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This article reviews Loic Wacquant’s (2009) book Punishing the Poor, arguing that critical race or intersectional feminist theory and scholarship on the state provides important insights on social policy developments that are overlooked or under-theorized by Wacquant. We draw heavily from our own research on welfare state restructuring and grassroots welfare rights activism in the USA and Great Britain, but we also review other relevant scholarship on welfare and criminal justice policies. We conclude with both a research agenda for further critical race and feminist analysis of recent transformations in the state, and a political agenda informed by critical race feminism for those interested in challenging the punitive trends in policies towards the poor.

Meeting the constant demands for the educational needs of nurses is extremely challenging. The pressure from various stakeholders to meet these demands can lead to hasty programs in which learning is questionable. An example of evidence-based learning methods using a self-governance model is presented. Outcomes from this approach promoted real learning, improved performance, and improved teamwork.

A novel HLA allele, DRB3*01:15, was likely derived via cis-gene conversion.

We have examined the mechanism by which growth factor–mediated induction of the Ras pathway interferes with signaling via the second messenger cAMP. Activation of cellular Ras with insulin or NGF stimulated recruitment of the S6 kinase pp90 RSK to the signal-dependent coactivator CBP. Formation of the pp90 RSK –CBP complex occurred with high stoichiometry and persisted for 6–8 hr following growth factor addition. pp90 RSK specifically recognized the E1A-binding domain of the coactivator CBP. In addition, like E1A, binding of pp90 RSK to CBP was sufficient to repress transcription of cAMP-responsive genes via the cAMP-inducible factor CREB. By contrast with its effects on the cAMP pathway, formation of the pp90 RSK –CBP complex was required for induction of Ras-responsive genes. These results provide a demonstration of cross-coupling between two signaling pathways that occurs at the level of a signal-dependent coactivator.

On October 28, 2004, speaking at the Third Claudia Jones1 Memorial Lecture, A. Sivanandan (the long-time director of the Institute of Race Relations)2 invoked Britain’s racially hostile, racialized (indeed, racist) environment during decades following WWII. As he talked about the legacy of African-Asian-Caribbean political struggle on the one hand and racism in the age of global capitalism in the other, he reminded his audience that Afro-Asian unity in post-WWII Britain was not only the result of a racially hostile country that debased and dehumanized Africans, Asians, Caribbeans but, was also inspired by revolutionary struggles in Africa, the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, and the war in Vietnam. Importantly, Sivanandan argues that Afro-Asian unity was borne from a politics that was influenced, indeed constituted by the common experience of class, too. Sivanandan’s words provide an insightful perspective from which to understand the socio-political environment that compelled African, Asian, and Caribbean diasporic communities to denaturalize racial boundaries and in doing so, create new political constellations.

In 1970, when the young women previously involved in Britain’s Black Power Movement (BBPM) formed the Brixton Black Women’s Group (BBWG)1 to address critical issues affecting black communities in Britain, they did so by building on a much longer black radical tradition in Britain and in the African Diaspora. As they took on the challenges of sexism, employment discrimination, police brutality, reproductive rights issues, insufficient opportunities for childcare, housing, and education, these young black women were striding down a path that the radical, black, feminist, activist-intellectual, theoretician, writer, and journalist Claudia Jones had paved in prior decades. It is important to begin this discussion with Claudia Jones because she, as Carol Boyce Davies so rightly states, is “central to an early formulation of blackness in Britain” and is “the pre-text to current definitions of black British feminism as anti-imperialist in orientation” (2008, 54). In other words, the activist-intellectual-political work of Claudia Jones serves as an important foundation as it allows one to contextualize, situate, and build upon black women’s socially engaged political work in Britain in the 1970s and early 1980s from a different point of departure: an earlier formulation rooted in deliberate, radical intellectual-activist, diasporic, and transnational work.

On June 8, 1959, The Times reported that over one thousand people followed the funeral procession from St. Michael and All Angels Church along Ladbroke Grove and gathered together at the Kensal Green cemetery in London for the burial service of thirty-two-year-old Kelso Cochrane. Whether crushed together underneath the trees, seated on tree branches, or standing between tombstones, many people shed tears as the crowd began to sing the Christian hymns “Abide with Me” and “Rock of Ages.” Meanwhile, a young West African boy handed out a flier simply stating: “It could be you” referring to the racially charged murder of Kelso Cochrane.1

The words above are drawn from my conversation with Mark Wilson, a late thirty-something, black British man, founding and board member of the Britain’s black think tank, the 1990 Trust. Although we’d met prior to this occasion, on the day of this interview, I went to his workplace. His sleek corporate office and attire belied his past and present socially engaged political commitments. Mark spoke candidly, vividly, while he recalled his involvement in the Southwark borough’s Southwark Black Communities Consortium (SBCC); the overall sociopolitical climate in Britain during the height of Margaret Thatcher’s years in office as prime minister; and the deployment of blackness during the 1980s, years of racial tension, protest, and neoliberal ideology and policy.

