties, marriage with close affines should be avoided. However, if marriage is considered to be primarily a mechanism for creating new bonds between previously unrelated families, then a second marriage into the same family merely serves to maintain the affinal bonds initiated in the first marriage.

Social Structure and Kinship Systems. The presence of contradictory impulses in organizing kinship ties produces a predicament in establishing priorities between them. This contradiction evokes a question: Which circumstances lead some societies (and ethnic and religious subgroups) to give priority to descent and others to favor alliance assumptions in their kinship and family organization (Farber 1975)? In their analyses of the relationship between kinship organization and social structure, both Paige (1974) and Swanson (1969) distinguish between societies that feature the legitimacy of special interests-factionalism-in organizing social life and those that feature the importance of common interests-communalism-as an organizing theme.

Factions are a means for gathering forces and mobilizing members for conflict or competition with other factions. They emerge as a reaction to perceived danger to their well-being from other groups (cf. Douglas 1966). Factions emerge where either (1) special interest groups vie for superiority over other groups for access to power, wealth, or some other property, or (2) groups sense a danger to their continued autonomous existence as an ethnic or religious entity.

In kinship organization, the continual mobilization of family and kin results in the generation of norms that are centripetal in nature, that is, they facilitate the pulling inward of human, symbolic, and material resources. This centripetal tendency permits each kin group to separate itself from competing groups in order to endure. As a result, centripetal kin groups favor norms strengthening descent relationships over norms facilitating new alliances with other groups through marriage. Insofar as descent-group norms are rooted in the axiom of amity, one would expect centripetal kinship organization to feature the norm of prescriptive altruism over balanced reciprocities in kinship and family relations (see Farber 1975).

Jewish family norms provide some insight into the relationship between centripetal kinship systems and the application of the axiom of amity. In its basic ideology and in the code of laws supporting that ideology, Judaism assigns a major significance to the concept of nurturance (Farber 1984). Since nurturance is a central feature of maternal giving, it can be regarded as a metaphor for the axiom of amity. The Code of Jewish Law ( Shulkhan Arukh) offers numerous instances that signify the place of nurturance in Judaism (Ganzfried 1963). For example, the code sublimates feeding and eating into sacred, ritualistic acts. The act of eating is invested with holiness, to be enjoyed in abundance, particularly on feast days and the Sabbath. A connection is made in the code between providing food and giving gifts and charity. It proposes that festive occasions are also times for charity to the needy and for sending gifts. In addition to drawing a connection between food and charity, the code applies the metaphor of the parent-child relationship to charity giving and assigns a priority to family in its general concept of nurturance: First parents, then offspring, and "other kinsmen take precedence over strangers" (Ganzfried 1963, chap. 34). The injunction to nurture children involves an emphasis not only on food but on other aspects as well (for example, an exaggerated emphasis on elaborated linguistic codes for use in child rearing). Zena Smith Blau (1974) writes that "whatever Jewish mothers did for their children-and they did a great deal-was accompanied by a flow of language, consisting of rich, colorful expressive words and phrases" (p. 175). The aim of socialization is presumably to turn the child into a Mensch -to transform the child from a receiver of nurture to a giver of nurture (Zborowski and Herzog 1952). Hence, in traditional Judaism, the concept of nurturance seems to tie together the kinship emphasis on descent and the axiom of amity in organizing family relationships.

If nurturing the next generation is a form of prescriptive altruism, this nurturing can also occur in symbolic form. Like the transmission of physical wealth and nurturing, the parents can also transmit a "symbolic estate" to the next generation. In a real sense, along with material resources, people inherit a collection of living and dead relatives connected to them by birth and/or marriage. These relatives constitute a trove of heroes and villains whose personal qualities, exploits, and ideas are remembered in socializing succeeding generations. This "symbolic estate" defines for individuals (1) a sense of belonging to an identifiable "family," (2) role models to emulate (or disown), (3) a legitimation of one's place in community and society (Farber 1971). Craig (1979) sees the symbolic estate as a vehicle for achieving personal and familial immortality. Implicitly, it is one's duty in centripetally-oriented kinship systems to contribute to the symbolic estate by living an exemplary life (however this way of life is defined in particular historical circumstances).

To be operative as memorials (or reminders), the content of symbolic estates must have some bearing upon the personal identities (or destinies) of family members. In Judaism, historically this meant assessing the "quality" of one's ancestry ( yachas), however defined; this assessment was particularly important in eras of arranged marriages. However, Yerushalmi (1982) notes the general importance of collective memory for the endurance of Judaism. Its centrality is suggested by the appearance of the verb zakhar (to remember) "in the [Hebrew] Bible no less than one hundred sixty-nine times" (Yerushalmi 1982, p. 5). Moreover, numerous memorials have been incorporated into holy day observances (e.g., the retelling of the story of the Exodus annually at the family seder at Passover). Especially significant for sustaining symbolic estates among Jews is the ritualizing of the remembrance of dead relatives through (1) memorial prayer services ( yizkor) on four major holy days, and (2) partly as a means to continue to honor one's parents after their death, the recitation of the prayer for the dead ( kaddish) on anniversaries of the death of each family members. The concept of symbolic estates connects collective family memories-such as legends, myths, and moral ideas-to the continuity of "family" from one generation to the next. In her study of Genesis, Steinmetz (1991) applies the concept of "symbolic estates" to the succession from father to son of the obligation to ensure the realization of God's command to found and then maintain a Jewish nation. She regards the entire structure of Genesis as resting upon the transfer of this ideal to worthy heirs in the family line. Her emphasis upon the transmission of "symbolic estates" is echoed in an investigation by Bendor (1996) of the social structure of ancient Israel. Bendor concludes that Israeli social stratification is derived to a large extent from the kinship ideology of familial perpetuity-rather than from the influence of economic factors upon kinship and family life. The findings on ancient Israel by Steinmetz and Bendor bear upon historical and contemporary studies of kinship and family. Examples are the research reports by Pina-Cabal (1997) on family legends in urban Portugal, Attias-Donfut (1997) on home-sharing in France, Hastrup (1982) on establishing Icelander ethnicity, and Weigert and Hastings (1977) on maintaining family archives of photographs, old records, letters, and other memorials. The focus in these studies is upon symbolic mechanisms for sustaining family continuity. (The discussion of centrifugal kinship systems in the next section will describe obstacles to the perpetuation of "symbolic estates.")

