This study examined the relation between misperception of healthy weight and obesity, as well as moderators of this relation, in a sample of middle-aged black men. Survey data from 404 mostly immigrant, black males living in greater New York City were collected as part of a larger randomized controlled trial. Data included measures of health status, BMI, perceived healthy weight, and misperception of healthy weight. Misperception of healthy weight was more frequent among obese men (90.2%) than nonobese men (48.7%) (P < 0.001). Mean level of misperception was also significantly higher in obese men than nonobese men (P < 0.001). Health status moderated the relation between misperception of healthy weight and obesity: obese men who felt healthy or who had fewer comorbid conditions had greater misperception of healthy weight than obese men who felt unhealthy or had relatively more comorbid conditions (P < 0.01). Our findings demonstrate that misperception of healthy weight discriminates between obese and nonobese black men, and the magnitude of this relation is exacerbated in obese men who are relatively healthy. Future studies should determine the prevalence of misperception of healthy weight in more diverse populations and identify potential mediators of the relation between misperception of healthy weight and obesity.
The Haiti earthquake prompted offers to send aid and assistance in various forms from governments, nongovernmental organizations, and private foundations. The need for manpower on the ground to orchestrate the relief effort brought together military forces from the world over, to include the United States, which stood up Joint Task Force-Haiti (JTF-H). The combined effort of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti and JTF-H in providing humanitarian assistance to the people of Haiti following the earthquake demonstrates the importance of developing strong relationships, both institutional and personal, with partner nation armies.
Examines demographic and denominational differences in religious involvement (organizational, non-organizational, subjective) among Caribbean Blacks (Black Caribbeans) residing in the U.S.A. using data from the National Survey of American Life. Caribbean Blacks who were born in the U.S. had lower levels of religious involvement than those who immigrated, and respondents originating from Haiti (as compared to Jamaica) had higher levels of religious involvement, while persons from Trinidad-Tobago reported lower service attendance than did Jamaicans. Older persons, women, and married persons generally demonstrated greater religious involvement than their counterparts, while highly educated respondents expressed lower levels of self-rated religiosity.
After Soviet aid and trade ended Cuba was forced to reintegrate into the capitalist world economy. Needing hard currency, the government transformed the diaspora into a dollar attaining strategy, by facilitating and tacitly encouraging remittance-sending. Ordinary Cubans themselves wanted remittances to finance a lifestyle they could not otherwise afford. Despite their shared interest in remittances, the government increasingly appropriated remittances at recipients' expense.
Reviews the book, Race, gender and educational desire: Why black women succeed and fail by Heidi Safia Mirza (2009). The author looks to understand and unpack the complex intersectionalities that mark contemporary black British feminism, teasing out their particular implications for education and educational debates today.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
This chapter concentrates on rhythm in danced, sung, and drummed practices of Cuban Santería. Musicians and dancers sing, drum, and dance the sequenced rhythms of the ancestors and provide opportunities for others to experience and learn. Many versions of ritual prose and poetry have been conserved, first by the continuous input of arriving Africans in the trans-Atlantic slave trade from the 16th to the late 19th century. Codified gestures and movements display specific patterns in accelerating and intensifying tempi. In predetermined rhythmic, tonal, and intervallic relationships, ritual musicians display the buried mathematics of a dance and music liturgy. In order to facilitate human dancing and suprahuman transformation, worshipers have relied and continue to rely on rhythmic remembrances.
Across several countries (including the UK and U.S.) people of black (African-Caribbean) origin are overrepresented in secure psychiatric services. Risk assessment instruments for predicting violence are often used, but their accuracy is not known for ethnic minority patients. We therefore aimed: 1) to test the accuracy of two leading instruments in patients from a black ethnic minority, and 2) to compare the levels of risk as defined by these instruments. Risk assessment scores were slightly lower for black patients, but there were no significant differences in reconviction rates for either violent or general offences post discharge.
Advances in Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) have led to most of the growth and wealth gains in developed economies, but developing countries such as those in the Caribbean with a dearth of technological expertise and development continue to lag behind. This commentary discusses inequalities related to the use (or unavailability) of STI from the perspective of Jamaica. The main focus of the paper is on education and Information and Communications Technology. It also looks briefly at health, employment and security.
Gerard Sekoto (1913-1993), one of the pioneers of African Modernism, left South Africa in 1947 to further his art training in France and engage with the School of Paris that had been so influential in the development of South African Modern art. Having managed to overcome the colour bar in a society that was racially divided well before the advent of Apartheid, Sekoto found himself alienated in post-war Paris. A Black African with no command of the French language, stumbling against the Euro-centrism of the Parisian art scene, he found a sense of community with the French-speaking African and Caribbean Diaspora rallied behind the concept of Negritude.
