Using Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" as a case study, demonstrates the evocative power of fiction to promote interracial understanding. Creative art, by appealing to the imagination, can evoke feelings and insights that make human relationships vivid and personal. (BJV)

A premise of this paper is that in his book "The Truly Disadvantaged" (1987), William Julius Wilson fails to recognize the effect of covert racism on the plight of the African American underclass. Wilson asserts that historical racism has contributed to the present predicament of the underclass, who have been abandoned in the ghettos by…

In his 1928 play, the Harlem Renaissance writer Leslie Pickney Hill portrays Toussaint L'Ouverture, the leader of the Haitian slave rebellion, with historical accuracy. Hill's presentation was aimed at rehabilitating black pride, "A worthy literature reared upon authentic records of achievement is the present spiritual need of the race."…

"Do the Right Thing" leaves the viewer with contradictory and confused messages that suggest that the film has no clear view of racial relations in a city. The film is examined as an ideological statement. It deconstructs contemporary African-American ideologies but does not replace them with new visions. (SLD)

Multicultural literature can help elementary students learn about cultural differences and racial bias and examine their prejudices and stereotypes. Critiques five children's books that emphasize the African American experience. These books do not challenge racism or provide critical explanations about why characters were treated in a racist…

Reviews "Racism 101," an episode of public television's program "Frontline" that addresses the rise of racism on college campuses. Focuses on recent events at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. (BJV)

Argues that little of what Michael L. Penn, Stanley O. Gaines, and Layli Phillips (1993) have to say in their article "On the Desirability of Own-Group Preference" about ethnic own-group preference is new and that it is distorted and naive interpretation of social history to carry on the tradition of blaming African Americans for the…

Reviews and critiques the ethnic preference research that views minorities' own-group preference behavior as indicative of self-esteem and identity achievement. The assumption that own-group preference is ideal, normative, or healthy is called into question; and an alternative conceptualization is presented that considers age and maturity of the…

Reviews eight children's books, three books for teachers, and a set of posters that focus on African American history. The books focus on rhymes, poetry, the negro baseball leagues, the African American family, the civil rights movement, the Coretta Scott King Awards, multicultural education, and black innovators. (MDM)

Addresses the basic conflict between the Enlightenment's humanitarian credo and slavery, the opposing beliefs of the pro-slavery movement and the abolitionists, and the resulting changes in the perceptions of blacks brought about by the emancipation literature of the French philosophers and writers of the eighteenth century. (BJV)

Expatriate characters in six post-independence African novels are disillusioned by the nasty weather, negative racial attitudes, declining morality, and rigid social structure they find in the Western world. Their loneliness in the West ironically becomes a source of African nationalism. (BJV)

Analyzes "The Great Auction Sale of Slaves, at Savannah, Georgia" (1859), a popular work by Mortimer Neal Thompson, an American humorist better known by his pseudonym, Q.K. Philander Doesticks, P.B. The book is one of the most readable, credibly authentic accounts of the abuses of slavery. (BJV)