Human beings are condemned to freedom, according to Jean-Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness. Every individual creates his or her own identity according to choice. Because we choose ourselves, each individual is also completely responsible for his or her actions. This responsibility causes anguish that leads human beings to avoid their freedom in bad faith. Bad faith is an attempt to deceive ourselves that we are less free than we really are. The primary condition of the racist is bad faith. In both aware/blatant and aware/covert racism, the racist in bad faith convinces himself that white people are, according to nature, superior to black people. The racist believes that stereotypes of black inferiority are facts. This is the justification for the oppression of black people. In a racist society, the bad faith belief of white superiority is institutionalized as a societal norm. Sartre is wrong to believe that all human beings possess absolute freedom to choose. The racist who denies that black people face limited freedom is blaming the victim, and victim blaming is the worst form of racist bad faith. Taking responsibility for our actions and leading an authentic life is an alternative to the bad faith of racism. / Graduation date: 2000

Thesis (M.A.)--Western Kentucky University, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 38-42).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Kent State University, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Jan. 5, 2010). Advisor: Cynthia Osborn. Keywords: interracial marriage, African American and Caucasian interracial marriage, multicultural marriages, Q methodology, prejudice, black and white marriages, miscegenation, anti-miscegenation, perceptions of interracial marriages, Black studies, Black history. Includes bibliographical references (p. 269-286).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--York University, 1997. Graduate Programme in Sociology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 220-231). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pNQ27285.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2002. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 296-324). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users. Address: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/uoregon/fullcit?p3061965.

Thesis (M.A.)--Bowling Green State University, 2008. / Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 101 p. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1993. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [41]-[42]).

Thesis (M.A.)--Villanova University, 2009. / Sociology and Criminal Justice Dept. Includes bibliographical references.

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This thesis argues that Charles W. Chesnutt's writings challenged the central assumptions of his America's racial thinking. An important part of this challenge is the difference between the two discourses which dominate The Conjure Woman. The first uses ethnographic discourse to create "the Other;" the second effaces the differences between himself and other Americans. Unlike most of the other writers of his period, Chesnutt shows African-American men and women to be fully developed moral, ethical and emotional individuals; in his works slave-holders and those who sought to "redeem" the South were morally and ethically underdeveloped. Both his writings and his career demonstrate that African-Americans were capable of prospering as independent actors in a free labor market. While critical of the actions of America's legal system, unlike many of his contemporaries, Chesnutt believed that injustice began when racial thinking led legal actors to deviate from the established rules of common law.