As opposed to factionalism, communalism implies a situation in which special interests are subordinated to common concerns of diverse groups. In stateless societies, these common concerns may well emerge from economic interdependence or the presence of a common enemy. In societies with a centralized government, the state presumably symbolizes a concern for the common welfare of the populace. Other unifying concerns may exist as well, for example, the presence of a universal church (as opposed to competing sects and denominations), nationalism (as opposed to ethnic self-determination), a centralized bureaucracy or market (as opposed to regional competition for dominance), and so on. The common concerns would best be served if members of kin groups were to be dispersed by marriage to previously unrelated people living throughout the society. This dispersal would maximize the number of diverse kin groups with which any family is connected, and it would thereby scatter kinship loyalties, obligations, and property as widely as possible. Consequently, this kind of kinship system, associated with communalism, can be identified as applying an outward pressure upon its constituents; it is centrifugal in nature.

In contrast to the centripetal system, the centrifugal system subordinates kinship ties to conjugal family ties and extends marital prohibitions widely in order to inhibit marriages that would merely reinforce existing consanguineous ties. According to the theory outlined above, in centrifugal kinship systems, in which marriage functions are given priority over descent functions, the appropriate norm for defining family interaction is balanced reciprocity-exchange rather than the axiom of amity.

In the United States, although the centrifugal kinship system appears in a wide range of socioeconomic, religious, and ethnic groups, it is found disproportionately at lower socioeconomic levels, where families seek improved integration into the larger society (Farber 1981).

The application of balanced exchange as a norm in family and kinship is exemplified in a study of poor families by Stack (1974). She describes the prevalence of "swapping" as a named, bartering norm governing both ties between kin and between family members in their struggle for survival. Stack notes that "reciprocal obligations last as long as both participants are mutually satisfied" and that they continue such exchange relationships as long as they can "draw upon the credit they accumulate with others through swapping" (p. 41). Indeed, according to Stack, "those actively involved in domestic networks swap goods and services on a daily, practically an hourly, basis" (p. 35). But this exchange does not constitute a playing out of the axiom of amity since "the obligation to repay carries kin and community sanctions" (p. 34) and it extends beyond family and kin to friends. Although swapping may involve some element of trust, it exists to ensure exchanges in the lean times that predictably recur in domestic networks that are too marginal in resources to be magnanimous. It pays to create numerous bartering arrangements rather than to accumulate obligations within a very small network of intimate kin. Thus, in its own way, swapping mimics the proliferation of networks of previously unrelated families characteristic of centrifugal kinship systems.

In contrast to the importance of "symbolic estates" for facilitating the "immortality" of families in centripetal kinship systems, families in centrifugal systems are often characterized by a "legacy of silence." This silence may signify the existence of shameful or immoral acts of relatives, or it may simply reflect an emphasis upon individualism in these families. In Germany after World War II, this "legacy of silence" functioned to erase the collective memory of parental activities and ideas they held during the Nazi era (Larney 1994, pp. 146-162). For victims of torture and displacement under the Nazi regime, the legacy of silence enabled them to wipe their degradation from memory (Bar-On 1989). In either case, whereas symbolic estates provide a vehicle for family continuity, the legacy of silence established a discontinuity.

The German experience may result in a single break in family continuity-to permit starting afresh. However, the institutionalization of the legacy of silence in centrifugal kinship systems perpetuates this discontinuity between generations of nuclear families. This legacy has been found to be prevalent in low socioeconomic-level families populating urban slums (Farber 1971). Families tend to exchange little information about one another; in fact what is hidden may permit closer ties between kin than the revelation of illicit or immoral acts. Then too, in families where welfare agencies and police intrude, silence serves to maintain the privacy of the household.

The tacit norm of collective forgetting in these centrifugal kinship systems places the onus for kinship unity upon mutual assistance, friendship, and availability of kin. Yet, in her study of kinship among poor racial and ethnic minorities, Roschelle (1997) found that degree of mutual assistance between families and extent of interaction among relatives depend largely upon availability of kin. Migrant families frequently are isolated in time of need and the legacy of silence may thereby be enhanced.

In a society marked by much internal migration and social mobility, there are many opportunities for a proliferation of centrifugal tendencies in kinship. Whether centrifugal systems actually emerge through mobility may depend upon a variety of factors. Gullestad (1997) notes a shift in the meaning of kinship in urban Norway. She describes a social transformation from norms regarding "being of use" and social solidarity to self-realization and "finding oneself" (or "being oneself"), that is, from norms sustaining family continuity to norms fostering separation and discontinuity. She attributes this shift to "transformed modernity" involving "fundamental restructurings of home and neighborhood because women and children are not present in the same way or to the same extent as before" (Gullestad 1997, p. 210). Transformed modernity, as well as advances in reproductive technology, is identified also as a factor in the proliferation of diverse forms of kinship structure in contemporary society (Strathern 1992).

One can interpret the emergence of feminist movements as both stimulating and stimulated by the "transformed modernity" cited by Gullestad. For some forms of feminism, post-modern thought provides a rationale for denigrating traditional symbolic estates. Post-modern writings propose that the framing of "factual" and theoretical statements have an exclusionary element-that is, they mark a population segment for exclusion from free participation. These "factual" statements justify this exclusion. As "factual" statements, posing as objective discourses, these statements have a hidden core. This core reflects the special interests of those with the power to define "truth" for the society. (See Foucault [1971] 1996.) Certain feminists claim that the hidden core of meaning in statements justifying exclusion of women from full participation in society is to promote male dominance in social structure (Barnard 1993). The symbolic estates that facilitate the endurance of existing lines of descent are thus seen as supporting patriarchy. Consequently, they are regarded as an obstacle to the full participation of women in society. Yet, as women's participation in economic and political spheres continues to expand, it is likely that symbolic estates will eventually be infused with a marked increase in content pertaining to exploits and interests of women.

Kinship-Map Typology. Although mapping of kinship ties cannot express all aspects of kinship relations, it can generate models expressing general orientations implicit in various patterns of kinship structure. Basically, genealogical maps of consanguineal ("blood") relationships merely locate positions in an ideal web of biological connections. Variations in mapping come into play when these maps are used to describe how one's obligations and proscriptions vary in different kinship structures. Such obligations and proscriptions pertain to marriage, remarriage, birth and adoption, inheritance, relations between generations and genders, and so on.

One advantage of models of genealogical mapping is that these models express the logical connections between functions of kinship in a particular society and priorities assigned to different kin statuses. For instance, a kinship type with a prohibition to marry a first cousin generally has a different function in society as compared to one permitting such marriage. This pattern of marital prohibitions will likely be related to priorities in inheritance. For instance, in American state laws, permitting first-cousin marriage would be associated with giving a niece or nephew precedence over a grandparent in intestate inheritance (i.e., when there is no written will). The opposite will likely be true where first-cousin marriage is forbidden.

