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The article examines how land use laws are prolonging the segregation of Long Island, New York and proposes solutions to counteract regulations that perpetuate segregation. It reviews the role of racism in the historical land use framework of Long Island and examines the impact of common land use regulations on historically disadvantaged communities including African Americans. It also calls for legislation to catalyze desegregation and incentivize equitable community development of the island.

This article reads how obesity in Sapphire's Push (1996) becomes a composite cultural metaphor for Gothic excesses. By critically analysing Claireece Precious Jones – the adolescent overweight African American protagonist of Push – with the help of contemporary Gothic theories of horror and excess this article makes a case for interpreting her fat body as a repository of cultural hatred, anxieties, and violence characterising the intersectional oppressions of appearance, gender, class, and race. Further, with the help of critical race theories, fat studies scholarship, and social studies research on poor black populations it reads how Precious' obesity is not merely a physical condition but also a symbol of wasteful excesses that is vilified and abused, both sexually and otherwise, by her own family as well as the society at large. Appropriately, it suggests that Precious' obesity coupled with her mental derangement becomes symptomatic of a Gothicized world which belies promises of progressivism and harbours uncontrollably violent forces against disenfranchised fat black women. This article, accordingly, focuses on Precious's overweight body as a site and symptom of Gothic excesses that provides a vocabulary for examining the horrific rationalities celebrated by contemporary America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the study of American religion, scholars use the category folk to illuminate the religious worlds of populations on the margins of society. The category has been deployed to valorize the unique cultures of populations while extending the meaning and function of religion beyond conventional markers. Judith Weisenfeld's religio-racial concept underscores how different state bureaucracies played an important role in the daily religious worlds of Black laypeople. This article applies Weisenfeld's contribution to American religion by demonstrating that the folk category also sheds light on the agency of state actors and networks. Using the 1931 Macon County, Alabama, venereal disease program, I will argue that the folk category was part of the state's biomedical campaign to regulate the daily religious cultures of the Black poor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay affirms black theology as a survival theology that speaks with passion that is commensurate with the suffering of the oppressed. By juxtaposing two ecclesial meetings in the U.S., one in 1866 and one in 2019, the author describes inattention to the lives of former bondspersons and those of poor and disenfranchised African Americans in Baltimore. Finally, through the lens of synodality, opportunities to journey with unlikely travellers open up and provide the space for the sharing of painful stories so that empathy welcomes truth-telling and all choose to continue the dialogue in truth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low-income African American women have disproportionately low rates of breastfeeding, which is indicative of individual, social, and structural barriers to breastfeeding. The WIC Infant Feeding Practices Scale was administered to 32 low-income, African American women. Participants reported favorable attitudes toward breastfeeding and identified with breastfeeding benefits, however not with breastfeeding barriers. Participants also completed a postpartum breastfeeding experiences survey that showed low levels of engagement with lactation professionals. Using critical feminist theory and quantitative criticalist approach to interpret these findings, this study highlights the need for more culturally responsive research and interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. To describe the Minority Men's Oral Health Dental Access Program (MOHDAP) intervention and report participants' outcomes and satisfaction. Methods. MOHDAP was designed to increase the oral health knowledge of lowincome, African American men in Atlanta, GA, in 2013. A community-based participatory approach and needs assessment guided the intervention development, which consisted of 3 educational modules delivered over a 2-day period. All participants (n = 45; mean age = 50 years) were African American men. We assessed changes in oral health knowledge and attitudes at baseline and postintervention via survey. Results. After the intervention, the percentage of correct responses to questions about gingivitis increased by 24.2% (P = .01), about use of a hard (instead of a soft) toothbrush increased by 42.2% (P < .01), and knowledge of ways to prevent gumdiseases increased by 16.0% (P = .03). The percentage agreeing with erroneous statements decreased 11.3% (P = .02) regarding oral health-related fatalism and oral health self-care and 17.4% (P = .05) regarding saving front versus back teeth. Conclusions. Community-based oral health educational interventions designed for African American men may reduce oral health disparities among this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past work suggests that support for welfare in the United States is heavily influenced by citizens' racial attitudes. Indeed, the idea that many Americans think of welfare recipients as poor Blacks (and especially as poor Black women) has been a common explanation for Americans' lukewarm support for redistribution. This article draws on a new online survey experiment conducted with national samples in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, designed to extend research on how racialised portrayals of policy beneficiaries affect attitudes toward redistribution. A series of innovative survey vignettes has been designed that experimentally manipulate the ethno-racial background of beneficiaries for various redistributive programmes. The findings provide, for the first time, cross-national, cross-domain and cross-ethno-racial extensions of the American literature on the impact of racial cues on support for redistributive policy. The results also demonstrate that race clearly matters for policy support, although its impact varies by context and by the racial group under consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to explore the housing tenure trajectories of post-REO properties, with a focus on their sales processes and neighborhood spillover effects over time. This study suggests that the renter occupancy of post-REO properties in minority communities could lead to continuing negative spillover effects. Between 2006 and 2013, REO properties were geographically concentrated in low-income Black communities and moderate-income Hispanic neighborhoods in Orange County, Florida. The resale duration of the REO properties in poor African American communities tended to be longer and the post-REO properties in these neighborhoods are more likely to be renter-occupied. In spite of comparatively short resale durations for REOs in Hispanic neighborhoods, post-REO properties were often renter-occupied. The renter-occupancy of post-REO properties might reinforce racial segregation, but it could also be a source of affordable housing. