Dialoguing With Critical Race Theory: Constitutional and Christian Links

Mark Ellingsen, Interdenominational Theological Center

Critical Race Theory (CRT) is certainly a hot topic. It is no longer just the legal theory it was originally designed to be, but has spread to other academic disciplines and has become an icon for determining which side you are on concerning racism. Most of the loudest voices, especially in the debate about CRT in our schools, seem not to have actually studied the theory. Dialoguing with Critical Race Theory is a book that remedies this problem, offering a summary of CRT’s actual analysis and prescriptions. Along the way, the book evaluates the standard critiques of the theory. This is a book to get Americans to stop all the shouting and really find out what CRT teaches. This is a book that might contribute to getting more civility into our public discourse. The next agenda addressed by this volume is to point out how the skepticism CRT articulates regarding white political activities allegedly on behalf of African Americans is in line with the suppositions of the U.S. Constitution. James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, at least by implication, teach us that the white faction in American society will always seek its own advantage. Nobody is noting these overlaps between our system and CRT! With this point established, it is pointed out how such insights themselves are in line with Augustine and defenders of the Christian doctrine of sin. If you are Christian, knowing that you are a sinner, then all the white defensiveness over whether America is racist goes away. White (and Black) Christian parents ought to want their kids to learn in the schools about their complicity in racism! Our public debates will be quite different when links between CRT, the Christian faith, and our Constitutional system get taken seriously. It will be hard to deny this after reading Dialoguing with Critical Race Theory. With these relationships between CRT and our Constitutional system as well as with the Christian faith established, this short book closes by pointing out observations of Madison and Hamilton in The Federalist Papers, which not only converge with CRT’s analysis, but also offer some possible remedies to our structural racism. We’ll see that the Constitution is not “racially neutral,” that many of the Founders deemed the new government as structured in such a way as to terminate the slave trade, that “Black lives do matter” in accord with their “original intent.” Likewise, though it is often overlooked, at least some Founders (esp Franklin, Hamilton, and Madison) understood a good government as concerned to protect the poor. And in a similar fashion, links to Christian faith entail that racial differences are not ultimate, not a big deal genetically, since we are all one. To this commitment, the Biblical witness also reflects an emphasis on caring for the poor. This stress on seeking a unity which cuts across economic and ethnic lines entails both an affirmation of points made by CRT proponents, but also a critique of the theory’s separatist and subjectivist tendencies. These Christian insights are related to the latest findings drawn from the Theory of Evolution, whose leading proponents today point out that our cooperative propensities are what account for the success of the human race. Of course, something like that has been taught for nearly 2 millennia by the Christian faith. The Christian and Evolutionary belief that we can discern a common morality represents an amendment of CRT’s position, which might render it more effective in accomplishing its aims as it gains broader public support. The book closes with the question of whether CRT is not really as American and wholesome as the Constitution and Christian faith, a debate which can remove a lot of the nastiness among Americans that’s been rising to the surface and not allowed real debate.

Laws and policies to contrast and prevent Gender-Based Violence Against Women

A comparative analysis between Spain and Italy (1993-2015)

Stellamarina Donato, LUMSA University of Rome, Italy

What stage of development are women’s rights as human rights? By specifically regarding the prevention and elimination of all forms of Violence Against Women, the book focuses on two European Mediterranean countries: Italy and Spain. The book first considers the chronological description and analysis of the main international documents, those belonging to the United Nations apparatus, followed by the analysis of the sources on Gender-Based Violence Against Women (GBVAW) of the Council of Europe and the European Union. The analysis of international documents guarantees an initial overview of the debate on GBVAW, following a top-down approach, from the UN to the national level. Successively, the focus is on both national sources as well as the level of government responsiveness in terms of policies on GBVAW in Italy and Spain, while also comparing the cases. The book adopts multimethod research based on qualitative text analysis; an examination of the level of national Government Responsiveness to GBVAW, and a series of in-depth interviews with targeted individuals. The final aim of this book is to understand how international (UN) and regional (CoE, EU) documents on GBVAW, along with the categories and expressions used within the documents, have contributed to different policies in countering GBVAW in Italy and Spain, while also highlighting the reasons why the two countries responded differently. Within a comprehensive international scenario, this book intends to create space for debate on possible future EU policies aimed at contrasting GBVAW.

