Race,Religion, and Global Solidarities: W. E. B. Du Bois and “The Black Church” as a Contested Category

W.E.B. Du Bois was thoroughly ambivalent about the political significance of American Black churches regarding their role in challenging racial inequality. He saw them as integral to Black social life, but also as failing to live up to their potential as drivers of liberation. And, while he focused primarily on Black churches within the United States, Du Bois was also committed to Black liberation on a global level. This suggests great potential for applying DuBois’ analyses of Black religion to the question of transnational religious and racial solidarities and the global political salience of “the Black Church” as a category. In this context, this article explores the significance of DuBois’ work for analyzing the category of “the Black Church.” It does so through a comparative case study of African American Christian engagement with the issue of Israel and Palestine, with four case studies ranging from African American Christian Zionists to Palestinian solidarity activists. Across these cases, the analysis highlights the ways that the history, identity, and mission of “the Black Church” are invoked in the context of Palestine and Israel. It argues that “the Black Church” is best understood as a contested category of collective religious and racial identity.     

The Conditions of Philosophy in Totalitarian and Post-Totalitarian Poland

This compound paper presents the views of two Polish philosophers on the strong international pressures influencing the development of Polish philosophy in recent times. The first part, by Leszek Koczanowicz, treats the philosophical situation and problems of totalitarian Poland under the influence of Soviet Marxism, while the second part, by Adam Chmielewski, focuses on the main trends and difficulties of post-totalitarian Poland, dominated by Western influence.     

Passport to Duke

Editor’s Introduction The following text was prepared by Pierre Bourdieu for delivery at a conference on his work held at Duke University, April 21–23, 1995. Entitled “Pierre Bourdieu: Fieldwork in Culture,” the conference was sponsored by the Duke Graduate Program in Literature and included such well-known literary scholars as Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Jonathan Culler, and Fredric Jameson. Bourdieu, of course, was the invited guest of honor, but was uncertain as to whether he should make the effort of attending, particularly since he was recovering from a short period of poor health. As I too had been invited (and seemed more familiar with the American scene), Bourdieu discussed the question with me in Paris. He was rather concerned about wrongheaded, trendy applications of his theories by American literary scholars, who often misunderstand his work because they simply do not know the intellectual landscape to which it relates. Reading such conference paper titles as “Cross-Dressing for Success: The Scramble for Symbolic Power in Tabitha Sweeney’s Female Quixotism,” Bourdieu confessed his fear of being taken as simply the French intellectual flavor of the month, one whose theory is used simply as grist for the American academy’s industrious mills of literary interpretation. He ultimately decided to send the following text to be read at the conference in his absence. It treats, with polite frankness, his worries about being misinterpreted through importation into the American theoretical field with its peculiar conception of French philosophy; Bourdieu’s paper situates these particular worries within a more general account of “allodoxic”distortions caused by the international travel of theory; but it also tries to prevent further misunderstanding by offering a brief contextualization of his theory and a brief summary of his method of analysis through fields. The translation of Bourdieu’s text was prepared by Loïc Wacquant, and is presented here with only minor adjustments.     

Culturally Sensitive AIDS Educational Videos for African American Audiences: Effects of Source, Message, Receiver, and Context

The importance of using culturally sensitive educational materials in HIV-related interventions with racial and ethnic minority groups is widely recognized. However, little empirical research has been conducted to assess the relative effectiveness of different techniques for creating culturally sensitive AIDS educational videos. Two field experiments with three samples of African American adults (N = 174, 173, and 143) were conducted to assess how source characteristics (race of communicator), message characteristics (multicultural message vs. culturally specific message), and audience characteristics (racial distrust and AIDS-related distrust) influence proximate (perceptions of the message's credibility and attractiveness) and distal (AIDS-related attitudes, beliefs, and behavioral intentions) output variables for AIDS educational videos. In Study 1, an AIDS video with a culturally specific message was rated as more credible, more attractive, and of higher quality than was a video with a multicultural message. The multicultural message was rated less favorably when delivered by a White announcer than when the announcer was Black. In Study 2, the same pattern was replicated with a second community sample and a campus-based sample. Study 2 also indicated that a multicultural message might be more effective if delivered in a culturally specific context, namely, after audience members watch a culturally specific video. Minimal changes were observed in distal outcome variables. It is argued that influencing proximate output variables is necessary, though not sufficient, for effecting long-term change in AIDS-related attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.     

