Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,3, LMU Munich (Amerika-Institut), course: Trust No One? Conspiracy Theories in American Political Culture, language: English, abstract: African-American conspiracies are very unusual in comparison to other conspiracies. African-American conspiracy theories are unlike 'classical' conspiracy theories, which one could describe as bewilderingly real or even regard as fact. There are no written documents in existence, no elaborate theories on black conspiracies, hence there are no serious conspiracy theorists working in this conspiracy-niche. African-American conspiracies could be seen as plain rumors and gossip. Those rumors are easily spread within black communities and the most popular ones manage it to circulate those communities for years and eventually become legends. If one asked a member of a particular community for any further details concerning a specific theory, nobody would be able to explain or qualify them, as it is the case with rumors. One could even claim that there is no such thing as African-American conspiracy theory, because mostly there is only gossip and rumor about conspiracies, which is spread in public and private places. Those gossips and rumors are told, heard and retold in schools, bars, groceries, prisons, senior citizen centers, beauty salons, on parties and miscellaneous places, which eventually leads to a whisper down the lane effect. The book I Heard It Through The Grapevine by Patricia A. Turner, a study on African-American conspiracies, explains this effect very well and already implicates this usual and more or less natural process within its title. African-American rumors are mostly "unverified orally transmitted stories circulating in African-American communities" and their topics are "not in-group discord, but rather conflict between the races" (Turner 1). There is actually an existence of strong conspiratorial motifs and mot

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,3, LMU Munich (Amerika-Institut), course: Trust No One? Conspiracy Theories in American Political Culture, language: English, abstract: African-American conspiracies are very unusual in comparison to other conspiracies. African-American conspiracy theories are unlike ‘classical’ conspiracy theories, which one could describe as bewilderingly real or even regard as fact. There are no written documents in existence, no elaborate theories on black conspiracies, hence there are no serious conspiracy theorists working in this conspiracy-niche. African-American conspiracies could be seen as plain rumors and gossip. Those rumors are easily spread within black communities and the most popular ones manage it to circulate those communities for years and eventually become legends. If one asked a member of a particular community for any further details concerning a specific theory, nobody would be able to explain or qualify them, as it is the case with rumors. One could even claim that there is no such thing as African-American conspiracy theory, because mostly there is only gossip and rumor about conspiracies, which is spread in public and private places. Those gossips and rumors are told, heard and retold in schools, bars, groceries, prisons, senior citizen centers, beauty salons, on parties and miscellaneous places, which eventually leads to a whisper down the lane effect. The book I Heard It Through The Grapevine by Patricia A. Turner, a study on African-American conspiracies, explains this effect very well and already implicates this usual and more or less natural process within its title. African-American rumors are mostly “unverified orally transmitted stories circulating in African-American communities” and their topics are “not in-group discord, but rather conflict between the races” (Turner 1). There is actually an existence of strong conspiratorial motifs and motifs of contamination, genocide and suppression in African-American folklore, tipper and lore. For example AIDS is said to have been created in secret laboratories to destroy the black race, just like crack-cocaine allegedly has been generated for the same purpose. (...)

The modern classic of race and medicine updated with an additional chapter on the Tuskegee experiment's legacy in the age of AIDS.

Between 1932 and 1972, approximately six hundred African American men in Alabama served as unwitting guinea pigs in what is now considered one of the worst examples of arrogance, racism, and duplicity in American medical research--the Tuskegee syphilis study. Told they were being treated for "bad blood," the nearly four hundred men with late-stage syphilis and two hundred disease-free men who served as controls were kept away from appropriate treatment and plied instead with placebos, nursing visits, and the promise of decent burials. Despite the publication of more than a dozen reports in respected medical and public health journals, the study continued for forty years, until extensive media coverage finally brought the experiment to wider public knowledge and forced its end. This edited volume gathers articles, contemporary newspaper accounts, selections from reports and letters, reconsiderations of the study by many of its principal actors, and works of fiction, drama, and poetry to tell the Tuskegee story as never before. Together, these pieces illuminate the ethical issues at play from a remarkable breadth of perspectives and offer an unparalleled look at how the study has been understood over time.

Story of the Tuskegee experiment where gvoernment doctors infected black patients with syphillis.

A Brill | Sense Bestseller! What if everything you thought you knew about Black people generally, and educating Black children specifically, was based on BS (bad stats)? We often hear things like, “Black boys are a dying breed,” “There are more Black men in prison than college,” “Black children fail because single mothers raise them,” and “Black students don’t read.” In No BS, Ivory A. Toldson uses data analysis, anecdotes, and powerful commentary to dispel common myths and challenge conventional beliefs about educating Black children. With provocative, engaging, and at times humorous prose, Toldson teaches educators, parents, advocates, and students how to avoid BS, raise expectations, and create an educational agenda for Black children that is based on good data, thoughtful analysis, and compassion. No BS helps people understand why Black people need people who believe in Black people enough not to believe every bad thing they hear about Black people.

In response to a request by President Barak Obama on November 24, 2010, the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues oversaw a thorough fact-finding investigation into the specifics of the U.S. Public Health Service-led studies in Guatemala involving the intentional exposure and infection of vulnerable populations. Following a nine-month intensive investigation, the Commission has concluded that the Guatemala experiments involved gross violations of ethics as judged against both the standards of today and the researchers' own understanding of applicable contemporaneous practices. It is the Commission's firm belief that many of the actions undertaken in Guatemala were especially egregious moral wrongs because many of the individuals involved held positions of public institutional responsibility. The best thing we can do as a country when faced with a dark chapter is to bring it to light. The Commission has worked hard to provide an unvarnished ethical analysis to both honor the victims and make sure events such as these never happen again.

Once an obscure piece of World War II history, the Tuskegee Airmen are now among the most celebrated and documented aviators in military history. With this growth in popularity, however, have come a number of inaccurate stories and assumptions. Misconceptions about the Tuskegee Airmen refutes fifty-five of these myths, correcting the historical record while preserving the Airmen’s rightful reputation as excellent servicemen. The myths examined include: the Tuskegee Airmen never losing a bomber to an enemy aircraft; that Lee Archer was an ace; that Roscoe Brown was the first American pilot to shoot down a German jet; that Charles McGee has the highest total combat missions flown; and that Daniel “Chappie” James was the leader of the “Freeman Field Mutiny.” Historian Daniel Haulman, an expert on the Airmen with many published books on the subject, conclusively disproves these misconceptions through primary documents like monthly histories, daily narrative mission reports, honor-awarding orders, and reports on missing crews, thereby proving that the Airmen were praiseworthy, even without embellishments to their story.

A look at the personal and professional motivations behind the scientific community’s dogmatic rejection of religion and how this impacts the culture. The age-old war between religion and science has taken a new twist. Once the dedicated scientist-martyr fought heroically against rigid religionists. But now the tables have turned, and it is established science crusading against religion, pushing atheistic agendas in the classroom, in textbooks, and in the media. This book shows how science has now become a religion of its own—an often fanatical one at that—furiously preaching atheism, punishing dissenters, dictating how and what we should think, and subtly inserting its worldviews in everything from education to entertainment. And, with stunning clarity, it proves that, with billions of dollars up for grabs in the race for stem cell research, intellectual integrity has been replaced with good old-fashioned greed. With sharp insight and completely original reporting, this book defiantly shows the extent to which science is beating down religion and how this systematic tyranny is unmistakably weakening culture and society.