This thesis analyzes attitudes about race in Brazil in three research sites conducted in 2008 and 2009. The first research site was Salvador, Bahia where I asked a total of twelve students and professors their opinions about the importance of discussing race relations in Brazil and their views on Affirmative Action. These participants were mostly white middle-class students and professors. The second site was in the periferia of Zona Sul in the neighborhood of Capelinha, São Paulo. I interviewed four residents about the importance of race in Brazil. Here, the residents were mostly non-white, from various states in the north and northeast, and were working class. The last research site was Cooperifa, which is a spoken word movement located near Capelinha in Zona Sul. I found that non-white periferia residents subscribed to the same racial attitudes as the middle-class white participants when discussing the importance of race as a social phenomenon. In turn, I found that Cooperifa participants perceived white privilege as a social phenomenon that needs to be challenged. This thesis examines the links across these three sites and draws from theories of whiteness to understand them. / text

The concept of authenticity has been central to the human capacity to communicate for over two millennia, and it continues to enjoy wide usage throughout popular culture today. “Authenticity” typically conveys a sense that one has reached solid bedrock, the unchanging foundation of an object or inner-self that transcends the context of the moment. In this sense, the search or struggle for authenticity is a quest for VIP access to the ineffable “real” that language can only inadequately gesture toward. This study investigates the contemporary struggle for authenticity, or what can be described as the “rhetoric of authenticity,” by exploring the way authenticity is negotiated, constructed, and contested through various symbolic resources. More specifically, it focuses on how authenticity is negotiated in the U.S. blues community, a complex cultural site where the struggle over authenticity is especially salient and materializes in a variety of complex ways. Drawing on a number of philosophical perspectives and critical theories, the study employs the methods of rhetorical criticism and oral history as it seeks to answer three central questions: First, what are the major rhetorical dimensions of authenticity? Second, what does rhetorical analysis reveal about the relationship between authenticity and its various signifiers? And third, what does our desire for authenticity teach us about ourselves as symbol-using creatures? The study employs a case study approach that moves inductively in order to discover the larger rhetorical dimensions of authenticity. The case studies examine the relationship between authenticity and the blues’ larger historical trajectory; between aesthetics and authenticity in the oral history narratives of professional blues musicians in Austin, Texas, especially as they converge along a style/substance binary; between identity and authenticity in the editorial policy of Living Blues magazine; and finally, between imitation and authenticity in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers. The study concludes by exploring how authenticity is contextual, aesthetic, ideological, and political, and frames a rhetorical theory of authenticity that can be applied widely throughout popular culture. / text

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The purpose of this research was to document how racial ideologies were expressed in relational organizing practices in a working class Latino Elementary school in Texas. By identifying dominant and subjugated racial ideologies, this research contributes to effort to challenge inequitable racial systems in schools through community organizing for school reform. I employed a participant ethnographic approach by becoming a volunteer relational organizer with a community organizing institution at Walnutbrook Elementary. I worked with working class Latino parents and the school staff to identify and challenge inequitable racial systems at the school. Using a racial systemic framework, I describe how dominant racial ideologies shaped relational organizing practices through racial narratives repeated throughout the organizing actions. I also document how some working class Latina leaders were able to counter narrate subjugated ideologies by using differential techniques as their organizing practices. Through microethnographic case studies, I am able to tell the stories of how schooling institutions continued inequitable racial systems by narrating dominant racial ideologies while local community leaders created spaces through which to challenge these systems and ideologies by privileging their Latina epistemologies. / text

This research explores the history of an enslaved African-American family who descend from an eighteenth-century ancestor named Anakah, through archival records in order to uncover any inconspicuous clues and a preponderance of evidence positively linking her family to its West African origins. This research also unearthed the Africanisms that prevailed within her family during slavery. Anakah's family was linked to two possible regions in West Africa, but no concrete evidence was found to definitively link the origins of her family to one of those regions. Additionally, familial customs and practices that mirrored West African customs were found among four generations of her enslaved descendants in South Carolina and Mississippi. This research displayed how definitive links to specific West African regions can be plausibly asserted in some families through an in-depth, historical analysis. Although certain Africanisms can not serve as conclusive evidence to adequately identify the West African origins of this family or any African-American family, the documentation of the West African cultural retentions served as an integral part of successfully bridging the gap between Anakah and her family in America and West Africa.

This research was designed to examine the transformation of Stokely Carmichael from a reformist in the Civil Rights Movement to a militant in the Black Power Movement due to experiences which he encountered while an organizer in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The three factors which Stokely Carmichael, as well as some of his corroborators in SNCC, spoke most of were soured relationships with white liberals, the ineffectiveness of moral appeals to the government and white southerners, and the significance of black nationalist politics These factors contributed to Carmichael's shift in ideology and caused many members of SNCC to follow him. The research suggests that Stokely Carmichael and his comrades in SNCC made the transformation to Black Power due to their disappointment with the results of civil rights tactics. However, due mostly to repression fiom the government, they were never able to move past ideological explanations to actually implementing a program The African-American community made the transformation in much the same way that Carmichael and SNCC did Self-pride and a self-definition became prevalent topics of discussion in the African-American community. However, the psychological gains did not cross over into their economic and political lives There was a definite interest in black nationalist politics in the African-American community However, again, any efforts to mobilize the African-American community into a powehl force working for its own self-interest were squashed by the FBI who sought to eliminate any potential black militant leaders.

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In this study teachers provided responses indicating what actions they would take towards the bully and victim after watching three bullying vignettes in which the gender and race of the students varied. Significant differences revealed that when race, gender, or race and gender of teacher and student differ teachers are more likely to dismiss the victim or seek out adult resources. If the race or gender or race and gender of teacher and student were the same then teachers indicated that they would comfort the victim with more frequency, use a wider array of approaches regarding the victim, and they would also reprimand the victim more. Females were more likely than males to show care toward the victims and Whites were more likely than non-Whites to dismiss the victim. No significant differences were found when comparing teacher responses by student characteristics alone. Implications for teachers and school counselors are discussed.

This critical race qualitative research study examines the perspectives of Chicanas\os regarding their educational experiences. Critical race theory in education has been critical in the effort to bring a deeper understanding of the racism that is experienced in American schools by Chicanas\os and other children of color. This study examines the intersectionality of American education; the Chicana\o social, political and historical experiences; and racism.This study is informed by theoretical frames from the disciplines of critical race theory, Latino critical race theory and their educational implications, new racism, Chicana/o authentic caring, and critical pedagogy. These theories expose inequality and injustice that adhere in American schools, and they help me understand that Chicana/o students, their parents and their communities are constructors of knowledge and facilitators of critical transformation.The study triangulates qualitative data through two critical components: interviews and an archival evaluation of the academic impact of the Social Justice Education Project and its Critically Compassionate Intellectualism (CCI) model of transformative education. The interview component consists of one open-ended focus group interview and one open-ended interview. In the archival segment, I evaluate informal open-ended student interviews, end of the year progress reports, post-program surveys, and achievement and graduation data.These data indicate that racism remains a key variable within the educational experiences of Chicanas\os students in SUSD schools. Additional findings indicate that the student cohorts that participate in the Social Justice Education Project and experience the CCI model of transformative education have a higher AIMS pass rate and higher graduation rates than those students cohorts that do not experience both the Social Justice Education Project and its CCI model.Given these findings, the study proposes that educational leaders demonstrate the political will that is needed to discover and implement multiple forms of critical transformative educational praxis. In addition, the need for more research that centers the voices of students and that focuses on racism and the Chicana\o contemporary experience.