University of Southern Mississippi
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Inclusive Policy, Diverse Perspectives: Affirmative Action and the Model Minority Among University Students
Get PDFIn lieu of the recent Supreme Court overturn of affirmative action, Asian American students were on the forefront as the main racial group defended in this case. The model minority stereotype obscures societal perceptions of Asians and Asian Americans as collectively intelligent, hard-working, and submissive. Whereas the stereotype appears frequently in academic settings, this research aims to understand and contextualize the perceptions on affirmative action among Asian college students within the context and social dynamics of the model minority stereotype. A qualitative approach was deployed to garner nuance narratives of fifteen participants in the study. Participants in the study represent Asian, Hispanic, Black, and White racial groups. The narratives of the participants were obtained through direct, personal interviews (IRB 23-0909).
The study found that most participants were familiar with the model minority stereotype and its implications in educational settings. Instances of both positive and negative perceptions of the stereotype on academic achievement were found. Participants held varied and nuanced perspectives on affirmative action policies in higher education, regardless of their experiences with racial stereotypes. In part, participants\u27 experiences with the model minority stereotype suggested their sympathies, or lack thereof, towards affirmative action policies. The study aims to portray the understandings of affirmative action among university students, particularly those of minority groups. Further research without limitations would be most productive to answering the research question as posed in the study
Race Relations at the Neshoba County Fair: Examining Interdependency between Tradition, Intergenerational Racism, and Racial Disenfranchisement
Get PDFThe Neshoba County Fair in Neshoba County, Mississippi, is a place of idiosyncrasy and incomparability. As of 2023, the Neshoba County Fair still existed as a place of explicit residential and social segregation. This project aimed to interview fairgoers at the 2023 Neshoba County Fair to unveil the truth about the Fair\u27s continual racial exclusion. How has the Fair remained segregated? What makes racism at the Neshoba County Fair different from traditional racism? To answer these questions, anonymous interviewees at the Neshoba County Fair were asked a series of questions tailored to provide answers to those two research questions. As a result, the interviews provided unprecedented, unbiased responses about the Fair’s relationship with civil rights. The reactions were one-of-a-kind and did not directly represent any coined racial theories within political science. As a result, this paper coins the theory of “Neshobism,” which is categorized as unbeknownst racism because of evolutionary intergenerational prejudice. From there, this project investigates the characteristics of “Neshobism” and how it functions to safeguard tradition. “Neshobism” represents a case of unintentional racism, which this investigation emphasizes is more dangerous than traditional racism. Additionally, this project maintains that the Neshoba County Fair is a racial microcosm of many social and residential scenes across the country, and “Neshobism” serves as a direct example of how racism can evolve and persist over time. Nevertheless, this investigation aims to explain the relationship between intergenerational racism, tradition, and white spaces by explicitly focusing on the Neshoba County Fair
A World Between: The Macro and Micro-relationships that Shape the Borderlands
Get PDFThis thesis explores changing border policies, their effects on migrants, and the humanitarian community that has emerged to meet the needs of migrants. Border policy has sought to make the journey through the U.S.-Mexico border perilous and unattractive for travelers, pushing migrants into dangerous terrain known to reach life-threatening extremes in the summer and winter months. Over 8,000 migrants have died since 1998 along the U.S.-Mexico border, and aid groups have emerged to meet the need for life-saving care. The humanitarian community in southern Arizona is active and dynamic, adapting to ever-changing border policy and mobilizing resources year-round. Through reviewing U.S. foreign policy, federal reports, and academic literature, I lay the foundation of the political landscape in the border region by conducting on-site research in four southern Arizona cities. Additionally, the World Bank’s and the U.S. Department of Justice’s statistical data is studied to understand the path of migration for different Latin American and Caribbean countries as individuals apply for asylum. Interviewees include border security, humanitarians, and residents of the borderlands communities. The relationship between border security and the humanitarian community is often tense and interdependent. In southern Arizona, local communities have become the playground for interactions between these groups. Southern Arizona seeks to balance securing the border and saving vulnerable lives, resulting in new strategies for aid groups. As border security and intensity has increased, the number of aid groups in the southern Arizona region has too. Within the counterpart communities, regular, friendly communication between border security and humanitarian aid groups has become crucial to the safety and daily function of local communities
Violence as the Imposition of Difference: A Case Study of the 2020 Riots in Minneapolis
Get PDFViolence has received a great deal of study in many disciplines—as an act of force, or as a theoretical concept. Slovenian political philosopher and cultural theorist Slavoj Žižek provides in his work Violence: Six Sideways Reflections a unique typology of violence, building and expanding upon decades of existing research in many areas. In so doing, Žižek establishes uniquely insightful links between different forms of violence that open the opportunity to examine outbursts of violence, be they riots, rebellion, or war, in a new way. Cognizant of the inability for us to simultaneously analyze both the person-to-person violence seen in acts like crime or riots and the systemic violence of phenomena like institutional discrimination or cultural stereotyping, Žižek casts six sideways glances, reflections of which can be seen in my case study of the events of the Summer of 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the wake of George Floyd’s death. I contend that media responses to that tumultuous Summer are not merely incomplete, but miss a very fundamental relationship between the violent acts of individuals and the violence inherent in our symbolic order—in our government, in our culture, and even in our very language—that Žižek’s typology helps illuminate; in missing this relationship inherent to the matrix of violence, common responses also miss its potential solution: divine, emancipatory violence, erupting suddenly and aggressively like a Biblical swarm of locusts to tear down injustice at its very foundations
