Browsing by Subject "African-American"
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Item Open Access Ambush on Black Veterans: Foreign Disinformation Swayed the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election by Targeting Black Voters(2023-04-19) Jackson, Chandlee A. IVA Russian-orchestrated influence campaign spread disinformation using social media during the 2016 United States (U.S.) presidential election. Digital evidence shows that Russian operatives developed presumptions about differing identity groups and tailored their interactions to sow strife between groups. The inferred intent was to influence and negatively impact African Americans’ voting practices during the 2016 election campaign. Russian influence agents targeted the Black community more heavily than any other identity group. Influence operations also targeted veterans and veteran-adjacent communities; therefore, African American veterans (Black Vets) received twice the indoctrination because of their dual identity. The online impersonations of Black people and veterans on social media platforms was problematic for a myriad of reasons, but the Russian leadership’s facilitation of disinformation represents adversarial exploitation of protection gaps uncovered in the Digital Age. Currently the First Amendment inhibits the U.S. government and social media platforms from performing the desired protective measures to maintain a healthy online environment that nurtures an informed citizenry. For Black Vets in particular, foreign entities suppressed the voting power of their ethnic group and sought to instigate members of their profession to join domestic violent extremist groups. The following project will propose that the U.S. government ought to change its approach in teaching digital media literacy competencies so that vulnerable populations receive the care and skills necessary to reduce their potential of becoming radicalized. Russian disinformation on social media and how the U.S. will embrace an identity-centric approach to educating digital media literacy is a matter of U.S. national security.Item Open Access Cultural Values, Coping Strategies, and HIV Risk Behaviors in African-American and Hispanic Adolescents(2015) Sanchez, Amy KUtilizing data from The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), the current study examined the relationship between cultural values, coping behavior, and HIV risk behaviors among African-American/Black and Hispanic/Latino adolescents (N = 437). The goal of this research was to provide the first step towards testing the construct validity of a theoretical model in which values and cultural context contribute to coping behaviors and coping, in turn, mediates the association between values and HIV risk profile. African-American participants endorsed higher levels of Africentric and religious values than did Hispanic participants and endorsed higher utilization of religious coping. Cultural values including familismo and religiosity were associated with more adaptive coping behavior and lower sexual and substance use risk behaviors across racial/ethnic groups. Results for other cultural values were inconsistent. Coping behavior predicted substance use risk behaviors but was not associated with sexual risk behaviors. Mediation was not supported except in the case of religious coping and religiosity. Implications for HIV prevention and directions for future research are discussed.
Item Open Access Elucidating the Genetic Basis of Fuchs Endothelial Corneal Dystrophy(2012) Minear, MollieFuchs endothelial corneal dystrophy (FECD) is a complex, late-onset disorder that is a frequent indication for corneal transplantation and affects women more frequently than men. Although linkage and association studies in patients of European and Asian ancestry have started to explain the genetic basis of this disorder, the mechanism by which FECD develops is still unclear. Three projects were undertaken to help elucidate the genetic basis of FECD. The first project examined a large, multigenerational family that exhibited strong familial clustering of FECD and identified evidence of linkage to chromosome 18. This locus that has also been implicated through work on large and small FECD families as well as unrelated patients. The second project examined African-Americans with FECD and is the first work to examine this population of patients with respect to the FECD phenotype. Novel variants in three FECD candidate genes, COL8A2, SLC4A11, and ZEB1 were identified at approximately the same rate as observed in patients of other ancestries, reinforcing the notion that these genes only contribute to a small fraction of FECD genetic susceptibility. Finally, the influence of environmental factors on FECD susceptibility was examined through the use of a risk factor questionnaire given to cases and controls at the time of study enrollment. Several factors, including gender, age, and cataracts, were found to significantly affect FECD risk. Gender and the number of cataract surgeries were found to significantly interact with a genetic variant, rs613872 in the TCF4 locus on chromosome 18 that has been consistently and reproducibly associated with FECD, to influence FECD susceptibility. Together, these findings indicate that the genetic basis of FECD is complex, and recent advances in the field show promise in accelerating the pace of discovery that will hopefully develop better FECD treatments in the near future.
Item Open Access In Whose Image: The Emergence, Development, and Challenge of African-American Evangelicalism(2016) Rah, SoongChanThe current era of American Christianity marks the transition from a Western, white-dominated U.S. Evangelicalism to an ethnically diverse demographic for evangelicalism. Despite this increasing diversity, U.S. Evangelicalism has demonstrated a stubborn inability to address the entrenched assumption of white supremacy. The 1970s witnessed the rise in prominence of Evangelicalism in the United States. At the same time, the era witnessed a burgeoning movement of African-American evangelicals, who often experienced marginalization from the larger movement. What factors prevented the integration between two seemingly theologically compatible movements? How do these factors impact the challenge of integration and reconciliation in the changing demographic reality of early twenty-first Evangelicalism?
The question is examined through the unpacking of the diseased theological imagination rooted in U.S. Evangelicalism. The theological categories of Creation, Anthropology, Christology, Soteriology, and Ecclesiology are discussed to determine specific deficiencies that lead to assumptions of white supremacy. The larger history of U.S. Evangelicalism and the larger story of the African-American church are explored to provide a context for the unique expression of African-American evangelicalism in the last third of the twentieth century. Through the use of primary sources — personal interviews, archival documents, writings by principals, and private collection documents — the specific history of African-American evangelicals in the 1960s and 1970s is described. The stories of the National Black Evangelical Association, Tom Skinner, John Perkins, and Circle Church provide historical snapshots that illuminate the relationship between the larger U.S. Evangelical movement and African-American evangelicals.
Various attempts at integration and shared leadership were made in the 1970s as African-American evangelicals engaged with white Evangelical institutions. However, the failure of these attempts point to the challenges to diversity for U.S. Evangelicalism and the failure of the Evangelical theological imagination. The diseased theological imagination of U.S. Evangelical Christianity prevented engagement with the needed challenge of African American evangelicalism, resulting in dysfunctional racial dynamics evident in twenty-first century Evangelical Christianity. The historical problem of situating African American evangelicals reveals the theological problem of white supremacy in U.S. Evangelicalism.