4 research outputs found
“The system is rigged against me:” exploring a white supremacist community on 4Chan and perceptions of white supremacy at the University of Pittsburgh
No full textDigital technologies have provided people with new tools to interact and build community. With the rise of the internet in the 1960s, and the World Wide Web in the 1990s, people with access to the internet have communicated across large distances at faster speeds than ever before. In the present digital era, people form meaningful communities in chat rooms, online games, and through social media. The web has also provided tools for racially-based communities to grow and thrive. This study examines one such online community: the white supremacist message board “Politically Incorrect” on the website 4Chan.org. I conducted Participant Observation in this community to understand how this community defines membership and belonging, and I analyzed one discursive symbol that is important to them: the “redpill.” This symbol represents community members’ belief in white genocide, and the way they cope with the negative emotions that are intertwined with this belief. Through my analysis of the redpill symbol, I explore the complex and emotional nature of ideology, and how it works to build our identities and sense of community, while also empowering us to act. This research exemplifies one way that white people are making sense of their whiteness online, especially whiteness centered around white supremacy.
The online portion of my research is supplemented with interviews conducted at the University of Pittsburgh. I interviewed five students and two administrators to gain a sense of how those in my community are thinking about and dealing with white supremacy in their own lives, as well as how the University handles discrimination. I then compare the ways Left-leaning students and people against white supremacy think about and discuss dealing with white supremacy, with the feelings of social isolation expressed by those on “Politically Incorrect.” Through my analysis, I show that the immediate backlash to white supremacy may be fueling the emotions that lead white people to build community through white supremacy. This study concludes with suggestions for future research inquiries in the name of understanding, and ultimately decreasing, white supremacy, as well as an analysis of my own emotional experiences in conducting this research
Stand Still in the Moment: A Chat with Author Paul Acampora
No full text“A lot of it was informed by being locked in the house for a year and watching the world suffer and watching young people look around going, this isn’t fair,” author Paul Acampora tells me when we pick up the phone to chat about his newest book, In Honor of Broken Things (Penguin 2022)
A Brief History of Banning Ellen Hopkins
No full textEllen Hopkins, the author of many verse novels for teens, did not shy away from writing about tough topics, like drug abuse, domestic abuse, sexual assault, and violence. Writing based on her own experiences—as a woman, and as a mother—Hopkins found herself, for a period in the early 21st century, the target of censors who thought her tales were too dark and gritty for teens. This chapter explores the author’s own relationship to Hopkins’ work and the history of attempts to censor Hopkins and her stories over the past nearly two decades. From disinvitations to permission slips, censorship takes many forms. It goes after many different people and types of books, and through the timeline of attempts to ban one specific author, we can illuminate ways in which censors attack people’s lived experiences when they attempt to ban a book
Human immunodeficiency virus prevention outcomes associated with arts-based sexual health workshop participation among Northern and Indigenous adolescents in the Northwest Territories, Canada
No full textBackground
Contextually tailored, arts-based HIV prevention strategies hold potential to advance adolescent sexual health and wellbeing. We examined HIV prevention outcomes associated with arts-based sexual health workshop participation with Northern and Indigenous adolescents in the Northwest Territories (NWT), Canada.
Methods
An Indigenous community-based youth agency delivered arts-based workshops in school settings to adolescents aged 13-18 in 24 NWT communities. Pre and post-test surveys included socio-demographic characteristics, sexually infections (STI) knowledge, HIV/STI risk perception, sexual relationship equity, condom use self-efficacy, and safer sex efficacy (SSE). Latent change score models were conducted to assess pre-post differences and factors associated with these differences.
Results
Among participants (n = 344; mean age 14.3 years, SD: 1.3; Indigenous: 79%) most (66%) had previously attended this workshop. Latent change score models revealed a significant and large effect size for increased STI knowledge (β = 2.10, SE = 0.48, p < .001) and significant and small effect sizes for increased HIV/STI risk perception (β = 0.24, SE = 0.06, p < .001) and SSE (β = 0.16, SE = 0.07, p = .02). The largest increases across several outcomes occurred with first time workshop participants; yet previous workshop participants continued to report increases in HIV/STI risk perception and SSE.
Conclusion
Arts-based HIV prevention approaches show promise in advancing STI knowledge, risk perception, and SSE with Northern and Indigenous youth.This grant was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Public Health Agency of Canada, and Arctic Inspiration Prize. Authors declare no conflict of interest. C. Logie was also supported by the Canada Research Chairs Program, Canada Foundation for Innovation, and Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation. The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Ontario Ministry of Research, Innovation and Science (ERA), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Insight), Canada Foundation for Innovation, Institute of Aboriginal Peoples Health, Canada Research Chairs (Tier 2), Public Health Agency of Canada, and Prix Inspiration Arctique