Just Deserts: The Moral Foundations of Antagonistic Personality in Social Aggression
Get PDFSocial aggression is associated with adverse psychosocial consequences such as anxiety, depression, isolation, reciprocal violence, and suicidality (Zhu et al., 2024). Psychopathic personality traits and moral deficits have been linked to antisocial behavior, including social aggression; however, the role of moral value systems and trait moral disengagement in the context of social aggression is less clear. A more granular analysis of their utility may illuminate new pathways toward intervention. To advance this goal, the present study explored the relationships between the values of Moral Foundations Theory and social aggression among college students (N = 301). Two moral foundations (i.e., care and proportionality) were correlated with social aggression. Next, this study examined whether these foundations provided incremental utility in predicting social aggression beyond psychopathy and trait moral disengagement while taking social desirability into account. Proportionality but not care explained additional variance in social aggression. Finally, this study investigated whether care and proportionality mediated the relationship between psychopathy and social aggression, as well as between moral disengagement and social aggression. Neither foundation mediated these relationships. Overall, results suggest that Moral Foundations Theory may tentatively provide incremental value in understanding social aggression beyond the contributions of psychopathy and moral disengagement. Practical implications for counseling services and college administration are also reviewed
Book Reviews
Get PDFReviews of:
Old Southwest to Old South: Mississippi, 1798-1840 By Mike Bunn and Clay Williams (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2023.
William Barksdale, CSA: A Biography of the United States Congressman and Confederate Brigadier General Changed Everything. By John Douglas Ashton (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers, 2021.
A Hound Dog Tale: Big Mama, Elvis, and the Song that Changed Everything. By Ben Wynne. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2024.
Outliving the White Lie: A Southerner’s Historical, Genealogical, and Personal Journey. By James Wiggins. (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2024.
Degrees of Equality: Abolitionist Colleges and the Politics of Race. By John Frederick Bell. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2022.
Mad With Freedom: The Political Economy of Blackness, Insanity, and Civil Rights in the U.S. South, 1840-1940. By Élodie Edwards-Grossi. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2022.
The Insurrectionist: Major General Edwin A. Walker and the Birth of the Deep State Conspiracy. By Peter Adams. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2023.
Adelbert Ames, the Civil War, and the Creation of Modern America. By Michael J. Megelsh. (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2024
Benthic and Epibenthic Invertebrate Assemblages Associated with Estuarine Submerged Aquatic Vegetation Differ Between Native and Invasive Plants
Get PDFEstuarine submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) provides vital habitat for macroinvertebrate communities that support diverse food webs and subsequent ecosystem services. Invasive SAV, however, has the potential to alter estuarine food webs through competition with native SAV, resulting in different associated biological communities. In the Mobile-Tensaw Delta (Alabama, USA), the invasive Eurasian milfoil, Myriophyllum spicatum, is fast becoming the dominant SAV, out-competing native SAV such as wild celery, Vallisneria americana. This study investigated the above- and belowground macroinvertebrate assemblages associated with these SAV habitats. We found significantly different assemblages between the SAV, with V. americana supporting more even and diverse epifaunal assemblages, and M. spicatum supporting greater total abundances of macroinvertebrates. Gammarid amphipods were more than 11 times more abundant in M. spicatum, while Polychaete species were threefold more abundant in V. americana. Our results suggest that V. americana may support a more diverse and even community compared to M. spicatum. If so, the continued decline in coverage of native V. americana and invasion of M. spicatum across the Mobile-Tensaw Delta could have system-wide ecological consequences
Short-term temporal trends of a coral reef in Samana (Dominican Republic): The value of a permanent monitoring program to identify drivers of rapid change
Get PDFPermanent monitoring programs are valuable to identify drivers of ecosystem trends. For example, in 2021, we reported the first record of Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (sctld) along the northeastern coast of the Dominican Republic, affecting major reef—building coral species with a prevalence above 30%. However, a few sites such as Carenero remained unaffected by sctld for almost 2 years. The average coral cover in this site was about 18—25% (mean 18.3% ± sd 1.5), and disease prevalence did not exceed 7% in the coral community. During the first quarter of 2022, a few colonies
The Winter Issue 2024
Get PDFThis issue, edited by Destiny DeHart, features “An Archival Dichotomy: Is a Digital Collection or Physical Collection Best?” by Tifanee Mask Jackson, “Bringing Virtual Escape Rooms to the Library” by Crystal Walker, “Digitization and Natural History: Collections: Impact on Museum Educators and K-12 STEM Education Collections” by Lili DeBarbieri, “Preservation of Queer History in Texas” by Oliver La Barbrea, “Is Misinformation an Epidemic?: Digital literacy, who is she?” by Destiny DeHart, “Interview with Digital Historian Dr. Stephanie Seal Walters” by Destiny DeHart, and the poem “Cain & Abel” by Tifanee Mask Jackson. In addition, upcoming conferences are listed. A list of students who will graduate in December 2024 with MLIS and the graduate archival certificates are honored.https://aquila.usm.edu/fondsandfeathers/1004/thumbnail.jp