The relationship between genealogical mapping and functions of kinship has a long history in Western civilization. Atkins (1974) has explored a wide range of formulae for generating different patterns of priorities in mapping genealogical relationships. Implied in genealogical mapping is the principle that the smaller the number of links (by birth or marriage) between relatives, other things being equal, the greater is the degree of obligation between them. Thus, in such matters as succession to estates, when a choice is to be made among kin, genealogically close relatives are presumed to be given priority over more distantly related kin. However, since the various formulae differ in the patterns of priority among kin generated, choice of an appropriate pattern of mapping depends on the role of kinship in the particular society.

In general, three patterns of priority for mapping kin have been applied in the Western world (mainly in laws of intestacy and marriage). However, in practice, each society makes modifications in these patterns to fit its needs. Examples of these patterns occur in (1) Catholic canon law and the state of Georgia, (2) the civil code of the Twelve Tables of the Roman Republic and more recently in Napoleonic Code and Louisiana law, and (3) the parentela orders in the Hebrew Bible and in abbreviated form in Israel, Germany, and various states (e.g., Arizona) (Farber 1981).

At one pole, the canon law of the Catholic Church stipulates that a function of the church is to create a unity that ties together diverse segments of its constituency in a web of extensive relationships (including family bonds). This aim implies that collateral ties between families are equal in importance to ties between ascendants and descendants (i.e., between generations). Under such conditions, ties between are extended outward in a centrifugal fashion. In laws governing marital prohibitions, marriage is discouraged within the second degree of distance of collateral kin (i.e., first cousins). In earlier generations, marital prohibitions in Canon Law were even more inclusive; for example, in thirteenth century, consanguineous marriages were prohibited within the fourth degree of relatedness.

In assigning distances from Ego in the canon law genealogical model (e.g., for priorities in inheritance), (1) all consanguineal members of Ego's nuclear family (parents, siblings, and children) are one degree of distance from Ego, (2) relatives just outside the nuclear family are two degrees of distance (grandparents, aunts and uncles, first cousins, nieces and nephews, and grandchildren), and so on. The canon law model thereby expresses the general principle that neither line of descent nor collateral distance is given special emphasis-only degree of distance from one's nuclear family is significant.

At the opposite pole, the parentela orders genealogical model places much emphasis upon line of descent (and among collateral relatives, the closeness of line of descent). Like the sociobiological ideal, the parentela orders model is oriented toward the survival of any given line of descent (or failing that, the next closest line of descent). This model expresses centripetal tendencies in kinship structure. In marriage law, collateral prohibitions are minimal, and marrying someone in the closest line of descent (first cousin) is preferred.

As the parentela orders model is applied to intestacy law, the centripetal principle is expressed in the Hebrew Bible in Numbers 27:8-11 and 36:7-9. In this model, priorities among relatives are allocated by line of descent: (1) Direct descendants of Ego are given first priority (children, grandchildren, etc.); (2) if there are no direct descendants, those of Ego's parents are given next priority (siblings, nieces and nephews, etc.); (3) next in priority are descendants of Ego's grandparents (aunts and uncles, first cousins, etc.)-and so on. In theory, Ego's estate will be passed on to the closest survivor in the closest line of descent to Ego's.

Between the extremes of centrifugality of the canon law model and the centripetality of the parentela orders model stands the civil law model. This model gives somewhat more weight in assigning closeness in kinship distance to direct-line ascendants and descendants than to collateral relatives (i.e., those related to Ego through a common ancestor). In computing kinship distance from Ego, the civil law model counts generations between Ego and the common ancestor as well as generations between the other relative and the common ancestor; for direct-line relatives, only those generations between Ego and the other relative need be counted. Obviously, the nearer the common ancestor is to Ego, the closer is the collateral relative in genealogical distance (and vice versa). Thus, Ego's grandparent is closer genealogically than a niece or nephew; the reverse is true for parentela orders priorities, and both are equidistant from Ego in the canon law model.

Several social surveys have been undertaken to test empirically the above propositions about ways in which people's conceptions about priorities assigned to different relatives in kinship mapping are actually reflected in their lives-religious affiliation, socioeconomic status, minority status, and so on. In these surveys, the respondents were asked to choose priorities among kin (for which the kinship-map models differ) if they were to write a law to govern intestacy (i.e., where there is no written will). For ten pairs of relatives for whom the kinship models differed in assigning a priority, within each pair, the respondents were to select the relative they thought should have precedence (as a general rule). (Equal priority was one alternative.) Respondents were then classified according to the kinship model to which a majority of their choices conformed.

The first surveys were undertaken in the United States (Farber 1977, 1979). The results indicate that Jewish respondents do indeed tend to view priorities from the perspective of the parentela orders model, while Catholics tend to be overrepresented in the canon law category. Of course, these are tendencies and not blanket findings covering all Jews or Catholics. For example, the degree to which a religious grouping adheres to scripture and/or ritual practices seems important in influencing kinship mapping. When religious branch was taken into account, responses of Jews who identified themselves as Conservative (a fairly traditional branch) tended to conform to the parentela orders model and none conformed to the canon law model, while those in the Reform category more often conformed to the canon law model than to than to the parentela orders model. Similarly, among Mormons whose marriage was sealed in the Temple, their responses were like those of the Conservative Jews, whereas those whose marriage was not sealed for time and eternity responded like Reform Jews. Moreover, neofundamentalist Protestants were the only other religious grouping overrepresented in the parentela orders category (Farber 1981, pp. 73-75).

Taken together, the above findings suggest that the parentela orders model tends to be prevalent in groupings where endurance of the particular religious community into the distant future may be problematic. The community would then be motivated to intensify its inward pull-its centripetal incentive-to keep succeeding generations within the fold.

In the course of one investigation (Farber 1981), a reanalysis of findings yielded a fourth kinship model. This model, whose computation is the reverse of the parentela orders model, emphasizes obligations to ancestors who have been responsible for preparing the groundwork for Ego's place in society. In the serendipitous model, Ego's direct ancestors are given priority over any descendants-first priority is given to parents, grandparents, and so on; the next set of priorities consists of Ego's children, then Ego's brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, great-uncles and great-aunts, and so on; following these, Ego's grandchildren, nieces and nephews, first cousins, and on and on (Farber 1981, p. 50).