Community Structures and Processes on Lives of Refugee Children

Edited by Sofia Leitao, Rinova Limited and Yvonne M. Vissing, Salem State University

Communities around the world face challenges in how to assist the influx of refugees and immigrants, who arrive with only the clothes on their backs. They may have health problems and have experienced violence and trauma before they arrived in their new communities. They require healthcare, housing, education, jobs, financial & material support, and childcare, to name a few. Some arrive with families, but often, children and youth arrive unaccompanied and are in need of special care. Even well-intentioned and resource-rich communities may find themselves taxed as they struggle to help everyone in need. This book is framed by a human rights approach and highlights how social structures and institutional processes impact the lives of refugee and asylum-seeking children. Social institutions around the world tend to experience a similar type of challenge in serving this population. These challenges are examined in this book as recommendations for actions provided. The authored contributions present different perspectives on processes, interactions, policies, practices, and laws embedded in a variety of institutions and community social interactions. It is a reference for researchers, practitioners, and students in its presentation of academic and practitioner approaches to challenges faced by refugee children in different geographic and social contexts. Topics in this book include work on the character of transnational migrant families and communities, uses of new information and communication technologies, international frameworks of humanitarian assistance, social inclusion best practices in the integration of migrant children and unaccompanied minors, and models to provide multidisciplinary services on prevention, integration and rehabilitation integration strategies. Concepts of ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) and HOPEs (Healthy Outcomes from Positive Experiences) are explored, along with lifelong learning as a catalyst for the sustained promotion of safe communities in the context of migration; and individual refugee needs and their family’s future wellbeing towards service to refugees that work for the individual.

Laurent Gbagbo’s Trial and the Indictment of the International Criminal Court

A Pan-African Victory

Gnaka Lagoke

The International Criminal Court (ICC), created in 2002 to combat impunity, projects a sense of unfairness and stirs an unending debate. A trial before the court epitomizes the controversy surrounding it, perceived as a neocolonialist tool in the hands of the most powerful nations. This research critically examines the trial of the former president of Ivory Coast, Laurent Gbagbo. The two-decade crisis in Ivory Coast was a series of armed, diplomatic, and political conflicts in which human rights were violated by all sides. Military confrontation resumed as a result of an electoral stalemate that followed a controversial presidential election in the fall of 2010. The most atrocious human rights abuse was perpetrated at the end of March 2011 by the rebel forces backed by the French and the United Nations troops: the massacre of Duékoué. In one day, hundreds of Laurent Gbagbo’s followers were killed. However, the ICC undertook a selective prosecution against Gbagbo’s camp. After a trial of eight years, Laurent Gbagbo was finally acquitted. The news of his unanticipated acquittal shocked the world. Later, that decision was overturned and transformed into freedom with binding and coercive conditions by the Appeals Chamber, which had succumbed to political pressure. The former president of Ivory Coast spent months of confinement in Belgium until the Appeals Chamber rebutted the prosecutor’s appeal against his release and confirmed his total acquittal and that of Blé Goudé. He eventually went back to Ivory Coast on June 17, 2021. The trial of Laurent Gbagbo before the ICC, despite his acquittal (a tardy one), reflects a series of biases germane to international law and international justice, such as the victor’s justice stance, the conflict between national law and international law, the question of sovereignty, and the issue of lawfare. The trial of Laurent Gbagbo, which was the hallmark of the selective international justice system embedded in unfairness, led to a historical landmark with his shocking acquittal, which led to the indictment of the International Court, whose fate has thus been sealed before history.

Un Análisis Socio-Criminológico de la Epidemia del VIH

Bruno Meini

***2022 NYC Big Book Award Winner in the category of Sociology*** En el mundo del siglo XXI, las epidemias son sucesos biológicos y sociales comunes y el VIH quizás lo enfatice mejor que cualquier otra enfermedad. Sin duda, la investigación científica médica ha dado importantes pasos hacia adelante; mientras tanto, el campo de la investigación social se encuentra todavía en sus etapas iniciales y muchos esperan una respuesta igualmente auspiciosa. 'Un Análisis Socio-Criminológico de la Epidemia del VIH' ofrece un análisis integral de las dimensiones socio-criminológicas multifacéticas de la epidemia del VIH y contribuye positivamente al debate sociológico en curso sobre las enfermedades infecciosas. El autor pretende crear una epistemología independiente del VIH para explicar las fuerzas sociales que impactan y determinan el curso y la experiencia de la epidemia, al mismo tiempo que busca replantear el discurso popular sobre el VIH para reflejar las conceptualizaciones sociológicas. Este último paso conduce a la identificación del concepto de interacción social como una herramienta adecuada para resaltar la compleja naturaleza social de este virus. El desafío sin precedentes que plantea la epidemia para la comunidad internacional exige una cooperación global dirigida a evaluar los diversos aspectos de los problemas que muchos actores de este trágico drama deben abordar. Dado su atractivo internacional de amplio alcance, este libro también se recomienda para aquellos involucrados o interesados ​​en problemas de salud global y enfermedades infecciosas. Será de particular interés para los investigadores médicos, los trabajadores de la salud, los científicos sociales, los trabajadores sociales, los encargados de formular políticas, los trabajadores humanitarios, los activistas del VIH y los derechos humanos y los estudiantes de posgrado.