Preparing the Way: A Qualitative Study of High-Achieving African American Males and the Role of the Family

Employed qualitative methods to examine the role of the family in the academic success of very high-achieving African American males. Findings revealed a complex tapestry of family processes and contexts involved in each youth's journey to outstanding academic achievement. Specifically, the combined importance of parental-determined academic engagement, strict discipline, nurturance, and community connectedness appeared to counteract potentially negative contextual influences of neighborhood, peers, schools, and society. The qualitative findings tell a multifaceted, rich, and compelling story of the pathways to academic success for Black males, and highlight the need for culture-specific and ecologically based conceptualization, research, and intervention approaches.     

Cultural specificity of support sources,correlates and contexts: Three studies of African-American and Caucasian youth

Levels and correlates of parental support, peer support, partner support, and/or spiritual support among African American and Caucasian youth were examined in three contexts: adolescent pregnancy (Study 1), first year of college (Study 2), and adolescence and young adulthood (ages 15–29; Study 3). Partially consistent with a cultural specificity perspective, in different contexts different support sources were higher in level and/or more strongly related to adjustment for one ethnic group than the other. Among pregnant adolescents, levels of spiritual support were higher for African Americans than Caucasians; additionally, peer support was positively related to well-being only for African Americans whereas partner support was positively related to well-being only for Caucasians. Among college freshmen, family support was more strongly related to institutional and goal commitment for African Americans than Caucasians; conversely, peer support was more strongly related to institutional and goal commitment among Caucasians. Among 15 to 29-year-olds, levels of parental support and spiritual support were higher among African Americans than Caucasians; additionally, spiritual support was positively related to self-esteem for African Americans but not for Caucasians. Implications and limitations of the research are discussed. The third study was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grant RO1 MH40963. We thank Monica Greene, Shea Lyda, Wendy Stevenson, and the many undergraduate students who contributed to the three research projects. We also acknowledge the very thoughtful and helpful comments of the anonymous reviewers and the editor, Edison Trickett.     

Natural mentors and adolescent resiliency: a study with urban youth

Natural mentors may play an important role in the lives of adolescents. We interviewed 770 adolescents from a large Midwestern city. Fifty-two percent reported having a natural mentor. Those with natural mentors were less likely to smoke marijuana or be involved in nonviolent delinquency, and had more positive attitudes toward school. Natural mentors had no apparent effect on anxiety or depression. Using the resiliency theory framework, natural mentors were found to have compensatory but not protective effects on problem behaviors, and both compensatory and protective effects on school attitudes. Direct and indirect (mediated) effects of natural mentors are explored for problem behaviors and school attitudes. The potential importance of natural mentors is supported, and implications for future research are considered.     

Partner Violence, Social Support, and Distress Among Inner-City African American Women

This study examined the role of social support in the partner violence–psychological distress relation in a sample of African American women seeking medical care at a large, urban hospital (n = 138). Results from bivariate correlational analyses revealed that partner violence was related to lower perceived social support and greater psychological distress, and lower social support was related to more distress. Furthermore, findings based on path analysis indicated that low levels of social support helped account for battered women's increased distress. Findings point to the need for service providers to screen for partner violence in nontraditional sites, such as hospital emergency rooms, and to address the role of social support resources in preventive interventions with African American battered women.     

Money Doesn't Talk, It Swears: How Economic Stress and Resistance Resources Impact Inner-City Women's Depressive Mood

We examined the differential impact of chronic versus acute economic stress on depressive mood among a sample of 1241 low-income, single, European and African American women. Based on Hobfoll's (1988, 1989) conservation of resources (COR) theory, we predicted that acute resource loss would be more distressing than chronic economic lack. That is, although chronically impoverished conditions are stressful, the attendant resource losses created will be more distressing. We further predicted that mastery and social support would be more beneficial in offsetting the negative consequences of acute resource loss than the negative consequences of chronic economic lack, because acute loss creates identifiable demands that resources may address. Hence, we hypothesized that mastery and social support would show stress buffering effects only for material loss, not chronic lack. The findings generally supported the hypotheses, but mastery buffered only European American women's resource loss and social support buffered only African American women's resource loss. The findings are discussed in light of implications for prevention within theoretical and cultural contexts.     

The Middle Passage,Trauma and the Tragic Re-Imagination of African American Theology

African American Christian consciousness developed in response to the traumatic field in which African American subjectivity took shape. The expression of the faith in the African American tradition is fundamentally tragic as a consequence. The Middle Passage is the existential and symbolic nodal point of this experience. There is a sense in which African Americans remain very much on the water; marginalized and suspended between worlds. There is a deeper sense in which the African American situation and response reflects the condition of modernity and post-modernity in the sense that it is hardly more than modernity becoming conscious of itself. A thorough examination and exploration of its significance is essential to developing a theology that adequately expresses African American Christian consciousness. This paper is an attempt to lay out, what I think, are some of the basic components of the experience and the bare outlines or orientation of such a theology grounded in it.