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor the trajectories of post-REO properties and their spillover effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural poverty and rural issues in general remain invisible in the United States to the urban majority. Rural sociologists have tried to raise these issues, but even in the field of sociology, they have been sidelined for several generations. Progressives treat urban poverty with sympathy and rural poverty with contempt because the latter is stereotyped as a problem that afflicts only white families, who are then blamed for failings of the economy as a whole. In fact, persistent rural poverty is concentrated in pockets in Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta, and several other regions, many of which are inhabited by blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans. Nevertheless, it seems that making rural poverty as much a concern among progressive Democrats as urban poverty has been will require a different political orientation towards rural issues. Such an approach was visible briefly during Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, but it has had little influence on other candidates for high office. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examined cohabiting union formation processes by analyzing in-depth interview data collected from 30 individuals in cohabiting relationships: 15 low-income Black mothers of adolescents and their partners. Prior research suggests that cohabiting union formation is a gradual, nondeliberative process. In contrast, most couples in this study described a gradual but highly deliberative process. Mothers focused primarily on vetting their partners to ensure child well-being and less on when and how their partners officially came to live with them, a process the authors call vetting and letting. Mothers delineated 4 strategies to ensure their child's well-being when vetting their partners, and their partners reported that they understood the importance of participating in this process. The authors argue that vetting and letting is a child-centered family formation process, not a partner-centered union formation process, and that cohabiting union processes may vary substantially by subpopulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In sharp contrast to many earlier studies, the articles in this symposium encompass a careful discussion of the two major underlying themes of my book, The Declining Significance of Race: (1) the effect of fundamental economic and political shifts on the changing relative importance of race and class in black occupational mobility and job placement; and (2) the swing in the concentration of racial conflict from the economic sector to the sociopolitical order. In my rejoinder I reflect on their arguments, including those that relate these themes to more recent developments in American race and ethnic relations featuring other groups, including whites and Latinos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The birth of a child represents a unique window of opportunity to understand and support ongoing father involvement among low-income unmarried parents. Using data collected as part of a randomized controlled trial of a community-based home visiting intervention provided to 248 low-income African American women, a propensity score matching approach was used to estimate the effect of fathers' presence at birth on multiple measures of later father involvement over the first 2 years postpartum. The results indicated that participation in child care activities is the only form of involvement predicted by presence at birth at 4 months, and none of the forms of father involvement measured were predicted at 12 months; however, presence at birth was predictive of all 7 indicators of involvement at 24 months. Engaging fathers in the birth experience may represent an important opportunity to provide services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inadequate health literacy has been associated with poorer health behaviors and outcomes in individuals with diabetes or depression. This study was conducted to examine the associations between inadequate health literacy and behavioral and cardiometabolic parameters in individuals with type 2 diabetes and to explore whether these associations are affected by concurrent depression. The authors used cross-sectional data from a study of 343 predominantly African Americans with type 2 diabetes. Inadequate health literacy was significantly and modestly associated with diabetes knowledge (r = −0.34) but weakly associated with self-efficacy (r = 0.16) and depressive symptoms (r = 0.24). In multivariate regression models, there were no associations between health literacy and A1c, blood pressure, or body mass index or control of any of these parameters. There was no evidence that depression was an effect-modifier of the associations between health literacy and outcomes. Although inadequate health literacy was modestly associated with worse knowledge and weakly associated with self-efficacy, it was not associated with any of the cardiometabolic parameters the authors studied. Because this study showed no association between health literacy and behavioral and cardiometabolic outcomes, it is unseemly and premature to embark on trials or controlled interventions to improve health literacy for the purposes of improving patient-related outcomes in diabetes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This qualitative study explores the views that low-income fathers and fatherhood service providers have of the child support system and how these perceptions shape the provision of and men's engagement in fatherhood services. Focus groups and individual interviews were conducted with 36 fathers, and telephone interviews with 19 fatherhood service providers. Four themes emerged about perceptions of the child support system: imposing unrealistic financial demands, criminalizing low-income men, discounting paternal viewpoints, and evidencing responsible parenting. A further four themes were concerned with the relationship between the child support system and fatherhood programs: hindering wider service utilization, encouraging engagement, educating and advocating, and reframing child support. Overall the findings suggest that though child support obligations can place a substantial financial and psychological burden on low-income men, fatherhood programs have a valuable role to play in supporting noncustodial fathers in paying child support as one part of their wider paternal role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School choice is promoted as one strategy to improve educational outcomes for African Americans. Key themes in Black school choice politics are empowerment, control, and agency. Using qualitative interviews with seventy-seven poor and working-class Black parents in Chicago, this article asks: How well do the themes of empowerment, agency, and control characterize the experiences of low-income African American parents tasked with putting their children in schools? Also, what kind of political positions emerge from parents’ everyday experiences given the ubiquitous language of school choice? I find that in their own recounting parents focused on