Racial Barriers to African American Entrepreneurship: An Exploratory Study

Much has been written in the ethnic entrepreneurship literature about the contrasting business performance of African American entrepreneurs and those from other minority and immigrant groups. Yet very little research has been conducted by social scientists on the business experiences of black entrepreneurs. In this exploratory study we examine the situation of black contractors in the U.S. construction industry, utilizing 76 in-depth interviews in one of the South\u27s metropolitan areas. We document the nuanced character of the racial barriers faced by black contractors in several areas of the construction industry. We find racial discrimination in unions, in white general contractors\u27 contracting and bidding processes, in construction project conditions, and in the bonding, lending, supplier networks critical to a successful construction business. Looking at persisting discrimination theoretically, we suggest examination of the cumulative, interlocking, and externally-amplified dimensions of discrimination. Our empirical and conceptual analyses provide a start toward understanding how discrimination is organized in a major U.S. industrial sector long neglected in social science research

The Culture of Poverty Debate: Some Additional Data

In this paper we briefly review relevant research on the culture of poverty and set our findings within the general context of culture of poverty arguments. Data from a community survey in a Southwestern city are analyzed using Oscar Lewis’ four major culture of poverty dimensions: 1) the individual, 2) the family, 3) the slum community, and 4) the community’s relation to society. In our study a sample of 271 black respondents was divided into two groups, here termed the “poor” and the “non-poor.” In noting all the broad traits studied in all dimensions taken together, some support for Lewis’ culture of poverty was found in less than half of the cases; and in several cases our findings were in direct opposition to culture of poverty predictions. In addition, we have suggested that the majority of those traits that did lend support to Lewis’ argument might be better classified as situational conditions of poverty rather than as a part of a bona fide “culture” of poverty. The findings of this paper may call into question the use of the “culture of poverty” perspective as a basis for policy decisions

Cytochrome oxidase subunit VI of Trypanosoma brucei is imported without a cleaved presequence and is developmentally regulated at both RNA and protein levels

Mitochondrial respiration in the African trypanosome undergoes dramatic developmental stage regulation. This requires co-ordinated control of components encoded by both the nuclear genome and the kinetoplast, the unusual mitochondrial genome of these parasites. As a model for understanding the co-ordination of these genomes, we have examined the regulation and mitochondrial import of a nuclear-encoded component of the cytochrome oxidase complex, cytochrome oxidase subunit VI (COXVI). By generating transgenic trypanosomes expressing intact or mutant forms of this protein, we demonstrate that COXVI is not imported using a conventional cleaved presequence and show that sequences at the N-terminus of the protein are necessary for correct mitochondrial sorting. Analyses of endogenous and transgenic COXVI mRNA and protein expression in parasites undergoing developmental stage differentiation demonstrates a temporal order of control involving regulation in the abundance of, first, mRNA and then protein. This represents the first dissection of the regulation and import of a nuclear-encoded protein into the cytochrome oxidase complex in these organisms, which were among the earliest eukaryotes to possess a mitochondrion

The ideology and discourse of the English Defence League: ‘Not racist, not violent, just no longer silent’

The English Defence League (EDL) emerged in 2009 and quickly became a major ‘anti-Islamist’ street protest movement, able to attract thousands to its national demonstrations. Despite the violence and anti-Muslim rhetoric associated with its protests, the group claims to be an anti-racist human rights organisation dedicated to protecting liberal freedoms. This article employs a critical methodology to address these claims, analysing EDL literature alongside strategies identified as typical of racist discourse construction. The representations, narratives and rhetorical strategies used by the group support the analysis of EDL Islamophobia as a form of cultural racism that constructs opposing ‘British’ and ‘Muslim’ subjects and functions to maintain traditional ethno-cultural dominance of the former over the latter

Intermanifold similarities in partial photoionization cross sections of helium

Using the eigenchannel R-matrix method we calculate partial photoionization cross sections from the ground state of the helium atom for incident photon energies up to the N=9 manifold. The wide energy range covered by our calculations permits a thorough investigation of general patterns in the cross sections which were first discussed by Menzel and co-workers [Phys. Rev. A {\bf 54}, 2080 (1996)]. The existence of these patterns can easily be understood in terms of propensity rules for autoionization. As the photon energy is increased the regular patterns are locally interrupted by perturber states until they fade out indicating the progressive break-down of the propensity rules and the underlying approximate quantum numbers. We demonstrate that the destructive influence of isolated perturbers can be compensated with an energy-dependent quantum defect.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, replacement with some typos correcte

Two electron interference in angular resolved double photoionization of Mg

The signature of the target wavefunction has been observed in the symmetrized amplitude of the resonant double photoionization of Mg. This observation is based on our experimental study of angle-resolved double photoionization of Mg at the photon energy of 55.49 eV (2p → 3d resonance) under equal energy sharing conditions

Introduction

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/69081/2/10.1177_0261927X99018001001.pd

Fully differential cross sections for photo-double-ionization of D2

We report the first kinematically complete study of the four-body fragmentation of the D2 molecule following absorption of a single photon. For equal energy sharing of the two electrons and a photon energy of 75.5 eV, we observed the relaxation of one of the selection rules valid for He photo-double-ionization and a strong dependence of the electron angular distribution on the orientation of the molecular axis. This effect is reproduced by a model in which a pair of photoionization amplitudes is introduced for the light polarization parallel and perpendicular to the molecular axis

‘For Your Ears Only!’ Donald Sterling and Backstage Racism in Sport

The purpose of this paper is to elucidate how racism manifests ‘behind closed doors’ in the backstage private domain. We do this with reference to recent high-profile controversies in the US and UK. In particular, we use the concepts of frontstage (public) and backstage (private) racism to unpack the extraordinary case in point of the ex-National Basketball Association (NBA) franchise owner Donald Sterling. The paper concludes that though it is important for frontstage racism to be disrupted, activist scholars must be mindful of the lesser-known, and lesser-researched, clandestine backstage racism that, we argue, galvanises more public manifestations. The Donald Sterling case is an example of how backstage racism functions and, potentially, how it can be resisted