Publications
“White House, Black Mother: Michelle Obama and the Politics of Motherhood as First Lady”
Co-authored with Gloria A. Ayee, Jessica D. Johnson Carew, Taneisha N. Means and Alicia M. Reyes-Barrientez.
In 2008, for the first time in the history of this country, a black woman became First Lady of the United States. During Barack Obama's presidency, Michelle Obama was ever present in the public eye for her advocacy on issues related to health, military families, education, and for promoting the interests of women and girls. This article contributes to ongoing scholarly discourse, as well as extensive media coverage and analysis, regarding Obama's role as wife and first lady by critically examining how the particular model of motherhood she embraced and exhibited, a model firmly rooted in the black American community, was designed to challenge negative stereotypes of black women, maternity, and families. We address the following questions in this work: How did Obama's identity as a black woman influence the policies she championed as first lady? Does Obama's mothering relate to stereotypes of black mothers and help (re)define black motherhood, and if so, how? What does it mean to be a black mater gentis or mother of the nation? Drawing on her speeches and policy initiatives, we reveal how Michelle Obama defied dominant and oppressive stereotypes of black women and mothers while simultaneously (re)defining black womanhood and motherhood for the nation.
“Who gets to say Hussein?” Muslim group identity”
Chapter published within the edited volume of ‘Neo-race Realities in the Obama Era’
This chapter focuses on the climate surrounding the perception and treatment of Muslims and then analyzes how it affected the attitudes of Muslims themselves. The effect of these perceptions on Muslims in the U.S. highlights one emerging manifestation of racism. One additionally important and salient example of anti-Muslim sentiment that is racialized surrounds the conversation around President Barack H. Obama. Having a Muslim name is one element of Obama’s identity that has remained under-examined as well as the consequences of that element of his identity. The aforementioned, in addition to the sociopolitical climate surrounding Islam and Muslims during the Obama era, is investigated in this chapter.
Race, power, and knowledge: tracing the roots of exclusion in the development of political science in the United States
Co-authored with Paula D. McClain, Gloria A. Ayee, Taneisha N. Means and Alicia M. Reyes-Barrientez.
Scholars of race, ethnicity, and politics have long questioned why the discipline of political science has taken so long to recognize the legitimacy of the study of the politics of America’s racial minority groups. The answer to this question, we believe, lies in the historical roots of the discipline. This article examines the complex relationship between racial ideologies and the development of the discipline of political science in the United States. Using a genealogical analysis, we analyze the racist origins of the discipline that arose from the work and attitudes of one of the founders of American political science, John W. Burgess. In an effort to legitimize political science as an empirical field rooted in the scientific method, Burgess and other prominent early political scientists turned to existing “scientific” notions of race. The racial ideologies that spurred the early development of political science continue to influence the ways in which issues of race and ethnicity are embraced and understood within the discipline today and contribute to its lack of diversity.
Stigma Consciousness and American Identity: The Case of Muslims in the United States
Government policies profiling Muslims, anti-Muslim public sentiment and hate crimes targeting Muslims have all escalated within the last ten years, serving as a salient part of the U.S. racial climate (Cainker et al, 2018; Lajevardi and Abrajano, 2018). Current scholarship has not thoroughly examined the effects of this racial landscape on how Muslims navigate the boundaries of their various group identities. This article investigates the relationship between group identity and stigma consciousness. Stigma consciousness refers to the process where people are aware that they’re being targeted because of an identity that is devalued in a specific social context (Pinel, 1999). The survey findings demonstrate that Muslims who hold a sense of stigma consciousness are less likely to identify with being American, an identity which this article argues functions as a superordinate identity. These findings provide an interesting contribution, given existing literature has typically suspected newly racialized groups seek to assimilate into a superordinate identity in such circumstances. By focusing on the case of Muslims in the U.S., this study contributes to clarifying the relationship that discrimination, and one’s awareness of discrimination connected to identity (via stigma consciousness) and demonstrates the influence a sense of stigma consciousness has in respondent’s negotiation of the various identities they may hold.