On a return visit to London in August 2003 I managed to catch-up with my friend, Katherine. I had not seen her for a couple years, so there was much to talk about. On this hot sunny day in August, we talked for hours at Katherine’s home in Brockley—situated in the south London borough of Lewisham. Our conversation shifted from her newly remolded kitchen, to her aging parents from St. Lucia who now spend long periods of time in England to be closer to their daughters and grandchildren, to her years as an activist and community worker in London and the ways black people and other people of color are trying to survive in England. As the conversation shifted, we did too. Moving from her garden to her sitting room, to her kitchen, the discussion also changed as we walked through her house. After having a cup of tea but before the sun set, she began cooking. Mouth-watering aromas filled the air as Katherine prepared a delicious Caribbean dinner of fried fish, rice, and vegetables. I was immediately reminded of many Fridays at the SBWC when a communal lunch—usually of rice, fish, taro, and sometimes dumplings—was cooked in the second floor kitchen for anyone who was at the Centre and needed a “proper” meal, or simply wanted one.

Prior to pursuing graduate studies, I remember having a conversation in the library with my long-time friend Frank, a doctoral student at the time, about race. We discussed at length the ways in which the discourse on race in the United States is the lens through which many Americans conceptualize race in other parts of the world. Frank’s sophisticated and nuanced analysis compelled me to think more about race within a wider geopolitical context. Little did I imagine the significance of that discussion and the wheels it would later set in motion for this project. I had long been interested in race and gender, women’s grassroots activism, and cross-racial-ethnic alliances in the United States. However, a defining moment for me that crystallized these interests was attending the “Black Women in the Academy: Defending Our Name, 1894–1994” conference at M.I.T. The historic three-day conference that attracted over two thousand attendees to the ice and snow covered streets of Boston in January 1994 was awe-inspiring. Simply put, I was charged. I left the conference renewed and I also had a whole host of questions that guided me. I was specifically riveted by the scholar-activist work of US women of color and Third World women (Mohanty 1991, 2–8), some of whom were at the conference while others were not.1 1 Even though I was not yet in a doctoral program, I am certain that this conference had a profound effect on my personal-political-academic beliefs, tendencies, and directions.

One Friday evening in 1999, while living in London, England, one of my housemates and I were home trying to find something to watch on the television. We finally decided to watch a bit of comedy and settled on a rerun of a show called Harry Enfield and Chums, a comedy sketch program that initially aired on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) from the mid-1990s to late 1990s.1 Harry Enfield and Chums was enormously popular with skits full of outrageous comedy and political satire. For example, the episode I reference below is listed as number eleven on the BBC 4’s fifty Greatest Comedy Sketches.2 The episode features two of Harry Enfield’s “chums” Wayne and Waynetta Slob, also known as “The Slobs.”

What exactly has happened to citizenship? Something “flexible,” “postnational,” or just plain strange? The condition(s) of women in the current historical and political moment—framed as they are by the demands of transnational capital for labor, the realigning of nation-states in the post-Cold War era, deindustrialization, the devolution of welfare-states in the North and the corresponding effects of structural adjustment in the South—calls our attention to the relationship between gender and citizenship, as both a scholarly concern and an issue of social justice. Today, we and our research “subjects” are centrally concerned with and affected by new and reemergent regimes of violence directed against certain citizens: migrants, women, men, people of color, Native people, religious minorities, and progressive social activists. Women stand at the intersection of not only multiple identity categories but in the crosshairs of political and economic policies targeting diverse subjects of globalization and neoliberal policies. This is not a new phenomenon, but rather is central to understanding the dynamics of belonging and entitlement, inclusion and exclusion, enfranchisement and disenfranchisement undergirding modern citizenship. Women’s everyday experiences of these processes as well as their organization in response to them are critical to understanding the dynamic, contested, and problematic nature of citizenship in and between diverse states.

Measurement of blood pressure is done frequently in hospitalized patients with an automated, noninvasive blood pressure device. While manufacturers have made significant design improvements which may have improved the accuracy of these devices, limited research is available on their performance in clinical practice. The purpose of this study was to determine the accuracy of a contemporary automated, noninvasive blood pressure device in hospitalized medical patients.

Aim The FDA has issued new draft guidance on molecular testing around Research Use Only (RUO) and non-Quality System Regulation (QSR) products in clinical labs. Promega has introduced a new QSR-compliant nucleic acid extractor and kit specifically to address this issue. At BloodCenter of Wisconsin we have evaluated this new extractor, the Maxwell ® CSC, in terms of its performance in HLA typing assays as well as its fit in the molecular HLA workflow. Methods Patient samples (buccal swabs) were extracted using the Maxwell ® CSC, and then evaluated for total yield and purity of DNA. They were compared to the existing extraction method and evaluated by sequence-based typing, rSSO and STR assays for overall success and results concordance. The data handling capabilities of the instrument were also evaluated, such as how the run reports affected technician time, downstream operations and integration with electronic records. Results DNA concentrations from double-buccal swab isolations ranged from 13 ng/μl to 247 ng/μl, with a mean concentration of 76.31 ng/μl. DNA purities ranged from OD260/280 ratios of 1.69 to 2.00, with a mean of 1.89. These results are comparable to those obtained on the Maxwell ® MDx instrument in our laboratory. All samples tested in downstream HLA STR assay, KIR rSSO, HLA rSSO and sequence-based typing assays were successful and concordant with previously obtained results. Conclusions The Maxwell ® CSC is a QSR-compliant system which will allow molecular laboratories to adhere to the draft FDA guidance for molecular testing. It provides a solution for nucleic acid extraction which performs equivalently to Promega’s current extraction systems with regards to DNA yield, quality and utility in downstream assays. The Maxwell® CSC also helps reduce data entry tasks with exportable sample-specific results. This is useful for tracking samples throughout the workflow, reducing the need to re-enter sample identifiers, saving technicians time and reducing errors.