The serendipitous model was disproportionately prevalent in several sectors of respondents-nonminority Protestants, those in professional and managerial occupations and at higher income levels, and those persons with U.S.-born fathers. In addition, persons who conformed to this model tended to come from smaller families (Farber 1981, p. 217) and expected to have fewer offspring than did other respondents (Farber 1981, p. 147). Since almost half the sample studied conformed to this model, it seemed appropriate to name it the Standard American model. The U.S. findings on the standard American model are consistent with Alexis de Tocqueville's observation made almost two centuries ago in Democracy in America ([1850] 1945), namely, that compared with Continental Europeans, Americans live in the present and show little interest in the perpetuation of family lines.

European data on the genealogical models throw further light on differences in the conception of kinship priorities between U.S. and Continental populations. An investigation in central Europe (Vienna, Bremen, and Cologne) shows parentela orders to be by far the most prevalent kinship model, especially among those families at upper socioeconomic levels (Baker 1991). By way of contrast, Baker's (1991) data from Dublin, Ireland, tend to be similar to the American findings: Jews display a strong tendency to conform to the parentela orders model, while Protestants and Catholics favor the standard American model (called by Baker the intercultural bourgeois model). Despite all the changes that have occurred over the generations, traditional perceptions of priorities in kinship claims still persist.

The typology of kinship maps (or collaterality models) is a heuristic for understanding an implicit theory of the workings of kinship structure. In itself, the typology is too simplistic to denote the complexity of norms and values and the operation of mechanisms involved. But these criticisms about the heuristic character of the types of collaterality models can be applied to all typologies used in kinship analysis. They are merely methodological tools for gaining insight into what is going on. To gain this insight, one forgoes the many nuances that give color to understanding the functioning of kinship.

Related Transhistorical Typologies. Variations on issues pertinent to the structural contradiction typology have been developed in other transhistorical schemes associated with the role of marriage and descent systems in organizing family and kinship systems. For instance, Guichard (1977) distinguishes between Eastern/Islamic and Western/Christian kinship systems. According to his typology, in the Eastern system, (1) descent is patrilineal; (2) marital ties are weak, and polygyny and easy divorce are permitted; (3) close ties exist between kin related through male lineage groups; (4) strong preference is given to endogamy within patrilineages; and (5) the sexes are segregated and women are relatively secluded within the home. In contrast, in the Western system, (1) kinship is bilineal or bilateral/multilateral, with ties to the maternal family considered important and with an emphasis on affinal connections as well; (2) marital bonds are the dominant unifying feature in family and kinship, with monogamy as prescribed and with extended kin ties as weak; (3) kin ties are defined according to individual connections rather than by lineage groups, with an emphasis on the ascending line rather than the descending line and with little importance attached to lineal continuity or solidarity; (4) kinship exogamy is prescribed, with endogamy permitted primarily for economic reasons; and (5) interaction between the sexes occurs in a wide range of circumstances.

In his reaction to Guichard, Goody (1983) revives the anthropological controversy between alliance theory and descent theory. Goody criticizes Guichard for basing his typology on marital norms (i.e., the endogamy-exogamy distinction) and suggests that by not starting with descent factors (i.e., inheritance practices), Guichard has overlooked a more fundamental distinction-that between kinship systems in which property is passed from one generation to the next through both sexes (by means of inheritance and dowry) and those systems in which property is transmitted unisexually (usually through males). Goody contends that passing property down unisexually encourages the development of corporate kinship groups (e.g., African systems). However, the use of bilateral devolution discourages such corporate structures, and Goody places both Eastern and Western systems in Guichard's dichotomy in the bilateral category. He faults Guichard for overstating the existence of corporate structures in Eastern kinship and proposes that Guichard's Western type represents merely a later historical development away from its roots in the Eastern system. Goody sees the primary problem of explaining the character of family and kinship in Western society as one of discerning how European societies shifted from preferred kinship endogamy (e.g., first-cousin marriage) to prescribed exogamy.

In his analysis of European kinship, Goody considers the changes introduced by the Christian (i.e., Roman Catholic) church from its beginnings to the late medieval period. He interprets the shift from kinship endogamy to exogamy mainly as a strategic move by the church to gain control over the lives of its members. As part of this effort, it had to wrest access to resources (especially productive land) from enduring control by family and kin. As a result, church laws evolved favoring those norms that might enhance allegiance to the church and weaken competition from the family and the state. In consequence, the church favored (1) the use of testation permitting bequests to the church; (2) the prescription of kinship exogamy as a means for inhibiting both the reinforcement of close kin ties and the passing down of resources exclusively within lineages; (3) the requirement of the consent of both bride and groom in marriage; (4) late marriage as a means for weakening family control over mate selection; (5) prohibition of divorce even for childless couples; and so on.

Goody seems to overstate his case in trying to interpret the shifts in kinship in ways that are consistent with his basic typology. For example, in giving primacy to inheritance patterns, Goody asserts that the ban on divorce in Roman Catholicism was devised primarily to encourage bequeathing estates to the church in case of childlessness. But, in fact, when there were no children, bequests usually were made "to brothers and sisters and to nieces and nephews" (Sheehan 1963, p. 75). Moreover, Goody's explanation of the ban ignores the widespread practice of bequeathing a portion of one's estate to the church even when one left a widow, children, or both. Sheehan (1963) reports that these bequests were made for the good of the soul: "Among the Anglo-Saxons, bequests to the palish church became so general that they were eventually required by law" (p. 292). This practice was not restricted to England. According to Sheehan, "Christians in the Mediterranean basin had developed the practice of bequeathing part of their estate in alms" (p. 303). Thus, church heirship in medieval Christian Europe was tied to repentance regardless of the existence of familial beneficiaries. Since church acquisition did not have to depend on bequests from childless couples, it is unlikely that the ban on divorce derives primarily from the desire of the church for additional benefices.

In addition, Goody dismisses the intermittent presence of kinship endogamy in medieval Europe as opportunistic deviations from the moral injunctions of the church. Yet, as Duby (1977) indicates, in medieval Europe the ebb and flow in kinship endogamy was tied to the amount of emphasis given to strengthening lines of descent. For example, Duby notes that in northern France, from before the tenth century to about the middle of the eleventh century, there was little utilization of the concept of lineage and only vague awareness of genealogy and knowledge about ancestors. Prior to that time, even members of the aristocracy considered their family to consist of "a horizontal grouping" of neighbors and kin "whose bonds were as much the result of marriage alliances as of blood" (Duby 1977, p. 147). Then, beginning in the tenth century, there was a change in ideas and norms regarding kinship-a conscious strengthening of lineage by controlling marriage, which frequently took place between close relatives despite impediments in canon law (Canon Law Society 1983). To summarize, Goody's argument is that medieval deviation from canon law consisted of opportunistic economic decisions and did not derive from a different set of norms. But Duby describes the coordination of kinship endogamy with the emerging notion of the legitimacy of lineage-a complex of ideas that requires a consensus among the kin in order to be effective. Hence, it appears that the change in marriage rules and the significance of lineage signaled more that ad hoc departures from church law.

