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Total Roman Domination of Kneser Graphs
No full textThe total Roman domination number of a graph is the smallest possible sum of the weights 0, 1, and 2 applied to vertices of the graph that satisfy certain rules originating from Roman military strategy. In this poster, we discuss total Roman domination of Kneser graphs. We give exact counts for some graphs and demonstrate bounds for other graphs
Is Geoengineering a Suitable Tool for the Climate Toolbox
Get PDFEmissions reduction, adaptation, and the development of new technologies are all part of the climate toolbox. But is there also a place for global-scale technologies to push back against climate heating? Geoengineering by reflecting incoming sunlight is one tool that has been proposed. This lecture will consider some arguments for and against geoengineering at a time when climate concerns are intensifying. About the speaker: Christopher J. Preston is the award-winning author of The Synthetic Age: Outdesigning Evolution, Resurrecting Species, and Reengineering Our World. His work looks at how contemporary developments in technology and ecology are changing how humans view their surroundings. He has written for The Atlantic, Smithsonian Magazine, and The BBC. His latest book, Tenacious Beasts: Wildlife Recoveries That Change How We Think About Animals investigates a number of recovering species and asks what they have to teach us
Nuclear Threat as Race Hatred
Get PDFNuclear weapons, since their advent in the 1940s, have been regarded as so massively destructive and lethal that few have questioned whether particular groups might be targeted. Deaths across their geographical sweep seem to be total and indiscriminate. I argue, however, that it is no accident or coincidence that the Bomb was first used on a non-White nation; people of color in the United States such as Langston Hughes believed it would never be used against a White enemy. On the other hand, even if it is a race weapon, it is also still a species weapon, so that even if Blacks are first and worst targeted, as Jessica Hurley discovers, many Whites will suffer too. Since nuclear weapons as mass, seemingly indiscriminate killers have been studied and protested against, my aim is to examine their function as a race weapon. To claim, as some leaders have, that decades of deterrence have kept peace is to ignore the ambient fear and terror the Bomb has inflicted on the world. This is the ambient fear and terror that institutional racism inflicts on people of color. Charles W. Mills argues that a “racial contract” has existed for centuries to normalize a subpersonhood inflicted on people of color, and a particular targeting of nuclear weapons is consistent with that normalization. In a time of what Sabu Kohso calls “infinite ending,” a dismantling of nuclear empires may be the world’s best hope
The Rise in Anti-Asian Racism and Xenophobia in the Time of COVID-19
Get PDFAs the COVID-19 pandemic continues to have a detrimental impact on the health of the American people and those abroad, the social consequences stemming from the spread of the virus have become an international crisis whose effects reach far beyond the medical issues associated with the disease. Racial and xenophobic propaganda about the illness promoted on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter and at campaign rallies by former President Trump has spurred a dramatic increase in anti-immigrant sentiments toward Asian Americans. The polarizing effects of the Administration’s anti-Asian rhetoric have become a battle cry that has given renewed justification to the growing number of White Supremacist hate groups stepping up their bias-related attacks against members of a community, which they believe is the primary source of viral transmission. The present article analyzes the socioeconomic and psychological factors contributing to the increase of COVID-19-related racism and xenophobia in the United States. It reviews the history of sociocultural responses to past epidemics to aid our understanding of society’s reaction to the current global epidemic. It also examines specific legislative and grassroots measures that advocacy organizations and the federal government can implement to stem the tide of misinformation about the viral transmission at the heart of the current surge of violence and racial discrimination against the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities
Hate Crime Victim Support: Towards a Professional Approach
No full textPresenting and discussing the proposed quality standards for independent specialized counselling centers for the concrete support work for victims of hate crime, which result from the needs of those affected. Helping to answer the question how we can support communities and individuals after they have experienced acts of hatred, intolerance, in-equality, and bias from our knowledge which gained over many years of practical work with Hate Crime victims.