finding a quality school while experiencing numerous barriers to accessing such schools; parents expressed experiential knowledge of being chosen, rather than choosing; and parents highlighted the opacity, uncertainty, and burden of choice, even when they participated in it quite heartily. I argue that their stories convey limited and weak empowerment, limited individual agency, and no control. Their perspectives conjure policy frameworks and political ideologies that require a discussion of entitlements and provision, rather than choice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the division of domestic labor in low-income cohabiting Black stepfamilies. We analyze survey data collected from 136 such families in order to understand how stepparent gender and relationship length impact the distribution of domestic labor. We hypothesize that women do more domestic work than men across all three family types, and that stepfathers are more involved in domestic labor in established relationships compared to new relationships. Findings indicate that cohabiting stepfathers in both new and established cohabiting Black stepfamilies make substantial contributions to domestic labor. These families demonstrate a division of labor consistent with traditional gender roles, though both partners agree on how much work each does. Parents, regardless of gender, are more involved in domestic labor than stepparents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses the argument that the purpose of the U.S. system of carceral punishment and mass incarceration since the 1970s has been to put poor and working-class members of the African-American and Latino communities in prison. Topics include the concept that imprisoned members of the civil rights and black power movements are political prisoners, the relationship between capitalism and the U.S. prison industrial complex, and the political motivation behind arresting Black dissenters in the U.S. The article also discusses the history of prison staff treating prisoners inhumanely, the rise of police state conditions in Black communities, and protests against prisons, the death penalty, and police brutality.

The author argues that mass imprisonment of African Americans in the U.S. is a continuation of racial policies from colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism, including the Transatlantic Slave Trade, convict leasing in the post-Reconstruction era, and the Jim Crow laws. Topics include the attitudes of pan-Africanist leaders Malcolm X and Kwame Toure towards the imprisonment of Black people in the U.S., the idea that mass incarceration actively oppresses and represses poor and working-class Black communities, and the treatment of Black women and the elderly in what the author calls "amerikkka." The article also details how Black communities can resist and reform racist policies and institutions.

The problem of changing food habits has once again become a major public issue in the past decade in the United States. One of the main strategies developed by food reformers to change popular eating habits is to increase access to fresh food in poor urban areas identified as "food deserts, " in an attempt to address the obesity epidemic and to revitalize the local economy by creating "healthy," "sustainable" environments. Based on a participant observation study in a large city in the Southeastern United States, I will start by discussing two of these initiatives: a farmers' market and a Community Supported Agriculture program. Although both were located in underserved communities, they failed to reach their poor black residents, attracting instead a clientele of white middle class professionals. To account for the urban poor's resistance to alternative food practices, I then turn to the results of an ethnographic study of consumption practices in an inner-city convenience store, where economic constraints and distinction strategies help to shape its customers' tastes for energy-dense, highcalorie foods. While these data are consistent with quantitative studies underlying the importance of economic access over physical access to food, the ethnographic method has the advantage of bringing food consumption back into its social setting, allowing it to reveal its significance in the competition for status and respectability, which take on different meanings in different classes and cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gunnar Myrdal’s 1963 notion of the bottom of society is now over fifty years old and we still know virtually nothing about of the people living at that bottom or the people living there on incomes far below the federal poverty line. Since Blacks are, as always, proportionally the prime victims, the dreadful possibility of a Black population permanently at the bottom of society cannot be ruled out. This article discusses some of the questions researchers must answer to obtain an informed understanding of their problems and needs, as well as of the policies and politics, if any, that could help them. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 2008 Great Recession disproportionately impacted Black Americans, resulting in higher poverty for communities that were already impoverished. Traditionally, policies intended to combat poverty have been generated by Democrats; but the trillions of dollars spent have garnered very few positive results. Given the severity of poverty experienced by Black Americans, it is essential to explore new policy options, even if they derive from unlikely sources. In order to effectively alleviate poverty for Black Americans, elected officials need to both explore bipartisan approaches and rely heavily on insights from local community leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literacy is one of the strongest predictors of adult success, yet one in four children are illiterate and 50% of adults cannot read a book that is written on an eighth grade level. Although African American children from low-income homes are three times more likely than White children to be poor, and at greater risk for illiteracy, this author is aware of no studies that have linked childhood literacy with the inherent strengths of Black families. Drawing on the strengths of Black families previously identified by other scholars, it is proposed that the inherent intergenerational strengths of these families can increase family literacy and facilitate stronger emotional bonds between its members. Recommendations and implications for educators and researchers are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the degree to which dimensions of parenting predicted early academic outcomes in a sample of 111 low-income African American children. Three aspects of parenting were assessed when the children were 36 months old: language stimulation, math-related stimulation, and maternal sensitivity. Academic outcomes were assessed at 54 months and included children's applied problem solving skills, letter-word identification, and vocabulary. Although the findings suggested that maternal sensitivity and cognitive stimulation are related to early academic skills for low-income African American preschoolers, the results of regression analyses varied depending on the outcome measure. Of particular interest is the finding that language stimulation was a stronger predictor for boys than for girls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]