Implicit Racial Biases in Prosecutorial Summations: Proposing an Integrated Response

Racial bias has evolved from the explicit racism of the Jim Crow era to amore subtle and difficult-to-detect form: implicit racial bias. Implicit racial biases exist unconsciously and include negative racial stereotypes andassociations. Everyone, including actors in the criminal justice system who believe themselves to be fair, possess these biases. Although inaccessible through introspection, implicit biases can easily be triggered through language. When trials involve Black defendants, prosecutors’ summations increasingly include racial themes that could trigger jurors’ implicit biases, lead to the perpetuation of unfair stereotypes, and contribute to racial injustice and disparate outcomes. This Note examines and critiques the current approaches that courts and disciplinary authorities use to address implicit racial biases in prosecutorial summations. Recognizing the inadequacy in these current methods, this Note proposes an integrated response, which involves lawyers, jurors, trial courts, and appellate courts. The proposed approach seeks to increase recognition of implicit racial bias use, deter prosecutors from using language that triggers implicit racial biases, and ensure that Black defendants’ equal protection rights are upheld

Scarlet-Letter Politics: The Rhetoric of Shame in the Campaign to Unseat President Barack Hussein Obama

This essay considers the politics of racial shaming as deployed against Barack Obama, arguing that it targeted black and foreign bodies as threats to the American body politic

Looking For Black Religions In 20th Century Comics: 1931-1993

Relationships between religion and comics are generally unexplored in the academic literature. This article provides a brief history of Black religions in comic books, cartoons, animation, and newspaper strips, looking at African American Christianity, Islam, Africana (African diaspora) religions, and folk traditions such as Hoodoo and Conjure in the 20th century. Even though the treatment of Black religions in the comics was informed by stereotypical depictions of race and religion in United States (US) popular culture, African American comics creators contested these by offering alternatives in their treatment of Black religion themes

'This New Conquering Empire of Light and Reason:' Edmund Burke, James Gillray, and the Dangers of Enlightenment

This article examines the use of images of “light” and “enlightenment” in Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France and in the controversy that greeted the book, with an emphasis on caricatures of Burke and his book by James Gillray and others. Drawing on Hans Blumenberg’s discussion of the metaphor of “light as truth,” it situates this controversy within the broader usage of images of light and reason in eighteenth-century frontispieces and (drawing on the work of J.G.A. Pocock and Albert O. Hirschman) explores the ways in which Burke’s critique of Richard Price operates with a rhetoric that views Price as part of an enlightenment that was inherently “radical” and, hence, a threat to the “enlightenment” that, in Burke’s view, had already been achieved

Face-space: A unifying concept in face recognition research

The concept of a multidimensional psychological space, in which faces can be represented according to their perceived properties, is fundamental to the modern theorist in face processing. Yet the idea was not clearly expressed until 1991. The background that led to the development of face-space is explained, and its continuing influence on theories of face processing is discussed. Research that has explored the properties of the face-space and sought to understand caricature, including facial adaptation paradigms, is reviewed. Face-space as a theoretical framework for understanding the effect of ethnicity and the development of face recognition is evaluated. Finally, two applications of face-space in the forensic setting are discussed. From initially being presented as a model to explain distinctiveness, inversion, and the effect of ethnicity, face-space has become a central pillar in many aspects of face processing. It is currently being developed to help us understand adaptation effects with faces. While being in principle a simple concept, face-space has shaped, and continues to shape, our understanding of face perception

Ole’ Zip Coon is a Mighty Learned Scholar: Blackface Minstrelsy as Reflection and Foundation of American Popular Culture

The blackface minstrel show is often disregarded in both popular and professional discourse when American popular culture is being examined. Often dismissed as a unilateral, purely racist spectacle, this paper argues for a more nuanced understanding of blackface minstrelsy and its formative role in the creation of a trans-regional American culture. Through an exploration of the ways in which ethnic minorities, women, language, and histrionics were presented on the blackface minstrel stage, an understanding of the ways in which popular entertainments both reflect and create popular sentiment can be formed. As the dominant American cultural output of the 19th century, an understanding of blackface minstrelsy is integral to an understanding of the fluid and varied mores of racism, male privilege, and white privilege which linger in varying degrees to this day. This piece is intended to serve as an introduction to the ways in which 19th century Americans and their modern counterparts used and use blackface tropes to both reinforce and question the place of social hierarchies in a country founded on the premise that “all men are created equal”

Ways of Saying, Ways of Seeing. Public Images of Teachers (19th-20th Centuries)

The article is organized into three main sections: In the first section, inspired by the work of Martin Jay, I try to show the denigration of vision in historical thinking, suggesting that images are demanding new theoretical and methodological approaches susceptible of elucidation in their own terms. In the second section, I attempt an analytical interpretation of a collection of public images of teachers, dating from the second half of the nineteenth century, in order to show the heuristic potential of this material in the historical treatment of educational matters. Finally in the third section, I outline some trends of historiographical renewal, giving attention to the way images can help to reshape the remembering-imagining and the space-time relationships in the History of Education field

Can Doctors Maintain Good Character? An Examination of Physician Lives

Can doctors maintain good character? This paper shifts the focus from patient care to ethical considerations that bear on the physician and impact her as a person. By decentering patient care, the paper highlights certain factors that habituate a particular way of reasoning that is not conducive to inculcating good character. Such factors include, standards of professionalism, being influenced by external monitors, and emphasis on adherence to guidelines. While such factors may benefit patients, they often adversely affect the character of physicians

Adaptation may cause some of the face caricature effect

One of the ways to demonstrate a caricature preference is to ask participants to adjust a face image over a range from anti-caricature to caricature until it shows the best likeness to a specific individual. Since facial adaptation, whereby exposure to a face influences subsequent perception of faces, is rapid, it is possible that adaptation promotes the selection of a caricatured image. We tested whether giving participants a reference average face image, to counteract any adaptation, would reduce the degree of caricature selected for famous faces. Results confirmed a significant decrease, but even without an average, participants chose an anti-caricatured image. These data suggest a role for adaptation in generating caricature preferences while also suggesting such preferences are not inevitable

A new theoretical approach to improving face recognition in disorders of central vision: Face caricaturing

Damage to central vision, of which age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the most common cause, leaves patients with only blurred peripheral vision. Previous approaches to improving face recognition in AMD have employed image manipulations designed to enhance early-stage visual processing (e.g., magnification, increased HSF contrast). Here, we argue that further improvement may be possible by targeting known properties of mid- and/or high-level face processing. We enhance identity-related shape information in the face by caricaturing each individual away from an average face. We simulate early- through late-stage AMD-blur by filtering spatial frequencies to mimic the amount of blurring perceived at approximately 10° through 30° into the periphery (assuming a face seen premagnified on a tablet computer).We report caricature advantages for all blur levels, for face viewpoints from front view to semiprofile, and in tasks involving perceiving differences in facial identity between pairs of people, remembering previously learned faces, and rejecting new faces as unknown. Results provide a proof of concept that caricaturing may assist in improving face recognition in AMD and other disorders of central vision