Presenting and discussing relevant recommendations relevant to the participants\u27 fields of work in policymaking, academic institutions, government agencies or even the grass-roots level. Concrete recommendations are to be discussed in connection with the question: What kind of political and social framework conditions must emerge so that a sustainable and – from the victim’s perspective – effective Hate Crime Victim Support system can develop
Authoritarian versus Anti-authoritarian Resistance to Hate Crime Law
No full textIt is tempting to dismiss all opposition to hate crime laws and hate crime labeling as authoritarian. But, opposition to hate crime laws, especially hate crime penalty laws, is not that simple. Hate-related episodes are often accompanied by authoritarian resistance to hate crime labeling. And, some authoritarian communities are systematically opposed to hate crime labeling and hate crime laws. On the other hand, an anti-authoritarian resistance to hate crime laws has emerged. This paper will attempt to distinguish between authoritarian and anti-authoritarian resistance to hate crime laws, drawing examples from the aftermath of the Matthew Shepard killing in Laramie Wyoming and comparable episodes of homophobic violence in Seattle, Washington and Vancouver British Columbia. The goal will be to establish a lexicon for use in future hate studies research
Genocide in the Congo: The Role of the Belgian Africa Museum in Interpreting Memories of Colonial Atrocity
No full textThe Tervuren AfricaMuseum, previously Museé Royale de l’Afrique Centrale, self-reports as having the richest collection of African cultural artifacts in the world despite being located in Europe. Given the museum’s historical association with the violent reign of King Leopold II in Congo, this claim immediately raises concern regarding the provenance of the museum’s collections. Created by and for King Leopold II in the late 19th century, the AfricaMuseum continues to stand as a testament to and memorial of the Belgian state’s colonial legacy today. The museum, relatively unchanged since the beginning of the 20th century, closed its doors in 2013 to undergo a five-year decolonizing renovation which aimed to repair the museums relationship to Belgian memory and international morality. The paper I propose here is a select summary of research conducted on this topic as part of my thesis completed in May 2022. This project contextualized the 2013 renovation of the Tervuren AfricaMuseum against the museum’s history as an organization to offer a commentary on the role of public institutions in mediating memory.
The deconstruction of colonial sentiment across European institutions is an increasingly important movement across multiple fields of study and reflects contemporary public reckoning with historical atrocity. Today, the AfricaMuseum’s origins and ongoing connection to the Belgian monarchy dictate its ability to facilitate meaningful dialogue. The most recent renovation sought to emphasize the cultural vibrance and survivance of contemporary African cultures to counteract past erasure. However, in doing so, the museum has moved further away from a confrontation of the institution’s own role in Congo’s colonial past which itself was a critical tool of empire. By comparing the museum’s most recent remodel to its predecessors in 1897, 1910 and 1950, I have found the AfricaMuseum to still be lacking in contextual awareness. Ultimately, the inherently colonial space occupied by institutions like the AfricaMuseum continue to dominate the commemorative recognition of colonial atrocity and undermine national efforts to effectively diversify understandings of colonial history
Bias Against Asians, Black People, Hispanics/Latines, Jews, and Muslims on Twitter in 2020 and 2021
No full textHate speech on social media has been identified as a social problem. However, it is difficult to quantify how widespread hate speech is. We looked at conversations on Twitter about Asians, Black people, Jews, Hispanic/Latino people, and Muslims by manually annotating representative samples of tweets from 2020 and 2021 with the keywords “Asians, Blacks, Jews, Latinos, and Muslims.”
We found between 5 and 17 percent tweets were biased, depending on the keyword and year. This results in an estimated 8.3 million biased tweets during that period. However, there were even more tweets calling out bias against these minority groups, between 19 and 54 percent, depending on the keyword and year, resulting in an estimated 29.2 million tweets calling out bias against these groups from 2020 to 2021.
The forms of stereotypes vary greatly between the different categories of biases. While about a third of all biased tweets were classified as “hatred” against the respective minority, stereotypes in the tweets often matched commonly known stereotypes about the respective minorities. Asians were blamed for the pandemic. Black people were seen as inferior and associated with crime. Jews were seen as powerful, and they were held collectively responsible for the actions of the state of Israel. Some tweets denied the Holocaust. Hispanics/Latines were portrayed as being illegal in the country and “invaders” in addition to stereotypical allegations of being lazy, stupid, or having too many children. Muslims on the other hand were often blamed collectively for terrorism and violence, however, often in conversations about Muslims in India.
The presentation of the empirical results will be followed by some reflections on the challenges of defining hate speech