This thesis explores the notion of whether or not race is a determining factor in how African-Canadians perceive their subjective well-being. To this end, this study seeks to understand Blacks perception of what constitutes their identity and how they resist against minority consciousness. Also examined are their integration aspirations and the set of strategies they use to claim mobility status in mainstream North American society. The areas explored reflect interviewees' perceptions of the social factors that determine how they view their well-being. The data for this inquiry is gathered from in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Data from focus groups, are discussions that I facilitated while working on the Montreal Black Communities Demographic Project. Empirical research is used to support the data at specific points. / Analysis of the data does not support the view that Blacks perceive their well-being as dependent on their status as racialized subjects. Research findings do however show that the social determinant of race has an impact on the strategies Blacks choose to obtain socio-economic status.

No description available.

The present study examined a model of Black Cultural Strength and its relation to psychosocial health (N = 496). The purpose of the current study was to test a model of Black Cultural Strength, an interdependent combination of Black racial identity, communalism, cultural spirituality, positive racial socialization, and effective racism-related coping. Further, the study sought to understand if Black Cultural Strength could predict psychosocial health, a combination of life satisfaction and psychological well-being. The Black Cultural Strength model, which was tested through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), hypothesized that higher levels of Black Cultural Strength lead to increased self-reported psychological well-being and life satisfaction. Results from this study indicated that Black Americans’ levels of mature racial identity, exposure to positive racial socialization (preparation for bias and cultural socialization), effective racism related coping (constrained resistance, empowered action, confrontation, and spiritual coping), culturally-based spirituality, and communalism were all interdependent and loaded onto one factor, Black Cultural Strength. Further, results showed that Black Cultural Strength was positively predictive of Blacks’ psychosocial health. Although the proposed hypotheses were supported, and an overall acceptable model fit was found, two modifications were made to the original proposed model. These modifications were conducted with theory and past empirical findings in consideration, therefore the current study provides strong evidence to support that interdependent Black cultural values are positively predictive of psychosocial health. Limitations, clinical implications, and further directions of research are discussed.

Thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of Masters of Arts in Political Studies to the Faculty Humanities, School of Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2016 / Blackness has become a right to death that sees in death its almost essential property. The essence of blackness, its origin or its possibility, would be this right to death; but a death denuded of that ...sovereignty that gains from death its own sacrificial mastery ... and maintains itself in it. This is life as the work of death, a work born of fidelity to death, but death without transcendence (Marriot cited in Sexton 2015: 132). The advent of colonial modernity in South Africa marks the rupture of identity and being of Africans. That is, after the emergence of colonial modernity Africans cease to be Africans only but however they become black. Blackness becomes an object exclusion in the encounter with modernity. Blacks and by extension Africa is seen as being outside modern temporality inhabiting a zone of non-being and fungability. The encounter with modernity, without any doubt causes doubts in the Africans modes of existence or being and it is here that liberation and emancipatory movements/projects that have been initiated by blacks have sought to steer their lenses to try and liberate as well as understand how blacks can best live in modern conditions of racism or should there be any alternative to modern empty time. This study seeks to make an intervention, especially in South African Political studies, with concern to alternative political strategies that have not been take into consideration. [No abstract provided. Information taken from introduction]. / MT2017

Thesis (M.Fine Arts)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humanities, School of Arts, 2016. / This paper will be an analysis of the covers and contents of the South African editions of Glamour magazine from September 2014 to August 2015 and True Love magazine from September 2014 to August 2015. The analysis will consider the effects of: globalisation; globalised culture and consumption; and perceptions of race and skin colour, (specifically the notion of colourism) in South Africa. Colourism is a prejudicial system that renders value and perpetuates social hierarchies along perceived tonal difference in skin colour. It has been asserted by writers like Deborah Gabriel and Nicole Fleetwood that this value system exists within communities of people of colour and is perpetuated by mainstream media, but maintains a somewhat obscure presence. I will consider the mechanisms that inform this colour system and will show how globalisation works to facilitate colourism. Finally, I aim to explain how skin colour extends beyond the body and define the effects of global cultural interaction, showing that colourism is not simply about skin colour and tone, but about economic, social, and political realities. / MT2017

Through the example of students at Fisk University, a historically black university in Nashville, Tennessee, this dissertation ethnographically examines how vocality is racialized as "black" in the United States. For students at Fisk, voice serves as a mechanism of speaking and singing, and mediates ideological, discursive, embodied and affective constructions of blackness. Fisk built its legacy by cultivating and promoting a specific kind of New World blackness through vocal expression, and the indispensability of Fisk's historical legacy shapes how the university continues to promote the self-worth of its students as well as a remembrance of and recommitment to the social justice and citizenship journey of black people through the 21st century. The relationships between expressive culture, the politics of racial inequality, and higher education experiences overdetermine Fisk students' vocality in relation to blackness, in addition to students' agentive choices to express and (re)form black racial identity. This dissertation traces the differences between curricular and non-curricular vocality to foreground the ways that students resist 21st century forms of racial violence and create paths towards the world they desire. The project opens with an analysis of the role of diction in the performance practice of the Fisk Jubilee Singers®. The following chapter compares the repertoire and rehearsal style of the two primary choral ensembles at Fisk. The dissertation then explores how the neo soul genre figures in the Fisk Idol vocal competition. The concluding chapter describes students' different renditions of singing the university's alma mater, "The Gold and the Blue." These analyses of students' embodied, ritualized vocality show how Fisk students' voices performatively (re)construct blackness, gender, class, genre and institutionality.