There is still another reason for questioning Goody's conclusions: Goody makes the point that through bequests the Catholic church became the largest landowner in Europe. In his focus on the growth of exogamy as a consequence of the devolution of estates to both sexes, he has over-looked the church's own involvement as a major heir in the inheritance system. Particularly in the light of the church's view that ties through faith are equivalent to blood ties, the church is identified with spiritual kinship (Goody 1983, pp. 194ff). However, if it is legitimate to consider the church as an heir on a par with familial heirs, the system becomes one of trilateral devolution-sons, daughters, and the church. In that case, the European system differs markedly from the Eastern kinship system described by Guichard. Indeed, in contrast to Judaism and Islam, Christianity, at least until the end of the medieval period, saw family and kinship ties as competitive with church interests, and the strategies the church applied to weaken these ties altered both the marriage and the inheritance systems. The data imply that, despite their contradictory implications, the marriage, the alliance component, and the descent component should be addressed as equal factors in organizing family life. A task that remains is to integrate typologies of the emergence of modern kinship systems with transhistorical, structural typologies.

(see also: Alternative Life Styles; American Families; Family and Household Structure; Family Roles)

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kinship systems and family typeskinship systems are mechanisms that link conjugal families (and individuals not living in families) in ways that affect the integration of the general social structure and enhance the ability of the society to reproduce itself in an orderly fashion. kinship performs these social functions in two ways.

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KINSHIP SYSTEMS AND FAMILY TYPESKinship systems are mechanisms that link conjugal families (and individuals not living in families) in ways that affect the integration of the general social structure and enhance the ability of the society to reproduce itself in an orderly fashion. Kinship performs these social functions in two ways.

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Lisa Menefee
05-04-2022
Psych 110

Racial Autobiography Outline

Introduction Paragraph 1 : What is the Definition of Race ?
A. Race are groups of people that have similar traits .
B. Race refers to a persons physical characteristics .

Body paragraph 1. Is Race Biological or Social Construct .
A. Race is Biological Construct .
Supporting details :
A. It is part of are DNA .
B. Your identity traits come from your ancestors .
C. Bloodline is through heredity and biology.
Body paragraph 2. Summary of Stages of Racial Identity and Development .
A. Pre-counter ( to assimilate and be accepted ).
B. Encounter ( forced events to acknowledge the impact of racism).
C. Immersion /Emersion ( surrounding yourself with your race ).
D. Internalization ( secure in your own identity).
E. Internalization/Commitment ( the last stage and it is more concerned of their roles as a group).
Body Paragraph 3. Analysis of Self Assessment and Scores.
A. Rosenberg Self -Esteem Scale and Analysis.
B. To assist you in determining your level of self-esteem
C. Details
A.A score of 25 and above are average amounts of self-esteem .
B. A score of 15-25 are normal range .
C. A score of 15 and below are room for growth .
D. Results
I scored a !4 according to Rosenberg I have room for improvement and I do agree with the score . If I fail at something it changes my outlook of myself and I must work on that .
Body Paragraph 4. How can we become a Post Racial Society .
1. By not judging on the basis of skin color .
2. Not having negative stereotypes of certain racial groups .
Conclusion Summary 4.
Race is biological our identity is given to us by society . Society determine who we are , but are DNA determines exactly who we are .
Closing Remarks 5 . Just because you think we are doesn't make it true.

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1. What makes the black family unique ?
The love from the extended family that consists of friends , neighbors , church members and fictive kin . Play cousins , play aunts and play uncles are examples of fictive kin they help out with the family . Their not blood related but they play an important role in the black family .
2. Strength and challengers of the black family .
Strong Achievement orientation , to do better and see results .
2. Strong work orientation , developing a strong sense of work to be successful
3. Flexible family rolls , grandparents , aunts  , uncles , caregivers all take a roll in helping with the kids and the elders while mom and dad are away from the home
4. Strong kinship orientation , value others as if they were family
5. Strong religious orientation ,  the belief in God
3. How do concepts such as racial socialization affect parents and children in black families ?
Parents make the children aware of their identity by teaching them their the ethnic minority and prepare them for an Oppression environment . Teaching the kids about prejudice and discrimination . Talking to them about self esteem teaching them to love themselves and telling them about the slavery times .
4. Factors that had impacted black families since slavery . 1. Not being treated as equals . 2. Being discriminated against because of their skin color . 3. Discipline , physical punishment  of the children  from an authoritarian figure (dad) to make them understand what's is not accepted .
5. What stood out to me is the foster care system . They will put a black child in a white home because of the finances they can offer that child while a black family turned down because they don't have enough resources they can be a working black family but they may not make enough in the eye of the system so they get rejected .

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Please note that this article includes an image of human remains.

A friend of mine with Central American, Southern European, and West African ancestry is lactose intolerant. Drinking milk products upsets her stomach, and so she avoids them. About a decade ago, because of her low dairy intake, she feared that she might not be getting enough calcium, so she asked her doctor for a bone density test. He responded that she didn't need one because "blacks do not get osteoporosis."

My friend is not alone. The view that black people don't need a bone density test is a longstanding and common myth. A 2006 study in North Carolina found that out of 531 African American and Euro-American women screened for bone mineral density, only 15 percent were African American women-despite the fact that African American women made up almost half of that clinical population. A health fair in Albany, New York, in 2000, turned into a ruckus when black women were refused free osteoporosis screening. The situation hasn't changed much in more recent years.

Meanwhile, FRAX, a widely used calculator that estimates one's risk of osteoporotic fractures, is based on bone density combined with age, sex, and, yes, "race." Race, even though it is never defined or demarcated, is baked into the fracture risk algorithms.

Let's break down the problem.

First, presumably based on appearances, doctors placed my friend and others into a socially defined race box called "black," which is a tenuous way to classify anyone.

Race is a highly flexible way in which societies lump people into groups based on appearance that is assumed to be indicative of deeper biological or cultural connections. As a cultural category, the definitions and descriptions of races vary. "Color" lines based on skin tone can shift, which makes sense, but the categories are problematic for making any sort of scientific pronouncements.

Second, these medical professionals assumed that there was a firm genetic basis behind this racial classification, which there isn't.

