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Southern African American middle-aged men have high rates of obesity and premature mortality due to chronic illnesses. Different sources were brought together to perform a critical literature review to better understand how factors influence this populations high rates of chronic disease risk and obesity and where to most effectively intervene. Based on this critical review, it suggests that there are a number of challenges that Southern African American men face when attempting to engage in healthy behaviors, manage stress and fulfill key age congruent roles and responsibilities. While there are a lot of efforts to intervene, one place it seems important to do so within the mesosystem via families and communities. We found that given the intersection of this populations many identities (Southern, African American, middle-aged, male), it is important to try to help them more effectively make healthy decision in their unhealthy environments (a result of race base residential segregation), overcome social norms and environmental stressors, and deal with their efforts to fulfill these masculine age-based roles. Future research should help to operationalize the idea of these identities and role strain by using an intersectional perspective that will take into account environment, culture, and social factors that influence African American men as they relate to disease risk.

The prevalence of combat-induced male genital injury suffered in modern warfare is at historic levels, and yet it remains as an underdeveloped area of military discourse, rendering it into an invisible phenomenon. Although the Veterans Administration (VA) releases injury data to the public, it offers little insight into the lived experience of veterans suffering from genital trauma and how these specific veterans are cared for within the military rehabilitation system. Because existing literature is still scarce, this paper draws on a diverse set of resources in an attempt to illuminate a body of knowledge that accurately defines genital injury within the context of the military. The purpose of this is to reveal the clashing intersection between the intimate embodiments of genital injury and the bio-power manifested within the military as a means to argue why this phenomenon remains an invisible crisis. Due to the lack of medical care knowledge surrounding genital injury, I argue for a novel method rooted in feminist science that can sufficiently care for male veterans suffering from genital injury.

This thesis seeks to contextualize current high levels of HIV/AIDS stigmatization (H/A stigma) by applying a structural functionalist perspective to the study of stigmatization and of apartheid. I argue that the latent function of apartheid was to institutionalize the politically and socially constructed identity of black South Africans into the psyches of South Africans. Classified as an inferior, devalued and base race, and persistently confronted by the poor conditions and demeaning stereotypes associated with their racial classification, many black South Africans internalized this racial identity and developed a negative self-concept. Applying recent structural stigma theory, I argue that apartheid was able to legitimize the socially constructed differences between races through the mechanism of intrapersonal stigma, thus serving a system-justifying function. I hold that the centrality of identity to stigma and to apartheid history leaves people living with HIV/AIDS in South Africa increasingly vulnerable to stigmatization, discrimination, and psychological impairment through the development of a negative self-concept. With the modern conception of stigma as a power-driven structural process operating in a system of inequality (Parker & Aggleton, 2003; Campbell et al., 2007), this thesis illustrates how stigma is often deeply embedded within the structures of a society. Though the majority of current H/A stigmatization reduction interventions target stigma operating at the interpersonal level, this thesis advocates for improving structural level interventions for stigma operating at the intrapersonal level, looking at the Black Consciousness Movement as a catalyst of these efforts.

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The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has massive potential to help reduce gender and SES disparities in health, yet low-SES white men overwhelmingly oppose the policy. This paper argued white men are hurt by their negative racial attitudes towards blacks, as analysis of language used by low-SES white men in debate surrounding the ACA would reveal that their opposition is rooted in symbolic racism, rather than biological or economic self-interest. To test this hypothesis, I constructed a code consisting of four lexical indicators of symbolic racism in opposition to the ACA, namely: (1) the profound impact of The O-Word-Obama- on whites attitudes towards the ACA, (2) the use of racial stereotypes as a proxy for race, (3) Us vs. Them: assertion of unfairness and perceived racial difference in values as a proxy for race, and (4) comparing the ACA to other social welfare policies. This paper then analyzed symbolic racism in a rhetorical context by applying the code to two different sources of ACA debate. First, analysis of public opinion poll comments suggested symbolic racist rhetoric was highly prevalent in the ACA debate. Second, applying the code to focus groups yielded evidence that low SES white men utilized symbolic racist language heavily in their opposition to the ACA. These findings are consistent with my hypothesis, suggesting that low-SES white men are hurt by their own racial prejudices towards blacks- as negative racial attitudes trump their biological and economic self-interest.

Previous research in low-income urban environments led to the conclusion that the underachievement of African-American youth is attributed to their disadvantaged environment and lack of self-esteem. In recent years, however, I observed a similar underachievement and lack of future orientation, or the image one has for their future, in middle/working-class African-American students at Chute Middle School in the middle-class suburb of Evanston, IL. My research is unique in that it focuses on middle and working-class African-American youth living in a suburban environment and proposes a new perspective of future orientation as a summation of self-concept, perceived societal worth, life expectancy, and belief in ones potential for upward mobility. Despite residence in Evanston, these youth are still exposed to violence, both locally and nationally, which negatively impacts the development and pursuit of a positive future orientation. I believe a sense of hopelessness is cultivated via the influence of interpersonal and structural violence, invidious class-based comparison, and inequity on the formation of positive Black identity and upward social mobility. This pathway is further substantiated with psychological, sociological, and intersectional frameworks that accentuate the dynamic relationship between an individual and their environment, and the unique consequences of race and class relations. This thesis is a literature review designed to build a foundation that will support ethnographic research and field work of Chute Middle School in the near future.

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