Although there has been much research regarding the portrayals of African Americans in Advertising, the central focus has been on categorizing this race as a physiologically homogeneous group. In other fields of research such as, psychology and sociology, there is a stream of study that investigates differentiations in how Blacks are perceived by others based on variations in skin tone within the spectrum of this race. This research suggests that examining skin tone within race may provide a more accurate insight into the effect that ethnicity plays on interacting factors. The focus of this dissertation, therefore, is to extend this research focus on skin tone to the field of Advertising. Specifically, this study examines whether the skin tone of a Black model in an advertisement affects specific outcome measures of advertising: attitude towards the ad (Aad), attitude towards the product (Aprod), attitude towards the model (Amod), and purchase intent (PI). In order to formulate predictions and explain the possible findings of this study, two competing frameworks, hegemony and ethnic identity, were examined. According to the framework of hegemony, people adopt the social standard set by the dominant group and in this case would, in turn, prefer a "lighter" Black model. However, according to research on ethnic identity, a person's level of ethnic identity dictates preference for members of their group. In other words, not all members of a group would necessarily prefer the "light" Black model. Specifically for African Americans, preference would hinge on their level of ethnic identity. This study employed three independent variables and four dependent variables. Skin tone served as the main independent variable of interest in this analysis. It was manipulated for the purposes of this study by featuring a Black model in an ad whose skin tone was altered to produce a "light" and a "dark" version of the same model. The products used in the advertisements were based upon the other two independent variables, realm of consumption and cultural relevance. These variables, which will be explained in further detail in this manuscript, provided a basis for understanding the role that reference group effect has on the resulting outcomes. The four dependent variables that were observed in this study were the advertising outcome measures. To determine if differences existed among the treatment groups, a two-way ANOVA was conducted, with eight condition groups in the 2x2x2 design. Approximately 480 subjects from two southwestern universities took a web based survey that was designed to gather the data analyzed in this study. The results of the study found a significant relationship between skin tone and attitude towards the model. According to the study, more favorable attitudes were formed when the Black model's skin tone was "light" as opposed to when the Black model's skin tone was "dark." In terms of the competing theoretical models presented, generally, people felt more favorable towards the "light" model, suggesting that hegemony dictates consumer attitude formation. Ethnic identity did, however, play a significant role in the attitude towards the Black model with Black participants, with strong ethnic identifiers feeling more positively towards the dark model than those Black participants lower in ethnic identification. / text

Not available / text

No abstract available. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Kwazulu-Natal, Durban, 2012.

While the literature on Black-white differences in major depressive disorder (MDD) and depressive symptoms is robust, less robust is the literature on how these outcomes are patterned within the US Black population and why differences exist. Given increasing numbers of first-generation immigrants from the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, among other regions of the world, as well as increasing numbers of second- and third-generation immigrants, continued aggregation has the potential to mask intra-racial differences between these ethnic-immigrant groups and Black Americans with more distant ancestral ties to Africa (i.e., African Americans). Among these subgroups, the extremely limited data disaggregating the US Black population suggest the following patterns. First, foreign-born Black immigrants have lower levels of MDD and related symptoms relative to US-born Black Americans, a finding which is consistent with theories of foreign-born health advantage. Second, among the US-born, Caribbean adults have higher levels of MDD and related symptoms relative to all other Black Americans, a finding which is inconsistent with theories related to intergenerational declines in health toward convergence to native-born levels. Lastly, and contrary to results among adults, first- and second-generation Caribbeans have lower levels of depressive symptoms relative to all other Black youth. This dissertation sought to better understand how depression and its related symptoms are patterned within the US Black population, as well as how mechanisms causing these outcomes may vary across subgroups defined by domains related to immigration. Chapter 1 was a systematic review, which comprehensively synthesized depression and related symptoms within the US Black population across these domains, including a summary of mechanisms proposed toward explaining intra-racial variation. Using longitudinal data, Chapter 2 examined whether, and if so when, growth curve models of depressive symptoms varied by immigrant generation contrasts among a representative sample of Black youth followed into adulthood. And using representative data from the largest study of Black mental health, Chapter 3 examined whether the relationship between racial identity, a presumed protective factor against depression and related symptoms, and MDD varied between US-born Caribbeans and all other US-born Black Americans. The systematic review of Chapter 1 revealed substantial variation in the prevalence of depression and its related symptoms within the US Black population by nativity, region of birth, age at immigration, and Caribbean ethnic origin. Results additionally confirmed that much of what is known about intra-racial heterogeneity comes from a single data source, the National Study of American Life (NSAL). Using longitudinal data of youth followed into adulthood, Chapter 2 found evidence of diverging depressive symptoms trajectories among Black respondents by immigrant generation (first/second-generation compared with third and higher generations); notably, contrasts among Black respondents varied from those of other racial/ethnic groups (Asian, Hispanic/Latinx, non-Hispanic white). Lastly, results from Chapter 3 suggest aspects of racial identity may not be protective for US-born Caribbeans, pointing to variations in racialization experiences as a distal cause. Additional research using larger sample sizes, more diverse subgroups of Black ethnic immigrants, as well as longitudinal data, is needed to further understand patterns of and additional sources underlying heterogeneity of depression and its related symptoms within the US Black population.