Third, they assumed that this purported racially defined genetic difference would protect these women from osteoporosis and fractures.
The view that black people don't need a bone density test is a longstanding and common myth.
Some studies suggest that African American women-meaning women whose ancestry ties back to Africa-may indeed reach greater bone density than other women, which could be protective against osteoporosis. But that does not mean "being black"-that is, possessing an outward appearance that is socially defined as "black"-prevents someone from getting osteoporosis or bone fractures. Indeed, this same research also reports that African American women are more likely to die after a hip fracture. The link between osteoporosis risk and certain racial populations may be due to lived differences such as nutrition and activity levels, both of which affect bone density.

But more important: Geographic ancestry is not the same thing as race. African ancestry, for instance, does not tidily map onto being "black" (or vice versa). In fact, a 2016 study found wide variation in osteoporosis risk among women living in different regions within Africa. Their genetic risks have nothing to do with their socially defined race.

When medical professionals or researchers look for a genetic correlate to "race," they are falling into a trap: They assume that geographic ancestry, which does indeed matter to genetics, can be conflated with race, which does not. Sure, different human populations living in distinct places may statistically have different genetic traits-such as sickle cell trait (discussed below)-but such variation is about local populations (people in a specific region), not race.

Like a fish in water, we've all been engulfed by " the smog " of thinking that "race" is biologically real. Thus, it is easy to incorrectly conclude that "racial" differences in health, wealth, and all manner of other outcomes are the inescapable result of genetic differences.

The reality is that socially defined racial groups in the U.S. and most everywhere else do differ in outcomes. But that's not due to genes. Rather, it is due to systemic differences in lived experience and institutional racism.

Communities of color in the United States, for example, often have reduced access to medical care, well-balanced diets, and healthy environments. They are often treated more harshly in their interactions with law enforcement and the legal system. Studies show that they experience greater social stress, including endemic racism, that adversely affects all aspects of health. For example, babies born to African American women are more than twice as likely to die in their first year than babies born to non-Hispanic Euro-American women.

As a professor of biological anthropology, I teach and advise college undergraduates. While my students are aware of inequalities in the life experiences of different socially delineated racial groups, most of them also think that biological "races" are real things. Indeed, more than half of Americans still believe that their racial identity is "determined by information contained in their DNA."

For the longest time, Europeans thought that the sun revolved around the Earth. Their culturally attuned eyes saw this as obvious and unquestionably true. Just as astronomers now know that's not true, nearly all population geneticists know that dividing people into races neither explains nor describes human genetic variation.

Yet this idea of race-as-genetics will not die. For decades, it has been exposed to the sunlight of facts, but, like a vampire, it continues to suck blood-not only surviving but causing harm in how it can twist science to support racist ideologies. With apologies for the grisly metaphor, it is time to put a wooden stake through the heart of race-as-genetics. Doing so will make for better science and a fairer society.

In 1619, the first people from Africa arrived in Virginia and became integrated into society. Only after African and European bond laborers unified in various rebellions did colony leaders recognize the "need" to separate laborers. "Race" divided indentured Irish and other Europeans from enslaved Africans, and reduced opposition by those of European descent to the intolerable conditions of enslavement. What made race different from other prejudices, including ethnocentrism (the idea that a given culture is superior), is that it claimed that differences were natural, unchanging, and God-given. Eventually, race also received the stamp of science.

Over the next decades, Euro-American natural scientists debated the details of race, asking questions such as how often the races were created (once, as stated in the Bible, or many separate times), the number of races, and their defining, essential characteristics. But they did not question whether races were natural things. They reified race, making the idea of race real by unquestioning, constant use.

In the 1700s, Carl Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy and someone not without ego, liked to imagine himself as organizing what God created. Linnaeus famously classified our own species into races based on reports from explorers and conquerors.

The race categories he created included Americanus, Africanus, and even Monstrosus (for wild and feral individuals and those with birth defects), and their essential defining traits included a biocultural mélange of color, personality, and modes of governance. Linnaeus described Europeaus as white, sanguine, and governed by law, and Asiaticus as yellow, melancholic, and ruled by opinion. These descriptions highlight just how much ideas of race are formulated by social ideas of the time.

In line with early Christian notions, these "racial types" were arranged in a hierarchy: a great chain of being, from lower forms to higher forms that are closer to God. Europeans occupied the highest rungs, and other races were below, just above apes and monkeys.

So, the first big problems with the idea of race are that members of a racial group do not share "essences," Linnaeus' idea of some underlying spirit that unified groups, nor are races hierarchically arranged. A related fundamental flaw is that races were seen to be static and unchanging. There is no allowance for a process of change or what we now call evolution.

There have been lots of efforts since Charles Darwin's time to fashion the typological and static concept of race into an evolutionary concept. For example, Carleton Coon, a former president of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, argued in The Origin of Races (1962) that five races evolved separately and became modern humans at different times.

One nontrivial problem with Coon's theory, and all attempts to make race into an evolutionary unit, is that there is no evidence. Rather, all the archaeological and genetic data point to abundant flows of individuals, ideas, and genes across continents, with modern humans evolving at the same time, together.

A few pundits such as Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute and science writers such as Nicholas Wade, formerly of The New York Times, still argue that even though humans don't come in fixed, color-coded races, dividing us into races still does a decent job of describing human genetic variation. Their position is shockingly wrong. We've known for almost 50 years that race does not describe human genetic variation.

In 1972, Harvard evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin had the idea to test how much human genetic variation could be attributed to "racial" groupings. He famously assembled genetic data from around the globe and calculated how much variation was statistically apportioned within versus among races. Lewontin found that only about 6 percent of genetic variation in humans could be statistically attributed to race categorizations. Lewontin showed that the social category of race explains very little of the genetic diversity among us.

Furthermore, recent studies reveal that the variation between any two individuals is very small, on the order of one single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), or single letter change in our DNA, per 1,000. That means that racial categorization could, at most, relate to 6 percent of the variation found in 1 in 1,000 SNPs. Put simply, race fails to explain much.

In addition, genetic variation can be greater within groups that societies lump together as one "race" than it is between "races." To understand how that can be true, first imagine six individuals: two each from the continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe. Again, all of these individuals will be remarkably the same: On average, only about 1 out of 1,000 of their DNA letters will be different. A study by Ning Yu and colleagues places the overall difference more precisely at 0.88 per 1,000.

The researchers further found that people in Africa had less in common with one another than they did with people in Asia or Europe. Let's repeat that: On average, two individuals in Africa are more genetically dissimilar from each other than either one of them is from an individual in Europe or Asia.

Homo sapiens evolved in Africa; the groups that migrated out likely did not include all of the genetic variation that built up in Africa. That's an example of what evolutionary biologists call the founder effect, where migrant populations who settle in a new region have less variation than the population where they came from.

Genetic variation across Europe and Asia, and the Americas and Australia, is essentially a subset of the genetic variation in Africa. If genetic variation were a set of Russian nesting dolls, all of the other continental dolls pretty much fit into the African doll.

What all these data show is that the variation that scientists-from Linnaeus to Coon to the contemporary osteoporosis researcher-think is "race" is actually much better explained by a population's location. Genetic variation is highly correlated to geographic distance. Ultimately, the farther apart groups of people are from one another geographically, and, secondly, the longer they have been apart, can together explain groups' genetic distinctions from one another. Compared to "race," those factors not only better describe human variation, they invoke evolutionary processes to explain variation.

Those osteoporosis doctors might argue that even though socially defined race poorly describes human variation, it still could be a useful classification tool in medicine and other endeavors. When the rubber of actual practice hits the road, is race a useful way to make approximations about human variation?

When I've lectured at medical schools, my most commonly asked question concerns sickle cell trait. Writer Sherman Alexie, a member of the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene tribes, put the question this way in a 1998 interview: "If race is not real, explain sickle cell anemia to me."

OK! Sickle cell is a genetic trait: It is the result of an SNP that changes the amino acid sequence of hemoglobin, the protein that carries oxygen in red blood cells. When someone carries two copies of the sickle cell variant, they will have the disease. In the United States, sickle cell disease is most prevalent in people who identify as African American, creating the impression that it is a "black" disease.

Yet scientists have known about the much more complex geographic distribution of sickle cell mutation since the 1950s. It is almost nonexistent in the Americas, most parts of Europe and Asia-and also in large swaths of Northern and Southern Africa. On the other hand, it is common in West-Central Africa and also parts of the Mediterranean, Arabian Peninsula, and India. Globally, it does not correlate with continents or socially defined races.

In one of the most widely cited papers in anthropology, American biological anthropologist Frank Livingstone helped to explain the evolution of sickle cell. He showed that places with a long history of agriculture and endemic malaria have a high prevalence of sickle cell trait (a single copy of the allele). He put this information together with experimental and clinical studies that showed how sickle cell trait helped people resist malaria, and made a compelling case for sickle cell trait being selected for in those areas. Evolution and geography, not race, explain sickle cell anemia.

What about forensic scientists: Are they good at identifying race? In the U.S., forensic anthropologists are typically employed by law enforcement agencies to help identify skeletons, including inferences about sex, age, height, and "race." The methodological gold standards for estimating race are algorithms based on a series of skull measurements, such as widest breadth and facial height. Forensic anthropologists assume these algorithms work.

The origin of the claim that forensic scientists are good at ascertaining race comes from a 1962 study of "black," "white," and "Native American" skulls, which claimed an 80-90 percent success rate. That forensic scientists are good at telling "race" from a skull is a standard trope of both the scientific literature and popular portrayals. But my analysis of four later tests showed that the correct classification of Native American skulls from other contexts and locations averaged about two incorrect for every correct identification. The results are no better than a random assignment of race.

That's because humans are not divisible into biological races. On top of that, human variation does not stand still. "Race groups" are impossible to define in any stable or universal way. It cannot be done based on biology-not by skin color, bone measurements, or genetics. It cannot be done culturally: Race groupings have changed over time and place throughout history.

Science 101: If you cannot define groups consistently, then you cannot make scientific generalizations about them.

Wherever one looks, race-as-genetics is bad science. Moreover, when society continues to chase genetic explanations, it misses the larger societal causes underlying "racial" inequalities in health, wealth, and opportunity.

To be clear, what I am saying is that human biogenetic variation is real. Let's just continue to study human genetic variation free of the utterly constraining idea of race. When researchers want to discuss genetic ancestry or biological risks experienced by people in certain locations, they can do so without conflating these human groupings with racial categories. Let's be clear that genetic variation is an amazingly complex result of evolution and mustn't ever be reduced to race.

Similarly, race is real, it just isn't genetic. It's a culturally created phenomenon. We ought to know much more about the process of assigning individuals to a race group, including the category "white." And we especially need to know more about the effects of living in a racialized world: for example, how a society's categories Race is real, it just isn't genetic. It's a culturally created phenomenon.and prejudices lead to health inequalities. Let's be clear that race is a purely sociopolitical construction with powerful consequences.

It is hard to convince people of the dangers of thinking race is based on genetic differences. Like climate change, the structure of human genetic variation isn't something we can see and touch, so it is hard to comprehend. And our culturally trained eyes play a trick on us by seeming to see race as obviously real. Race-as-genetics is even more deeply ideologically embedded than humanity's reliance on fossil fuels and consumerism. For these reasons, racial ideas will prove hard to shift, but it is possible.

Over 13,000 scientists have come together to form-and publicize-a consensus statement about the climate crisis, and that has surely moved public opinion to align with science. Geneticists and anthropologists need to do the same for race-as-genetics. The recent American Association of Physical Anthropologists' Statement on Race & Racism is a fantastic start.

In the U.S., slavery ended over 150 years ago and the Civil Rights Law of 1964 passed half a century ago, but the ideology of race-as-genetics remains. It is time to throw race-as-genetics on the scrapheap of ideas that are no longer useful.

We can start by getting my friend-and anyone else who has been denied-that long-overdue bone density test.
This article was republished on Discovermagazine.com.

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Please note that this article includes an image of human remains. A friend of mine with Central American, Southern European, and West African ancestry is lactose intolerant. Drinking milk products upsets her stomach, and so she avoids them.

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The negative stereotypes of different races is unacceptable . Why can't we just be judged for who we are and what we stand for . No one should be discriminated on the basis of skin color , age , sexual orientation or class status .
The types of "isms" I can identify is sexism , racism , ableism . When asked where are you really from is racism because of his race the lady couldn't believe he was from here . Stereotyping a lesbian woman and how she should look is called sexism . Being an educated black woman that can speak in front of a room full of people then someone seems surprised that she can speak so well tells her she really spoke well was a form of racism and ableism .
2. I don't believe we live in a post racial society . Discrimination and racial prejudice still exist . It's a major social problem that doesn't seem to be going anywhere . White people say they don't see any difference between black and white  and were all treated the same , were not treated the same we get harassed by the police , killed by the police and we have to form an activist group to help fight the injustice  of the racial injustice that occurs .
3. My definition of race and is it Social or Biological construct or something else ?
Race is certain groups of people have similar traits as well as physical traits and share the same culture and history . Race is a biological construct . It is a part of our DNA . Your background has physical traits that can only be established through ancestors . Bloodline is also through biological DNA and that determines who you are and who your related to .
4. What stood out to me about a particular Race and Racism issue is that housing discriminated against black families wanting to rent or buy a house and the decision of not letting them was based solely on their race , its called red lining , The white people prevented the black families  from moving to white neighborhoods by raising the prices of the homes and sending them to the poor neighborhoods with the same race . This goes on today .
^. I've learned that racism isn't going anywhere and my African Americans will always be looked down upon . Stereotyping of the African Americans will always make us a target for negativity .

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Race refers to a person physical characteristics  such as bone structure , skin , hair , or eye color . Ethnicity refers to culture , nationality , language .your identity is based on how you look .

self identification between race and ethnicity is related to the ability to self identify a person does not choose her race it is assigned by society based upon her physical features

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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James Baldwin I Am Not Your Negro is all about race and how black Americans have been treated and unjustly accused . The N word was used so much by the white man he wanted everyone to know he wasn't a Nigga he was a man , he didn't want to see color lines , and he believed the black Americans would always suffer by the hands of the white man .
The documentary shows of Martin Luther King jr , Malcolm X and Medgar Evans all killed for wanting hope for the black man . Being in the civil rights movement was war on the black man . White man didn't want to see any progress in black men so they were assassinated Black Lives Matter was the reason why there was civil rights leaders .
Vintage International published the book I Am Not Your Negro in 2017

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I am in the Black American Racial Identity Stage . I am in this stage because I am a Black American female
I have passed through the previous stages because I've been taught that no matter what someone thinks about me that it's only their opinion . I've been taught that my skin color is beautiful and to embrace it  and never let no one put me down because I know my worth .
I've learned that their are people of different races that will judge me on the basis of my skin color and that's their right although it's wrong , I shall not be disrespected because I'm a Black American . I get along with my race much better than any other race because my race knows how it feels to be mistreated , not saying I wouldn't get along with other races I just feel a black American to another black American can relate to me .

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Identify and explain the major theoretical perspectives of African American Psychology .

The first perspective is that psychological  concepts and theories are universal and African Americans can be studied using universal laws and principles . The second perspective taken from Africentric scholars is that African American Psychology is the Psychology of people of African descent and these beliefs and behaviors are central to the study of African Americans .

Analyze how African American perspectives can be used to promote both ethnic identity and a strong self concept among African Americans . Their are two schools of thought regarding Black/African Psychology. One thought is pro Black and the other is pro Africentric . Black Psychology was formed as a reactionary to Western Psychology consequence of being black in America . Africentric Psychology considers core valus , beliefs , and behaviors found among African descent and the understanding of African Americans .

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Choose one of the 7 Principles of Nguzo Saba and define it . Explain why it resonates with you in the African American community .
Umoja means unity . I've seen this action demonstrated when innocent black men were getting killed . The Black Lives Matter showed Unity in the community by everyone coming together , different races pulling together to show support . Making a change in the way African Americans were getting treated .

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The concept of that I feel is most present today is Veneration of the person .African Americans life matters like any other life . We are all human beings regardless of skin color . Just like during slavery times Africans lives didn't matter they were beat , lynched and tortured and the same has went on today with the killings of innocent black men .
The least present of the concept is Human authenticity in the African American community . We need more leaders with a powerful voice to give back to the communities , fix up the community make it worth something  to be proud of .

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Theory 1. Ubuntu
Do you think the spirit of Ubuntu is alive and well today in African American culture ?
I don't believe the spirit of Ubuntu is alive and well today . From the video Ubuntu is the way of the life with respect , helpfulness sharing , community and caring . I don't see that today , respect has been lost for years and getting worse especially to our elders , no respect towards adults by the younger generation . I don't see much community spirit , almost everyone stay to themselves you may get a hello , a wave but the self involvement is rare .
Compare and contrast in detail and  provide examples of any parallels/similarities that you been able to identify between African culture and African American culture . Has the concept of Ubuntu changed your worldview at all ?
The difference between the African culture and African American culture is the caring they have for each other , lack of respect . The similarities are we all share the same skin color where we get judge from others .
The concept of Ubuntu hasn't changed my worldwide view of African Americans , as African Americans we fight with each other where we should be up standing together trying to make a difference , I love my African American culture but we need to learn to be more caring and loving towards our own .

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Positive Sense of Self Brainstorm
I believe a person who identifies positively with African American Psychology will have a stronger sense of self mainly because they can relate in a way another race cannot You have to know your history and what black people have been through in order to help them . The only person that can help another person in any race related issue is the person that shares your skin color . A man of color knows more about how black people are treated and it goes as far as slavery days , a white Psychologist would not be the best man or woman for the job to help black people because they didn't think anything was wrong with the way Africans and African Americans were treated . Don't get me wrong you may find some white psychologist who may think how Africans were treated was wrong but they don't understand the pain that took place so they can't relate far as I'm concerned .

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First Experience With Race Activity
1. What was your first experience with race ?
My first experience with race was when my brother and I went to the store which was owned by a Chinese couple and he accused my brother of stealing a candy bar and my brother told him it wasn't him , the store owner said it was you the candy is missing my brother pointed and said the boy that was in there took it and left out the owner says we all look alike and told us to leave . My brother told our parents and they went to the store to talk to the man he called the police and said he felt threatened and the police arrived and made my parents leave and we never walked into that store again .
2. I was 6 and my brother was 10 .
3. I was confused that the man accused my brother for stealing , I was scared because the man was talking loud at me and my brother . I felt scared , confused and very frightened .
4. I've talked about it with my parents and they explained to me about different races and how they treat people of color labeling all of us the same based on are skin color .
5. The worldview of racism makes me uneased and curious about why people judge others just because you had a bad experience with a black person doesn't mean all black people are the same because we share the same skin color . Racism is taught at home because we as children will play with any race it's when the parents that are bigots instill the racism in their kids head is when it all starts '

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1.6 Who am I , First Experience With Race & Sense of Self Brainstorm

1. Who am I ? I'm an African American woman , a mother and grandmother , daughter , sister , aunt , niece , co-worker , friend .
2. Who do I pretend to be ? I pretend to be a person that has answers to everything and can help in any given situation especially to my younger siblings who look to me for advice .
3. Who do people think I am ? People think I'm strong and fearless without any worries.
4. Who do I wish I can be ? I wish I could be the person that followed her dreams and made it a reality .
5. How has race or ethnic identity played a roll in any of these responses ? Being black and not having enough resources caused me to just settle for whatever was easier for me . Being black trying to succeed in school with old books , not enough books and being taught the basics made it difficult to get a good education . Race plays a part in black vs white education solely based on skin color and resources .